Kategoria: English posts

Translated by Maja. Translation fixed by Dawid Pieper.

Bernie and Tim Websters live in typical Irish house, which is huge; it does not look as if it was, though.
Downstairs there seems to be only a living room connected with some sort of a dinning room, down to those a kitchen.
Does it matter, although, as you do also have a staircase with six corners, and a room (bathroom at least) on all of them.

When, on our first day there, they opened the door and almost immediately showed us our room, I must admit to having bad feelings about that all. Not about accent nor new experiences, I just had an impression that it would be more sort of a hotel than home. House is huge, there could be a lot of things to do, I don't know these people and their habits, maybe we would be going to spend time with ourselves, not with them. I couldn't be more wrong.

A few days later, when we were, as always, talking during the meal, mr Tim Webster told me the following story.
"WHen our kids lived with us, it was obvious, why we had got such a big house. Then, when they moved out everyone had wondered and we had as well, if we could find something small for us. And you know what… I said: no, we won't move out to smaller house, we will fill this big house with people."

You were right, amazing idea! It all started like that and now Websters have been taking in many different tourists from different countries since about fifteen years or so. Or maybe more, I'm sorry if I don't remember correctly.
Loads of interesting stories can come out from that because Websters can hear something from their guests, their guests can find out curious facts from them… and that's how Websters get along very well with many countries and it isn't surprising me at all. Bernie always has an eye on things and knows exactly where everything is, thank God. For me, she always has a smile, a good word and, of course, a lunch bag, which she used to hand me everyday before school.
Whereas Tim got at once what's the most important to me, what, when you think about it, wasn't so strange taking in consideration their national culture.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" Who knows me well, does know that tea is one of necessary things in my daily life. Tim also came up with this observation quite fast and after a few days, just after this question we used to burst into laughter admitting it was needless question. What more I can tell you about him? Maybe what he told me himself: that he loves notebooks (we gave him some as a souvenir from our town) and that he is always loosing things. Yeah, I must agree with that.

And, to be honest, here's the place where I have ran out of ideas how to describe my visit in writing. I'd like to tell you about our breakfasts, everyone a bit tired but instead of moaning about it, laughing at it. About our dinners at 6 p.m., seriously, for Polish people that hour for eating was magical. :p We sat around the table and talked about our day, what we had done and how we liked the meal. My friend would have killed me if I hadn't written it, so am I. For dinner we usually had things I like the most, I'd call it chicken with something. With rice, different sauces and seasons, vegetables and stuff like that. Delicious! When you, after school day with lessons and workshops, take your seat at the table and get great lasagne, you get seconds, you get strawberries with icecream for dessert and then, without asking, you get a cup of tea in the front room, you soon find yourself in a paradise. I can also mention our fireplace in the front room which sometimes was lighten up. We could just sit there, on comfortable sofas, eat those strawberries, drink tea and just exist in peace. It was nice when my hosts were sitting there watching some series on TV, I was sitting with my laptop and, from time to time, we could exchange opinions about our activities, relaxing together. It wasn't forced, there wasn't stiff atmosphere at all. It was their representative quality in general.
I wouldn't like to be missunderstood but try to imagine something like that in Poland. Lets just say in your house there are guests, from foreign country, staying for a week! You set up breakfast on half past eight and what? The Poles are downstairs at least quarter before that time for everything to be set when guests come down. My Irish people would woke up with me, come down with me, at least in some days. "Breakfast? Here you are. We usually eat flakes, would you like some?" The theory of heavy English breakfasts was also disprooved. I ate flakes or toasts, as far as I know so Websters did. And, of course, a cup of tea after breakfast.

An other interesting fenomenon in Derry was its' weather. When I came outside on Thursday morning mr Webster looked at the sky and said in a pensive tone: "there is a big, round thing on the sky. It shines. I googled it and they call it the Sun".
We considered it must have been a new invention. The next days we welcomed with remarks like: What a beautifull morning, nine square inches of blue sky!

