Awesome Thing About Living in Europe #12

Awesome Thing About Living in Europe #12:  Sleeping with Fresh Air

Almost all of the apartments here do not have air conditioning...including ours.  Now, I am sure some of you are gasping to yourselves right now.  But, no worries.  The Polish summers are not nearly as warm as they are in Chicago.  (Poland is on the same latitude as Winnepeg, Canada in case you were wondering).  So, in order to keep the apartment cool we keep almost all of our windows open almost all of the time.  We get a great cross breeze that comes through the apartment.  At first we were worried about bugs and mosquitos but since we are pretty high up it hasn't been an issue.  It is especially nice having our windows open at night.  Its such a wonderful feeling to fall asleep and wake up to a nice cool breeze...ahhhhhhhh!  Its so funny that this simple pleasure brings us so much relaxation. Now, lets hope that the Polish summer stays normal and we don't get any crazy hot days here.  : )



A Great Surprise!

I use a google tool called "Blogger" to write and format this blog.  And, when I initially created it I was required to sign up for a Google email address (gmail) in order to set it up.  So I set up an email address and thought nothing of it.  I still continued to use my yahoo account that I have had for years.  For some random reason the other day I logged onto this Gmail account that I set up.  And, I was in for quite a surprise.  There were a ton of emails in response to our blog.  Apparently, if you get the blog emailed to you and then hit reply and send a message it goes to this account.  Makes complete sense.  I guess I hadn't ever thought that people would respond.  It was so fun to go through and read people's messages. 

Thank you all SO SO much for the words of support, appreciation of the blog and advice on movies and TV shows!  It means so much to us.

Part of me felt a tad silly that I hadn't realized this sooner.  But, it was really a wonderful surprise to read all of the messages.  I'll now start checking that email account a little more often in case there are new surprises along the way.  : ) 

Awesome Thing About Living in Europe #11

Awesome Thing About Living in Europe #11:  Pedicures

I realize that this one might be a bit random, so let me explain.  I have always enjoyed getting a great pedicure as a way to relax.  And, the pedicures over here in Europe are simply amazing!  The technicians here treat your feet like a work of art and spend a ton of time working on them to ensure that they look and (more importantly) feel abolsutely awesome.  Because of this attention to detail pedicures here defintiely take longer than they do in the states.  I had one that lasted close to 2 hours!  At first, my American mentality took over and this annoyed me.  "Two hours, I thought....I could be doing so many other things right now.  Why is this taking so long?"  But, I have grown to enjoy it.  Now that my expectations are set I bring a good book and enjoy some "me" time every few weeks.



A Visit to the Baltic

We spent this past weekend up in Northern Poland on the Baltic Sea.  We went to an area made up of three small cities, called (surprise! surprise!) the Tri Cities.  We specifically stayed in the small beach town of Sopot, Poland.  The main driver in our trip was to attend the Coldplay concert at the Heineken Music Festival.  We arrived in Sopot on Thursday afternoon and after enjoying the beach we were off to Gdynia to attend the concert.  It was a great concert in a super cool outdoor venue.  We really enjoyed ourselves! And we definitely felt like the "old folks" considering everyone there looked to be about 22 years old and they were all spending the weekend camping in tents during the festival.  I'm glad Tom and I are in agreement that camping is really not our "thing". 

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing.  This was perfect for both of us, especially Tom who has been working his butt off lately.  The weather was a bit overcast and cool, but we made the most of it.  We walked and explored the cute town of Sopot, sat outside along the beach and read, spent some time enjoying the hotel spa and even made it to the movies.  Tom and I started planning out the other cities throughout Poland that we want to make sure to visit while we are here.  Below are some pics from the first part of our trip.  Unfortunately our camera died while away so no pics of the second part.

On another note....Happy 4th of July!  And, Happy 5th Birthday to Charlie!  Enjoy some fireworks for us.  Don't think we will be finding any here.  : )



Fun Times!

Tom and I were so fortunate to spend the past week with one of my greatest friends, Lauren.  It was such a treat to have here here!  We showed her the sights of Warsaw  and she and I even took a side trip down to Krakow.  It's hard to believe that the last time we were in Krakow was 10 years ago when we were living in Italy together...goodness that makes me feel old!  While in Krakow we explored the old town, went on a walking tour, did some shopping and enjoyed plenty of vino.  Words cannot describe what a comfort it is to have such a close friend in town where you can be yourself no matter what.  We had so much fun catching up on life and reminiscing.  And, Lauren got a much deserved rest from a busy life of motherhood and teaching.  It was really special to have such a long visit....I am learning that this is one of the advantages to visitors over here.  We are already talking about plans for our next European adventure together!  Here are some pics from our trip to Krakow.  Enjoy!  A big thanks to Lauren for making the trip to visit us.  And, an even bigger thanks to her husband, Alphonse, for taking care of Ayden for a week so Lauren could make the trip!