Babes in Poland

The Polish Strike Back

Well I guess word has gotten out about Cracola and I's communication plan of yelling in English and forcing the Poles to understand us because they have decided to turn the tables and yell at us in Polish.   A few times today we have stood, with totally blank looks on our faces, as some Pole spoke Polish to us.  Even after not getting a response, they continued to speak Polish to us.

Mission Accomplished

You should be very proud of your Babes in Poland today. We managed not only to find the bus station but to purchase a bus ticket to Zakopane for Friday. Maybe.

Continuing with our strategy of just yelling at the poor, helpless Poles in english, we went up to the bus station window and attempted to purchase passage to Zakopane.

Cracola: DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?????
Poor helpless Polish girl: *blink* *blink*
Cracola: I SAID DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?!?!?!
Poor helpless Polish girl: Little?
Cracola: WE WOULD LIKE TWO TICKETS TO ZAKOPANE ON FRIDAY!
Poor helpless Polish girl: Friday?
Cracola: YES, FRIDAY.
Poor helpless Polish girl: Friday?
Cracola: FRIDAY.
Poor helpless Polish girl: Friday?
Cracola: FRY-DAY
Poor helpless Polish girl: Friday?

This went on for about 10 minutes. Eventually, I handed the girl a random amount of Polish money (about $3 US) and she handed us a receipt which may or may not be our ticket to Zakopane. For Friday.

Of Yak Shemush and Poo-nutz

Well yesterday Cracola and I tried to learn Polish but as expected, we failed miserably. Our program coordinator, bless her little heart, tried to say the words so we could spell them out phonetically on our little cheat sheet.  However, I couldn't even figure out what letters to write down to make the sounds that were coming out of her mouth. So, Cracola and I's sheets have things like "NAZY VAM SHELL", "JEN-COOL-YO", "YAK SHEMUSH", "SHEP-PRO-SHAM" and my personal favorite, "POO-NUTZ".  And the numbers?  We better live at 0 Wielopole Street because we can't say anything else but zero which in Polish is zero.

We also got to meet some really great and fun annoying people who were in the program before us and survived.

Our First Time

Cracola and I are having our first Polish language lesson tonight with all the nerds people in our class.  Law school is alot like high school.  I mean, you have lockers, prom, a cafeteria with mystery meat and catty popular girls who sit in the back of the classroom, smacking their gum and twirling their hair. I don't want to say that Crac and I are cooler than the other people in the class but if coolness were measured in terms of David Hasselhoff, Crac and I would be Knight Rider David Hasselhoff and the other kiddies in the class would be tear-down-the-Berlin-Wall David Hasselhoff complete with a leather jacket illuminated with Christmas lights.

My Thoughts, Exactly

Lost In Translation

Ok, from the Koniakow thong-tha-thong-thong-thong site, comes this quote:

"Well, if after Judgment Day I’ll be sentenced to spent eternity in Hell, I would feel much better to see a Devil (female one) wearing G-Strings."

Must sound better in Polish because it makes pretty much no sense in English.

Polish is hard.

So in my intoxicating excitement over spending 6 weeks in Poland, I somehow convinced myself that I could learn at least a little Polish before going over there. I mean come on, how hard can it be?

So after doing one lesson of Polish on my 101 Languages of the World software, I am ready to give up on learning this language. In fact, I have decided the only way to learn Polish is to be born a Polish child to a Polish family in Poland.

For example, to ask someone in Polish if they speak English (the most basic phrase I must master), you have to say something like czy pani mowi po angielsku??? CZY? I can't even BEGIN to think how you would say that. How is that a word? And apparently Z and W are entire WORDS in Polish.

I totally give up.