Dear readers, if it's raining outside your window, please, think twice before considering it to be rain. I saw rain in Derry. When I came on heavy rain there, after coming back I have water on my jacket, sweatshirt, T-shirt (I have no idea how it happened) and all over my trousers. This rain falls horizontally or what?
When Bernie saw me that day she immediately noticed: "it wasn't good idea to go outside, was it? I'll plug your bed in, you will unplug it when you will be going to sleep, OK?"
You worth a small explanation here. We had electric beds there. A strange association with an electric chair comes to my mind right now so I'll explain. They called it an electric blanket and it is simply what the name says. You just put the right plug into a socked and your mattress warms up! It was great! Especially after that rain.

Bernie cared not only about me not being hungry but also being healthy maybe because of her backround in medicine. Of course, I made a point of telling her my favourite joke about medical schools.

"Some students were asked to learn phone book by heart. University students asked "what for", students of polytechnic started to prepare crib sheets, and those on medical studies just asked "on what date?". Bernie laughed and I added some information about my friend learning massage technics and professional latin for her job. I said that I don't understand her at all. By the by we talked over my blindness and Bernie asked if I follow medical notifications about eyes. Talking about eyes, I must admit my host family handled the problem very well. Bernie clearly explained how to pass the kitchen not to bump into it, Tim graphically described these wonderfull pieces of blue skies and I owe them both a thank you.
Thank you for not having a panic attacks when I was running up and down these stairs with all of my stuff or for helping me to reboot the system when my laptop stopped talking to me. Tim was describing what he was seeing on the screen knowing neither Polish Language nor Windows. And that was an achievement! We deserved a cup of tea, didn't we?
A memorable moment was also our last evening. We were sitting in the front room and "the biggest weekend" (music festival from BBC) was on TV. Ed Sheeran was one of the performers so obviously I had to stay and watch to see it. Tim told me later that it was a first time he had listened to Sheeran's lyrics. I'm glad I have brought such an eyeopener. 🙂 During the concert I had something to say almost about each song and after it had finished I said good bye as it supposed to be said. Tim's reaction was priceless.
"you're waing him good bye?! It's a radio program!"

And that is how the week passed, with people I underestimated at first. I supposed that I had been going to the house of serious, elderly people who for sure would have more importand engagements than us. But I arrived at Webster's home. Who always asked what was at school and if I liked it, almost every day met up with differend friends and went to the town, in their leisure time watching series like "the game of thrones" and few weeks earlier they had gone to Rolling stone's show. Amazing it was!

And now a handful of curiosities.
Electricity. In walls there are socked with on/of switches. Yes,, to have a working socked you are required to flick a switch, similar to turning on the light.

Water. Let alone two tabs, one for hot and the next one to cold water, I was defeated by shower with a string. To make this machine work you have to pull a string before you go into a shower cabin, only then water can run. I always forgot to turn it on or of.

Traffic lights. As I told you in the first part of our story, the rule followed on the streets of Derry is: green light – go, red light – look around and go! In ENgland as well as in Ireland, I'm under an impression that people just go as they wish. No cars around? So why should I wait for some lights to change? The next interesting thing is there's no zebra crossing. They have only kind of squares on the edges of the road so I don't know what they're sorting things out. It was a lovely view when we were standing on the edge of the road and trying to guess if we are letting this car go or this car's letting us. It seemed to us that we would make this decision simmultaneously with the driver. In my house the theory has been made that each time you want to cross the street or start up your car, there're always thirteen cars round the corner waiting for going in front of you. They're always the same cars making you wait on your way.

Fish and chips. I ate it on my last day in Derry. There is really a lot of it. I suppose nobody had finished. Denis, my friend, you could make it!
On the end – the Polish language. Words my hosts have learnet are: dzień dobry (good morning), Warszawa and do zobaczenia (see you).

We flew home on Saturday and I haven't many interesting things to say about that journey maybe because nothing fascinating happened. Maybe apart from the moment when the Ryaner's signal was immediatelly associated with our Polish "happy birthday" song. When we heart it above our heads one of my teachers sang the next part at once. It says something about states of our minds then, doesn't it?

We happily came back home so I will happily end this entry. Greetings for you all and please comment.

