A few observations

You know it's cold when your internal organs freeze. Walking across town last night I could definitely feel my liver beginning to go. It's about -12C at the moment, with a windchill of about -15C. Popping to the shops is a life-threatening activity. It's nice to have a bit of snow though.



Well done to anyone who noticed the slight error in my last post - I missed the word 'you' from each line of the joke at the end. To check that you were all paying attention of course. I made another mistake as well but I'm not telling you what it was. All being well, I'll have a laptop after Christmas and these blogs won't have to be done in a hurry at work. Should improve the quality somewhat...

As for the question I left you with (about those rather large 'hedges') ... the answer is that Ciechocinek is a spa town; the water was pumped to the top of the towers and allowed to trickle down through the sticks. As it evaporated it released the salts and the vapours could be breathed in by people who walked through the middle of the tower. These days they're just a tourist attraction though - you can't walk through the middle any more as the structures are over 100 years old.

*****

A few observations of differences that have struck me based on my first few months here ...

All women's names end in 'a'. (Something to do with the requirements of Polish grammar.)

Jaywalking is illegal. You can get a 100zł fine if you're caught crossing before the little man turns green. It is common to see people standing at a crossing waiting when there isn't a car to be seen.

Christmas dinner is eaten on Christmas Eve and is always fish, the main dish being carp. Some people buy their carp live and keep it in the bath. I saw an advert in the cinema the other day that began with a family all looking sadly into the bath and a large carp looking sadly back up at them.

*****

Last Sunday the staff were all invited around to Romek's house (the owner of the school). We began by sharing large communion wafers - you offer as piece to each person and they offer you some of theirs. You then wish each other Merry Christmas. A very nice tradition. There then followed a range of fish dishes + salads and pierogi(!). Very nice too. After a while we did a little singing. The Poles outsang the Brits by miles. I'm sure they'd been practising. We were also treated to a few musical pieces by some of the children. They played a range of pieces entirely from memory.




















I have been practising my Polish of course. As you can see, I am studying hard. Here we are in the cafe with our textbooks ...














Your Polish lesson this time is (partly) of course on a Christmas theme:

jeden (yeden) - one
dwa (dva) - two
trzy (tsch) - three
Wesołych Swiąt (vesowych schviont) - Merry Christmas

Well, that's about it for this year. I'm heading home on Sunday and will be travelling around seeing family and friends. In case I don't see you I'll wish you ...

WESOŁYCH SWIĄT!!


Have a lovely Christmas and a very happy new year.

Outdoorsy stuff

As you might have guessed, I was rather keen to get out and do some outdoorsy stuff when I arrived. However, as the photo from the top of the tower in Torun shows you, this is a very flat part of the world. Very flat. Walking up the stairs at work is all the uphill I'm getting at the moment.

Lack of hills also means lack of decent moving water. I left my kayak back home anyway but would have considered buying one if there had been a kayak club around.

You can hire them during the spring and summer so that's a plan for next year ...


The good news is the climbing wall. I found that in the first week and it's about a ten minute walk from home. It's quite small as they go but is absolutely fine and I'm getting there once or twice a week. I have started what might be the world's first TEFL school climbing club as many of the staff have been keen to come along and have learned about the knots and how to hold the rope for each other etc. so we can go along as a group. They're getting to know us rather well there.


Torun is surrounded by forests and little villages so I'm going to be walking to a few. On Saturday I walked to Ciechocinek. However you think it's pronounced I can assure you, you're wrong. It's a tricky one. I came across a rather large pile of carrots on the way. Don't think I'd ever seen a pile of carrots like that before (being a city lad). Nearby, four people were digging up parsnips trying to make a similarly large pile of them. I also saw a red squirrel which live here quite happily, unaware of the grey squirrels elsewhere. Came across a woodpecker too.



Here is something else I found. There are three of them, each about 600m long. I had no idea what they were and couldn't read the information signs to find out. I have now read my guidebook so if you want to have a guess, let me know what it is. The answer will be in my next blog ...













Apparently there are forests in the the north east with bison and wild boar. I might be paddling & walking out that way next year...


