Home Sweet Home

This past Saturday I flew home from my stint in Europe. I flew from Gdansk to Warsaw and from Warsaw to Chicago. My flight from Warsaw to Chicago was delayed about 40 minutes and I got scolded by two older Polish ladies-in Polish-while boarding the plane. Other than that, I had a pretty uneventful flight. I sat next to a general practice doctor who had been doing work in Ukraine. He was polite, a good conversationalist and kept his hands in his own lap; it was a welcome change from Chester the Molester.


Originally, I was supposed to have a connecting flight from Chicago to Omaha, but my cousin Jami and I decided it would be more fun to have her pick me up at the airport and drive me home, so she could see the family for the holidays. It was a good thing she came to pick me up too, because it took forever to get through customs and get my luggage; I would have missed my connecting flight back to Omaha.

The first place we stopped after we left the airport is a Mexican restaurant. That is one thing that I have sorely missed while being overseas. I used to go to a Mexican restaurant in Greece until one of the waiters kept insisting I go to coffee with him. Since he wouldn't take no for an answer, I avoided the restaurant altogether.

Sunday, we went to church, ate at the Mexican restaurant, celebrated Jami's birthday and piled into the car for the cross-state trek. The ride was mostly uneventful until we got to Des Moines. Here we stopped for gas and I took over at the wheel. We got just outside of Des Moines and it started drizzling. The roads and windshield started icing over and I was starting to get nervous. We made it safely to Omaha and I pulled in to my apartment parking lot at midnight and got stuck. It was as if Mother Nature was saying, "Welcome home, Rachel."




Monday I went in to work and was greeted with a festive cube, welcoming me home. Kandis, Jen and Tammy had decorated my cube with wrapping paper! I have no intention of unwrapping my cube until after Christmas. I'd only been at work for an hour when I got sent home to get some rest, for which I am ever so grateful. Then my parents came down and I got to see them for the first time in 3 months. It was a happy reunion!

That pretty much brings you up to speed with my travels. I'll be in the States for at least 180 days before I can be considered for another stint in Europe. I just wanted to say a special thanks to all of you that kept in touch with me while I was gone and for everyone that took the time to read this blog. Happy holidays and much love!

Gdansk

This past weekend was my last weekend in Poland/Europe. It was also my first weekend to scour (as in search thoroughly, not polish thoroughly) Gdansk. Saturday, I left my hotel room, ready to see all that Gdansk had to offer. And then I stepped outside into a blast of cold/misting air.


I walked around for a while, perused the farmers' market and headed for the "seaside." There are a few channels/rivers that feed into the Baltic sea, so I never actually got to see the sea, much to my dismay. However, I did get to see a LOT of buildings and I must say, the architecture of these buildings is quite impressive. I took pictures of a lot. Unfortunately, I didn't always have the best angle, but I'm guessing you get the gist of the awesomeness of these buildings.



The street was lined with restaurants and shops selling amber and silver. I stepped off into a side street to explore the shops. One of the guys was standing outside his shop and said, "What're you looking for?" I told him I didn't know, that I was just looking around and curious. He told me to come in and have a look because he was having a sale. He said, "30% off everything because you are a pretty girl, for not pretty girls it's only 20% off." I think I was supposed to be flattered, but I couldn't help but wondering if he had thought I was a beautiful girl if I would have gotten 40% off and if I was exquisite, would it have been 50% off?? Unfortunately, I didn't really see anything worth buying, so I didn't even get to take advantage of my "pretty girl" discount. I left the store and continued following whatever body of water it was that I was following to Old Town.



However, there were some buildings in the other direction of Old Town that I wanted to get pictures of so I walked towards them. On the way, I passed street vendor selling "American Hot Dogs." I almost bought one, but I hadn't had breakfast yet and there was another vendor selling donuts, so sadly, I can't tell you if the American hot dogs were authentic or not...