Translated by Maja. Translation fixed by Dawid Pieper

Hello!
Tomorrow. Tomorrow? Have you actually believed that? Really? Aren't you realists? Who were, please admit in comments! Who knew that whole week would pass before I wrote this post? 🙂

Anyway, sitting in our little house where we will spend nine days of our family vacation, when it's sunny outside the window and different weather isn't expected, although it's already evening, it's easier for me to come back to our wonderfull, rainy Ireland.

I kept you, dear readers, in suspense, while I had been nodding off in our bus with my headphones on. After we arrived in the town it turned out that Konrad, Pole who works in Northwest Academy, is responsible for our group. To our surprise he greeted us in our mother tongue. Taxicabs took us and our luggage to the houses we were going to spend the following week in. We were divided to pairs and one trio and all of this teams were taken charge of by one of so called hosting families. They gave us food, place to sleep and chance to talk and we were obediently going on lessons and workshops.
And those lessons are exactly what I will tell you about at first and then, in next entry, about being at home.

Taking into consideration that I was in English speaking country only the second time in my life and the first time in Northern Ireland, it was understandable that I had some concerns. One of them was accent. It's obvious no places are the same and, of course, in Derry I expected more Irish words. Derry is the fourth biggest city in Ireland, after Dublin, Belfast and, if I remember properly, Cork. Of course, that's if we consider Ireland as one country with its' northern part, administratively in UK. I must admit my next biggest anxiety was about my complete incomprehension of history. Until I went there I seriously had dah no idea what it had been with all of this conflict. I knew that certain part is separated from the rest but when, why and to what extend? It was a mystery for me. And it was the first think I've learnt there, they repeated it to us like five times. First during our Saturday trip through Belfast, the second during workshops on history of the town at Wednesday afternoon and then on Thursday on our trip to watch murals. Murals, incase some one didn't know, are quite big paintings on the walls. Murals in Derry and in Belfast as well usually show scenes from "The Troubles" – that conflict between Catolic society of Ireland and Protestants being simultanously for the union with the UK. It had lasted long and hadn't looked pretty. A lot prettier was an end of the conflict when both countries communicated, knowing that they had reached the pont when they couldn't defeat each other. So there had been no sense in being at an impasse.

A lot of readers asks me what the typical day on this trip looked like, so let me describe. We got up quite early, but not so early, because there, dear children, lessons begin at half past nine. Usually we had three hours of English for a start, then the lunch break lasting till two A.M., and then from two to four of five different workshops.

The biggest part of our lessons was speaking and working in small groups. Job interviews with role playing, preparing our opinions on law in different countries, asking and answering questions on any subject, all of this stuff was smaller or bigger project to do as a team. We even had this task twice, to go out on streets and ask people questions which we made up or got from out teacher. One time, during a survey like this, we had stopped an other teacher from the Northwest Academy. We neither have an idea that she works there nor she is Polish as well. We had talked to her for about five minutes, asking different questions about justifications of her answers. It only turned out like "aaaah, yeah, I'm from Poland!" when we finished our formal conversation. OK, I've got no more questions. You will witness that our taks has been completed!
An other interesting exercise was selecting punishments for crimes. There were pictures or describtions of situations when some one has done something and we had to say, how the law should punish them. But, not so easy: jail, fine, nothing, warning… If jail then for how long? If fine, how much? All of that had to be included. What's more, during one of the lessons our teacher – Meghan prepared a list of popular slang words used in Ireland for us to learn their form of the language, different than British. It matched her accent very well because Meghan comes from Derry, had been studying in Derry and, I must admit, it was possible to hear it. 😉

Now shall we get back to our workshop and additional amusements. I've already told you about workshops on Wednesday and Thursday but what's more? On Monday there weren't typical workshops because instead of that we had orientation tour, so they showed us where the shopping centre in our town is and which places in the school we are or are not allowed to stay in. In the evening we had our first leisure activity and it's only then when the fun has started. It was Irish dancing lesson. They must be very fit, those citizens.

