I'm glad people have decided to write in here again :) A lot has happened since the last time I wrote (how long ago was that, again?)

Well, it's finally spring here. Not like spring in the USA, where people are wearing flip-flops and shorts already. No, I still have to wear my scarf and coat when I go to work, and I wear my cozy wool sweater inside at all time, since this apartment is always cool. All the same, the 12 degrees Celsius right now feels considerably better than the -28 degrees it was for a couple weeks back in the winter (just a month and a half ago!) I'm not sure how I managed to survive walking to work a minimum of 1 1/2 hours a day in those horrific temperatures...not to mention the fact that it was consistently about 12 degrees at home since our heat was broken. Polish winter, I shall not miss thee. I didn't realize we're close to the same latitude as Moscow. I always equate Poland with warmer weather, but that was a huge mistake.

Ah but yes, spring is here and things are on the up and up. My parents, whom I haven't seen since I was last in the States 2 years ago, are coming to visit me in less than a week. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic about their visit. It'll be good to show them around my home of two years, and to take them to places I haven't seen yet. I've been avoiding going to Auschwitz until they came, since I knew they'd want to see it, and that is a place I certainly don't want to visit twice in such a short span of time. We're also going to Krynica-Zdrój, a popular destination during the winter for skiing, so it should be a nice place to go hiking in the mountains for a few days. Polish landscape is just breathtaking. It'll be good to show it off.

Jeff and I have decided to go to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, for the summer. I'll be taking intensive Russian classes and getting my Russian back up to par, since I've been focusing more on Polish here (for obvious reasons.) Originally I wanted to stay in Bishkek for a month and a half to two months, and then travel to Tbilisi, Georgia (I have a friend there) and to Armenia (Jeff has a friend there) but turns out I will be needing to return to the USA sooner than expected.

See, I've been accepted to a couple graduate schools!! I got into Chicago and Indiana so far, and am still waiting to hear from Michigan, who won't let me know till the end of the month. Not much longer now, at least! Well, I already turned down Chicago, as they gave me no funding and there was no one there I was really excited about studying with. (I want to study Soviet and post-Soviet Russian and Polish literature, hopefully with a focus on sex and gender.) Anyways, no one at Chicago was doing anything remotely related to that...they're all mostly about translation and Romanticism and what not. IU I'm really excited about, although I was originally hesitant to apply, since it's so close to DPU and so many DPU people end up in that area. But, IU has exactly the program I want, and the professors there are incredible and I realllly want to study with a couple of them in particular. Plus, I got full funding for TWO YEARS! Plus the possibility of more funding to come later on.... SO, once I hear from Michigan, I will make my final decision. Anyways, IU starts on August 20, so I'll need to be back in the States earlier than I originally thought. I'm disappointed I won't get to spend longer in Bishkek, or see Georgia or Armenia at all, but I think it'll be worth it :)

I am concerned how I'll react to being back in America again. I remember coming back from Russia the first time I was there. I had MAJOR culture shock, not going to Russia, but rather coming back from Russia. The East Coast relentlessly stressed me out for two weeks straight. I'll need time to get over the stress of being in the US before I enter grad school, or else I might lose it. Things I think will be weird:

• Hearing English on the streets
• Speaking English in shops
• Not being able to access 5 small shops at all times, whenever I want anything. Seriously, I can run across the street and come back with milk, juice, chicken, sweets, whatever...in 2 minutes flat.
• Not having access to good fruits and vegetables at all times. Farmers' markets? What's that? Here, you walk down the street and buy some walnuts from some old lady for 4 złoty, or a dozen fresh eggs for 3. And "organic" veggies? Everything here is organic. It's so cheap to eat well here!
• Not being able to go to the butcher. I LOVE going to the butcher! You walk up to the counter and ask for whatever you want. I've even gotten some weird things, just to try them (I've always liked livers cause I'm from the South, but I have tried hearts and tongues and things like that. I haven't worked up the courage to try that pig's foot thing they like here, though....) But really, how nice is it to be able to go up to the butcher on your way home from work, pick up a couple chicken filets that have just been fixed, and be done with it? No packaged, frozen meats here.
• When eating out, having the waiter bring you your check before you're done, or before you ask for it. Here you have to put on your coat before they'll bring it to you.
• One word: refills. Or really any drink bigger than 0.2 liters.
• Tipping. 10% tips max here, nothing larger. Also, I love leaving tips in coins. Why hasn't America adapted the $1 or even $2 coins?
• More expensive haircuts. 10 zl. for my last haircut here. Sawheet.
• Not being able to walk everywhere. Seriously, the only time I felt I needed a car was when it was -28 outside, but then most cars weren't able to run at that point anyways....

Things I am most definitely looking forward to:

• Peanut butter! You can get it here, but it's not the same
• Reese's. Nonexistent here.
• Being able to yell at people without having to think for a second exactly what you want to say. I once waited over an hour to get my blood drawn for a test, only to have them turn me away (after they had let in people who had come in after me.) Had that been America, I would have given them a piece of my mind. As it was, I had no choice but to mildly complain and leave.
• Microwave and slowcooker. Oh, and dishwasher. Oh, and dryer. A dryer would have been good in the winter. Now that it's warm I love drying my clothes outside :)
• Being able to make friends a lot faster. I speak Polish and I have some friends who speak English, but it's considerably easier to make friends when you share a common language. There's a lot that comes with speaking a language, beyond forming sentences and comprehension. It's hard to truly bond with someone you know doesn't quite see things the same way.
• GRADUATE SCHOOL!!! I miss school so freakin' much!!! Call me crazy, but I don't care.

Well, I suppose that's about it for me at the moment. By the way, what's the deal with the Hunger Games or whatever it's called? I feel like it exploded all over Facebook and Reddit and other places on this here Interweb, and I had never heard of it before. I feel out of the loop.