After snapping some quick shots of these buildings, I headed in to Old Town. Turns out, this was the Saturday they were decorating for the holidays and I got there as they were starting to put up the town Christmas tree. There was also a couple of girl scouts selling their wares to raise money for their summer camp. They totally suckered me into donation. haha. By the time I got to Old Town, I was quite cold, so I snapped a few shots and headed back to the hotel for some warmth.



After sitting in the hotel for about an hour, boredom got the best of me and I headed back out to see what else I could see before I got cold again. This time I headed down a different road, found a bizarre inside an old church-looking building, window shopped for a few minutes and then left. I also came across a massive building; I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I liked its structure so I stopped to take pictures and continued on my way.


This time I wound up at the other end of Old Town, I walked in the opposite direction and stumbled upon the Christmas markets! I spent some time looking at wares of the street vendors and visited the big, white, overcrowded tent. I was kind of disappointed that I can't just buy things over here without trying them on. I saw a few things I would have liked to buy, but was afraid to buy them without trying them on first.



After I finished browsing the market, I walked back towards Old Town to get a few more pictures, stopped to buy some postcards (which I will probably mail in the States, or hand them to you...ha), and headed back to the hotel to once again escape the cold. To be completely honest, I didn't do/see as much as I probably could have this past weekend. I guess I just got a little lazy and it wasn't exactly warm, but I guess compared to the weather you're having, I shouldn't complain.



Tuesday, Marios, Sean and I went to a restaurant in Old Town that had received raving reviews. It consisted of a mostly fish menu and I don't really care for fish. So I got the steak. It was good, but the three of us agreed that the restaurant had been talked up waaay too much and we were content to not eat there again.

Wednesday, a couple people from the management team at work took us out to dinner. We went to an upscale restaurant in the neighboring city of Sopot. The food was good, but it was another elf-food type situation. However, we were in good company and it was fun. I can honestly say that I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Poland and wish I had more time here (preferably at a time when the weather was nicer...)

Saturday, I leave for the States. I should arrive in Chicago just before 3:30 and my cousin Jami is picking me up and driving me to Omaha so she can see the rest of the family for the holidays. I am super excited to come home. I love, love, love Europe, but I'm ready to be home for the holidays! See you all soon!

P.S. There are pigeons all over the place and they waddle around like they own the place and they're slow and fat and unafraid of people. I think it has to do something with their size or waddling, but I have to fight the urge to step on them or kick them every time I see them. I'm not big on animal cruelty, it's just something about these crazy birds!

A Roamin' Holiday

Thursday I flew into Rome where I met up with my cousin Jennifer, her husband Jamie and their two kids, Kaitlin and AJ. Jamie is in the army and the family is currently station in Germany while he serves in the Middle East. He was home for Thanksgiving, so they decided to take trip to Italy; Jen asked me to join then and that's how I got to be in Rome for the holidays. Well, that and FDC extended my time over here...haha
Anyway, we rented an apartment about 10 minutes walk from the Vatican City (the Pope's home) and a 3 minutes walk to a wonderful gelato shop. I arrived just in time for dinner and we set out to a local favorite for an Italian Thanksgiving. Jen and I ordered the same thing, but look at how big my bowl is compared to hers. She took a better picture of it; I'll have to steal it from her. We topped our Thanksgiving off by getting a scoop of gelato on the way home.






Friday we woke up and headed to the Vatican City for an audience with the Pope, or maybe it was to see the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel is an entire room covered from wall to wall and across the ceiling by Michelangelo and took him 4 years to complete. We were mainly interested in seeing the chapel, but these Italians are tricky; in order to get to the chapel, you have to wander through all these corridors/museums. It was pretty cool though, there was a lot of mythical and historical statues throughout these hallways. After a while, we started goofing around with our pictures, which was probably disrespectful and sacrilegious to them. For that, I sincerely apologize.