On Tuesday there was a music workshop. In the major part it included a rhythm exercises like repeating something or so called "calling and answering", so some one plays one thing and you play an other. After the break we had something like songwriting session, learning how to write a lyrics based on our connotations with different words. You write the word on a piece of paper and pass it to the person sitting on your left. Then you write down your connotation to the word you got on a different piece of paper, one of these papers you pass to the right, an other to the left. As far as I remember there were some of these exchanges and then our papers were divided by colours. We had pink and green pencils, so we had pink and green group. Then we had to rewrite a lyrics of any well-known song, using drawed words. We were made to gread laugh when doing this.
Madam who was our workshop leader on this music workshop said something great at the beginning of the lesson. Working in groups, any activities involving team work and, especially, activities causing laughter, boost empathy in people. Actually, in the beginning of this workshop we had tasks like passing small beanbags around to the rhythm of the music. Beanbags were falling out from our hands, some one was late and didn't pas it forward, an other one did it too fast, finally we were ending up with six of them on the one side of the circle and with none of them on the other. And really, none of us could seat there with straight face. And if you started laughing at least all the tension between unknown people would disappear automatically. Because you already had to do something together. The same effect comes up when you get small wooden sticks and you have to repeat more and more difficult rhythms, drumming different patterns n different parts of surroundings. You make mistakes in the same moments, you keep on dropping sticks and and you are in a mess in general. That's for a start. But it let you forget that you met each other three days ago. I find this workshop satisfying.
Apparently, this woman who leat our workshop one day had this with about thirty children, about seven or eight year old. The principle is that she gives these sticks tho the first child and they're passing them around the circle untill every one gets them. Giving these sticks back to this big bag is done in the same way. She told us that in that day those children were giving these sticks back, they were passing it, and passing, and passing, it lasted for about two minutes, there were a lot of them, so OK, but it might be an exaggeration… Finally the leader showed that to their teacher and asked: "what's going on here? It's impossible that they can't collect this stuff a bit faster". It turned out that one of these small boys were sitting next to the bag and succesively taking the sticks out. Do you think no one noticed? All of them knew! And that's a solidarity!

On Tuesday evening we had something called Quiz night. I didn't know it's such a popular game on the Islands, they love those quizes. Apparently you can see notices like "quiz night organised every Thursday!" in pubs. You can come and play. Questions were from different categories and even in one category range of knowledge was quite wide. For example in music category you can come across things like: "name all the members of the beatles", "say what song Adele got Oscar award for" or as well "where Bieber was born". Most of us knew the answer for last question and I've got a theory that is a pure contrariness. On the begining every one was thinking that he's from the USA so every one has deliberately learnt by heart that he's from Canada.

On Wednesday and Friday evenings were spent with hosting families but on Thursday we went bowling. Despite my concerns I wasn't that bad at it, my result wasn't the last one there. :d Apart from talking about the game, between our turns, at our table were a dialogues about not wasting food. To make long story short I can recap our conversations in words: "professor, would you like a chip? Professor, eat it, shall you? We will burn all of these calories off in a moment! Professor, eat it, you know we must finish it, how I'll take it back home?!"
We ended up walking around all of Polish tables so every one can help theirselves.

Now it's time to tell you about our trips and to explain you the title of this entry. This title is relatet to our trip, which took place on Sunday, our second day in Ireland. We went to the place called Giant's Causeway. But, it's more boring explanation of this events because the legend tells us that this causeway was built by local giant named Finn when he had been going to Scotland to fight with Scottish giant – Benandonner.
Finn has done a great job what I could observe with my schoolmate – Hubert. By the way, big thanks to Hubert for taking a duty of guiding me which duty could be very demanding, especially when we walk on rock formations. Exchanging our opinions on our trip in general, about awful weather and fantazy books, we walked along the track, not paying attention if we walk with our group or not. Finaly we decided that when as they go left, we go right and we went on. The way was quite difficult, I remember that when we find normal stairs, made probably by human, we had to stop in our way up to catch our breaths. After arriving the top and walking there for few minutes, we chose to get down. And that was a mistake. Hardly we took one incorrect step on a wrong track when something weird happened. Our audioguides which we hat got at the entrance started to scream, shriek, vibrate, display different unknown codes, in short words: they freaked out. We warily drew back suspecting that GPS had gone out of its' mind and those little devices had thought we went out of track, poor things. By now we don't know what this crazy alert was about. We went back to the starting point wet and cold but happy. What's interesting, we only discovered it was red trail (the difficult one) when we went out of it. Great! Even in this case we finished before the rest of our group! :p