OK, the latest Polish lesson:

Dzien dobry (dj'yehn dohb'ryh) - good day
Prosze (proh'sheh) - please
Djiekuje (dj'yehn kuh'yeh) - thank you

Some of you have used the occasional polish word in your emails to me - very impressed. Many thanks for all the comments posted on the blog - not being a serious techie I have only just found them ... I'll keep on top of it from now on!

I had my third lesson last Sunday. Really good fun. It's tough being illiterate and totally unable to say what you're thinking. I had all sorts of fun trying to establish which bus to catch home on Saturday and whether I had to buy a ticket at the kiosk or on the bus. Finally got there but I think the lady in the kiosk was amused.

I heard a joke the other day:

What do call someone who speaks three languages? trilingual
What do call someone who speaks two languages? bilingual
What do call someone who only speaks one language? (scroll down ...)









English

It's true. but I'm trying!

That's all for now. See y'all...

Szkola Jezyka Angielskiego

The cemeteries are beautiful at the moment. I mentioned All Saints Day a week ago. Well, the graves are still being tended and flower stalls are outside each one.

Wednesday was a Bank Holiday - Independence Day. A lie in and a meal in town in the evening - lovely.

I've been meaning to tell you about the school so here it is: International House, Torun is one of about 150 International House schools around the world. Ours is owned by a Polish chap called Romek and is run by Robert. The DOS (Director of Studies) is Malcolm who moved from Britain 15 years ago, got married, and now lives here. Most of the teaching staff are Brits and we all get along well. The photos show you two of the classrooms - fairly simple rooms with a whiteboard although we do have two interactive whiteboards (linked to a computer) and these are in great demand amongst the teachers.
I have six classes. On Mondays & Wednesdays I teach the following:
2K are a bunch of six 9 - 12 year olds who I teach from 3:45 - 5:20 twice a week.
6K are twelve teenagers (13 - 16) who follow 2K from 5:35 - 7:10
The Proficiency class are mostly adults who meet from 7:25 - 9:00

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach the Advanced class from 5:35 - 7:10 and I have recently been given a one-to-one student who wants to study Legal English. Fortunately, this doesn't require much legal knowledge, and what it does require is in the course book. All the same, I've got some reading to do.

I also meet one-to-one with another student, a businessman who mainly wants conversational classes but I try to squeeze in a bit of grammar too. In these lessons I have learned quite a bit about the Polish political system and history as well as the scrap metal business and sailing on the Baltic Sea...

The main challenge with all of these lessons (apart from 2K) is the grammar. I used to think English grammar was straightforward (three tenses - past, present and future etc...) but now I've changed my mind. There are over 30 ways of expressing the tense (perfect tenses, passives etc) and my head spins. And don't get me started on the difference between the use of 'must' and 'have to'. That one kept us busy for some time on my training course.

I've finally started Polish classes - an hour every Sunday afternoon and I really look forward to them. However, since I've got to learn this I think you lot should too. The pronunciation is in brackets. There'll be a short test if I see you at Christmas. (Alex and Martyna are excused these lessons as you're both pretty good at Polish. Sorry the accents are missing!):

Tak - yes
Nie (n'yeh) - No
Czesc (chehsh'ch) - Hi/hello

A few more photos of Torun to finish (it looks great at night - not sure that these photos do it justice):

pierogi and pronunciation

Aaaahhh ... pierogi (see pic). Dumplings stuffed with various fillings. Truly yummy. They come in the baked or boiled variety and may be sweet or savoury. The pierogi shown contains cabbage. You can get chicken & mushroom pierogi too and I've had one of those to make up for the lack of chicken & mushroom pies around these parts.

The other pic is a beetroot soup with ravioli in. Not something you can order at the local cafe in Manchester.

I have had a few problems though. I'm not always sure what I'm buying and so I got home the other day and looked at a tin I had bought. It was cat food, I was sure of it. The only doubt I had was due to the lack of a picture of a hungry cat on the tin. Once I'd opened it I was suddenly convinced again. I sniffed and poked and decided that I wasn't prepared to risk it. The tin went in the bin. Turns out it's quite a popular sandwich spread...