Finally we made it to the Sistine Chapel. It was breathtakingly amazing. The intricacies of Michelangelo's designs was incredible. The walls and ceilings had paintings of the twelve apostles and various scenes from the Bible. The front wall was a painting called The Last Judgment. When we got in the room, there were like 300 hundred people all murmuring in awe at the paintings and one guard standing in the front saying, "SHHHH (as if the murmuring would wake the paintings) NO PHOTO." So I sneaked a photo. It's not a very clear shot, but it's hard to break the rules.





From the Sistine Chapel, we walked through St. Peter's Square, took a picture of the intimidating-looking guards and stopped for overpriced lunch. After lunch, we took the metro to a museum that showed the ancient bath houses. When we got there, we found out that the baths were currently closed for renovation or something. By this time, it was about 5 and the sun was starting to set, but we weren't ready to call it a day yet, so we headed to the Spanish Steps, a common hang out place for couples and young people. By this time, the museums had all closed and it was too dark to do much sight-seeing so we headed back to the apartment.







Ok, so there were two metro stops within walking distance of our apartment. Now, in MY mind, we took the one to get to all these places, so it would make sense to ME to use this same stop to go back to our apartment, since we already knew where it was. However, the other metro stop was apparently a fraction closer to our apartment, so we got off on that one. Unfortunately, we came out from underground completely disoriented and what could have been a 10 minute walk home turned into an hour and ten minute walk home. We actually walked almost a complete circle around the walled part of the Vatican City. That's where the picture of me running up the wall was taken. We had two scoops of gelato that night.


Saturday we headed out to see the Colosseum. Along the way, we stopped to take pictures of the US Embassy and to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe of Rome. It is my new goal to eat at as many HRCs in foreign countries as possible. Too bad I didn't know there was one in Athens. I could have eaten there once a week. Ha.



In order to get to the Colosseum using the metro, we had to change lines at the Termini stop. The Termini stop is known for its pickpockets and many people have been robbed here; Jennifer's friends had recently taken a trip to Rome and had lost money at this station. But we decided that if we just tried to blend in and look like we knew where we were going, we wouldn't have any trouble. First, Jamie, Jen and I all have blondish hair and the kids have red hair--we didn't blend in. Second, we got off the first line at Termini, turned right when we should have turned left and walked in a complete circle...We did make it out without any problems though.





We got to the Colosseum wandered around there for quite a bit. I must say, those Romans built a pretty impressive structure (able to seat 50,000) and while there was a lot of cruelty that took place at the Colosseum, I almost wished I could have seen a gladiator fight. There was also a museum at the Colosseum and we spent so much time here that we didn't make it to the other two attractions located close by. I've forgotten what the names of these were anyway and we were about to sneak pictures of these buildings from afar.










After we left the Colosseum, we decided to walk around the area. We would up walking to/across the Tiber River and into the old Jewish ghetto. Before WWII, the Jews were forced to live in this part of Rome and every time it rained, there was no wall holding the river back, causing the ghetto to flood. Post war a wall was built and this part of the city is actually quite nice. From here, we went to see another cathedral, the name of which I cannot remember. (I will ask Jennifer and then hopefully update my blog with more information instead of "I can't remember or I don't know" haha, sorry.)






From there, we began the long trek home. We weren't close to any metro stop and Jamie said, oh it's only 10 minutes. Yeah it was only 10 minutes until the next 10 minutes. Again we walked forever, only this time I think Jamie knew where we were going. I sure didn't, but as long as one of us did, I guess that's all that mattered. We ate McDonald's that night and had two more scoops of gelato.

Sunday, Jamie and Jennifer drove me to the airport where we said our goodbyes and they headed on to Venice. I got to go back to Gdansk. Haha. My flight home was rather uneventful, which was fine by me. This weekend, I plan on seeing what Gdansk has to offer and next weekend, I will spend my Saturday flying across the Atlantic where I will be united with my cousin Jami in Chicago who will bring me home to all of you! Thanks for reading this uber long post. Much love!