On our way back home we visited a place where one of the "game of thrones" scenes had been filmed but I don't remember which one, sorry. I know that there was a long, long road with high, gnarled trees, this place is hounted, you know…?

And on Friday we went to see two forts… You know my attitude to history so, if you're interested, then ask and I'll maybe check in which forts we were. The only things I remember from these visits are there're a lot of stairs, a lot of walking and it was very windy. Sea and mountains at once, it always do the job. However, in one place we came across two cannons. We did some work in order to check if cannons work but we cannoned of a sad fact that they didn't work. Although they didn't work, they did the job so we took a few pictures with them.

During all of these trips we could observe beautiful sights and make good photos, that's not me, and experience this beautiful, Irish weather, that's of course me. With our weather you will never be bored!

And that's probably all I can tell you about our lessons and activities in Derry. Ach, no, my apologies, there's one more. Nobody will make me believe One Direction is only for small girls. I was in the pub and it went on! And something for buskers' fans, I want to report that they are in Derry too. Kamil, we're going there!

OK, so I'm finishing this entry and I want to assure you that the next one will be here tomorrow because it's done, it's only fixing itself right now.

Best regards

Translated by Dawid Pieper

Hey hey!

I've been being tormented for a few days, for the rest I've been tormenting myself as well, to write this entry, because if I do not, I will forget again and I will not write at all, and that would be a pity.
On Saturday, I came back home at about 02:00 P.M., I got to eat so ate, I lay down on the couch and missed an hour and a half. Then I was able to communicate with humanity, but not yet enoughly to try writing a post. The next days I ought to have made up my mind what to read and what to do. It was a difficult decision cause for the first time in my life I left the end of the school year and it did not really reach me that I already had holidays. My brain existed in the state of "you must read "Lalka", you must read "Lalka"!". ("lalka" – one of the set books in Poland, usually in the second year of highschool)
It was a hard pill to swallow to take care of anything else, but eventually I managed to convince myself that yes, I could rest for a moment. So I went back to Chmielewska to reset my brain. (Joanna Chmielewska – Polish writer, I used to call her style in writing "comedy crime fiction". By profesiion she was an architect.) So I read, I read, I stumbled along the way to paint a three-quarters square meter board. I started reflexively counting, how would this board look like, somewhere in my reasoning path, the square root of three came out (and what would that three be supposed to be?, perhaps meters), and divided by two… how much is the root of three meters? That was the first moment when I caught on to that I should probably do something useful, because my brain was not doing very well. And, of course, it suddenly turned out that everyone was burnt and smoked, that I had no plans, and I had to plan, probably to practice, and I did not do it anyway… And then I found a book about Sheeran. Well, how could I write a blog post with all such a shock? But now it's high time to give it a whirl. And it was like that.

Once, during a lesson, history I reckon, the teacher came to us and said about a language exchange, or rather a language course abroad. I do not know why, but I got the idea right away. Although I was sure that I would be afraid, and besides, that some money would be spent for it. Then there were various conversations, forms, further forms, labeling in health rubrics, that I do not take permanent drugs, but I have so-called. visual problems, and finally a leveling test, to be assigned to groups. It passed somehow quickly, at first the deadline was 2 months, and then out of the blue… a week. Checks up to the fifteenth June, school grades issued, everything cursed and we were going, or rather, flying.

I went to Northern Ireland on June 16. It was on Saturday, at an ungodly hour, I remember going out at three-fifteen A.M. and loading my mate's grandfather's car, which took me and my mother to the airport. I, not really knowing what would happen next, in the front seat of Ada, expressing her opinion on the hour and mum, trying keeping the conversation going… amazing picture. I had a small ryaner suitcase, a backpack borrowed from my sister to carry it to school… and all that much. The most important thing – not to forget any cables.