I have warned not to buy Flaki (but came close once because it looked rather nice). It's tripe.

Pronunciation is another tricky matter - Polish might appear to lack vowels but many letters work in pairs and once you've learned the rules for them you can pronounce any word. However, the tricky part is the apparent need to pronounce several consonants all at the same time and the large number of syllables in some words. The numbers are a good example - I've been teaching myself to count because I'm determined not to be out-counted by a toddler. It gets interesting though; twenty nine is spelt dwadziescia dziewiec (a few accents are missing).
It is pronounced: dvah dj'yehsh ch'yah djyeh vyehn'ch Try saying that without your teeth in.
Anyway, I practise things like that by saying them to my students during the break. Any stand-up comedian would be envious of the laughs I get.

I was in Warsaw last weekend visiting Jan, a friend from Bolton who's on her hols here. We had a good look around the 'old town' - it isn't that old as Warsaw was totally destroyed during the war. The rebuilding took 30 years and is amazing. There are also several moving monuments to the uprising that took place - an attempt to rid Warsaw of the Nazis by fighting them from the sewers. It lasted a little over 60 days.




















Throughout Poland millions of people went to visit their family graves over the weekend for All Saints' Day. Since I arrived there have been candles on sale everywhere. I finally found out why - they are put on the graves which are cleaned up and tended to, often being covered in flowers as well. One chap I chatted to estimated that two thirds of the country follow this tradition.







OK - have to go as I've got some lessons to prepare. I'll tell you more about work in the next thrilling instalment of this blog ...

I realise that I've been here for almost five weeks now and have done very little to keep you all up to date with my progress and that this has caused many of you to lose sleep etc.

One reason for this is that I can only blog from the PCs at work and I get distracted by other things. I hope to have a laptop after Christmas which will make things a bit easier.

I find myself in Torun more by accident than by design - I hadn't heard of the place two months ago. However, as places to live go, it takes some beating; the town centre is absolutely lovely and it's surrounded by forests.

That's Nicolaus Copernicus above (Nick to his friends). He was the first to suggest that the Sun is at the centre of our solar system, rather than the Earth (whatever next?) and is considered to be the father of modern astronomy. He is a bit of a local hero and has roads, bars and shopping centres named after him. From my point of view he serves as a jolly good meeting point when you're planning to go out ('meet you at Nick at 7').

As I said, two months ago I hadn't heard of Torun - I left St. Mary's Primary School at the end of July, had a week at home to sort out my house, and then began my CELTA course (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults) in Manchester during which I got to practise teaching English to classes of students from all over the world.

One month later I emerged back into the daylight and started looking for a job. I had decided to stay in Europe for the first year and then to move further afield. However, a lot of jobs are snapped up during August so I didn't find too much at first. I had heard a lot about International House (a large company that has schools all over the world) on my course and so I decided to try for a job with them. Eventually this job came up and I was asked to go to London for an interview. This was followed an hour later by a phone call from Poland and so I had another interview by mobile phone while I tried to scurry for a quiet spot in the middle of London. At the end of the call I was offered the job and was asked to fly to Poland the following weekend.

So here I am - International House, Torun. I'm here until the end of July and can transfer to another school after that. I get a few hols - two weeks at Christmas and one at Easter so I'll be back in the UK then and hope to catch up with a few of you then (unless you fancy a trip to Poland!). We get a two week winter break at the end of January as well so I'll be nipping off around Poland at that point I expect.

I'll leave you with a view of the river that goes throught the middle of town. Rather annoyingly, I can't find anywhere to hire a kayak...

The first month ...

I know it's taken me a while to do this, but here is my first blog. I'll keep it brief and will see what happens. Once I get the hang of it there'll be more.

OK, to begin with, I'm in Torun. A jolly nice place (see photos).

















I have been given a nice flat about 15 minutes' walk from the centre of town and onlt 5 minutes
from the school ...














That's it for now. Let me know if you received it OK.