In a country where dinner is eaten for supper and vice versa, in which people drive on the wrong side down the street, in a country where the principle of using streetlights is: green, go, red… look around and go. .. And finally, in a country where the weather is as though someone in heaven turned on the shower, and then forgot about it… I was going to spent the following week in such a country.

For your information, being in London last year, I have not seen rain at all. Well, maybe once, for three minutes, when coming back and literally passing from the airport to the plane. And it was not a downpour. Till I came there, I had not able been to experience all around that so advertised English weather.

By the way, English. I must admit that I did not really know if I was allowed to like the British there. Well, because you know your tastes along the way, and the other side of the coin is that you fall in love with the culture of whole islands, it's a bit like being friends with a lovingly divorcing marriage. However, it soon turned out that I was lucky.

Websters, the great people that I will introduce you later, are half and half, which means that, favorably for me, Bernie is from Ireland, since Tim from England. You could not get any better, you can admire with impunity both Galway and London. :p

After landing, we immediately went on a tour of Belfast, which, considering our state of mind and body, was quite a feat. I like very much the memories of the airport when I asked, somewhat irritated, standing over the suitcases.

– Professor, are we waiting for the other shoe to drop?
– I think so. – the teacher replied, with compassion.
– Oh, in that case, I pay no heed to ye, but I'm going to eat.
It took us a while to pull ourselves together after passport control, seek out and take the luggage back, to eat and to go to the bathroom on the way, finally to catch the sight of the way out and the bus. The whole group, of course, came to the bus from the wrong side. Several times. It was pure luck that the driver had a good mood.

After mentioning the initial "good morning, how are you," etc., the time has come for more complex questions.
– Do you understand the Irish accent? the bus driver asked cheerfully.
– Yyyyyyyyyyy…. – Yeeeee… yes… more or less. – Yes, it was possible to interpret the whole group's answer.
– So, just like me, I do not understand either. I'm from Scotland.
– Wonderful! The first difficulty behind us.
It turned out that the driver was born in Ireland, but he was brought up in Scotland, which made him tell to the truth curiously, especially when he did not turned to us, but for example, to the honking drivers. He also was telling us about murals and places worth to visit in Belfast, because apart from being the driver he was also our guide.
During our free time, together with several people from the group, we went for coffee. I recall our state of mind. Good coffee – something that we were not able to stint on.

– Come on, we'll take a picture! – Roxana, who was and is the star of our group, called. – Wait, we have to find someone who looks as if he or she wants to help us. Oh, may it be she! – Roksana, without hesitation, accosted a girl of our age and asked in English if she would take a picture of us.
– Yes, clearly, no problem. What are you doing here?
– We're at school exchange.
– Oh, it's cool… some pleasantries, and finally this magical question…
– Where are you from?
– From Poland.
– Aaaa, wait, I'm from Poland too! Surprise…?

Interestingly, Martyna was shopping around Belfast and such with us for the next hour and a half,. You are not likely to read this, but thanks for being our private guide, photographer and travel companion.
Best text: Jesus, you are so delighted, and for me, just Belfast! 🙂 I know what's going on.

In Belfast, we visited also the Titanic museum and… I would say that. If anyone is captivated by this topic, very good. You can see all those technical drawings, construction stages, etc. Although… firstly, not for the uninitiated, secondly, certainly not very much for the blind. Screens, drawings, presentations, even interactive ones, but so what? The other thing is that we would have probably got more out of it if we had slept more. Coming out of this building, we all only dreamd of reaching quite comfortable armchairs on the bus. To the city of Derry, however, the way is long.

I will leave you, dear readers, on the bus heading for Derry. The next part of the trip I'll describe in the succeeding post. I just wanted to start to get myself to write on. I will not leave it unfinished now. :d So I invite you to express interest or disinterest for the next part, maybe what you would like to know, and I will be writing it successively. 🙂

Best regards.

PS Next part probably will appear tomorrow.