Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Sanctuary!


I’m taking a mini break from unpacking and wanted to assure you all that I am no longer having a nervous breakdown. In fact, I’m through with talking about the move altogether…at least for the next 10 minutes. I need to blog as a form of sanctuary from the choas surrounding me. So, let’s talk about something else, shall we? How about the fact that tonight is my first ever book club meeting. I feel like joining a book club is a rite of passage into adulthood.
The book we read this month was On Black Sisters Street by Chika Unigwe and is about four women from Nigeria who immigrate to Belgium as part of the sex industry. The subject matter made me empathetic to a population that I don’t think about too often. It’s just puts into perspective how dire it is to be a woman in certain world regions. So dire that it’s actually preferable for them to work as prostitutes in Europe than in squalor in a 3rd world country.
It was really well written and I am always glad to learn more about Nigeria since my parents lived in Lagos for several years and it’s a possibility for us as a future ex-pat assignment. The most tedious part of the book was deciphering the Nigerian dialect. Usually I can piece together the gist of what is being said when authors utilize a local form of English, but this was way beyond me. Which makes sense, because during previous trips to Nigeria, I did have some difficulties communicating.
In other fun news…our first Europe trip is booked!!! When anticipating our move to Scotland, we did a lot of brainstorming about where we wanted to take our inaugural holiday. We dreamed of France, Switzerland, Greece, Portugal, Croatia; or perhaps Italy or Spain. But nope, 2 months in and I’ve got a flight booked for Warsaw, Poland.
 Even though Warsaw didn’t make the list, Jonathan has a business trip there in a few weeks so I figured I’d meet him there for a long weekend and we’d see what the capital of Poland has to offer us. I’ve got my research cut out for me because I have little to no clue about what there is to do there.
The Nazis annihilated Warsaw during their invasion of Poland, and the Soviets took over afterward, rebuilding with utilitarian concrete box buildings, making the city less architecturally appealing than it’s European capital counterparts. I believe the city recently earned the title of Ugliest City in Europe. No bother. The ugliest city in Europe is still more lovely than 90% of the other cities in the world.
Plus I am excited to see Old Town Warsaw which was painstakingly rebuilt as a relic to pre-WWII Warsaw. I’m sure I will discover all sorts of things to keep us busy during our weekend visit. And once upon a time, I didn’t know much about Scotland, and now I can’t imagine a place I’d rather be. So who knows, maybe Warsaw will knock my socks off. Hopefully, because it’s a possibility for a future ex-pat assignment as well.

6 comments:

  1. I haven't been to Warsaw, but I really loved Krakow! Enjoy your trip to Poland!

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    1. Krakow is definitely on our list. I'm bummed that it's so far from Warsaw, otherwise we'd try to fit it into this trip. Next time...

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  3. Aunt Beth here - Katherine and I had a pact that we would meet up if her world season ever ended the weekend my spring break started...it happened March 2011. I met Katherine in Warsaw for World Team Championships. If you need a taste of home, there's a Hard Rock Cafe there. Old Town Warsaw is beautiful compared to the rest of the city. Chopin was raised in Warsaw, he's buried in Paris but -weird fact - at his own request, his heart was removed upon his death and sent in an urn to Warsaw, where it rests in the Church of the Holy Cross at Krakowskie Przedmiescie...opposite end of the street as Old Town...the church is beautiful. The Warsaw Uprising Museum is quite poignant - will give you an understanding of why the city is so drab - but beware, we took a taxi to the museum thinking it would be easy to catch a taxi back to our hotel and had to have the museum call us a taxi. Outside of our hotel, I did not find Warsaw very English friendly. I learned to say to no one in particular - 'does anyone speak English????' My driver from the airport spoke no English and we had another driver who spoke no English...learned to have written addresses in hand to give to drivers - we also figured out our hotel room key had the hotel's address on it for a reason...to show the taxi driver. We went to another museum and no one there spoke English...not even the person greeting guests and taking money! Be sure to try pirogi while there. We went on to Prague from there - definitely worth visiting...is the opposite of Warsaw - color everywhere, Old Town is even neater than Warsaw's.

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    1. Thanks for the information! I think it'll be a nice weekend trip, but I'm not sure we'd want to spend too much longer there. I've heard that very few people speak English so I'll definitely go prepared with all the important addresses written down. I'm considering running a 1/2 marathon in Prague. It's supposed to be the prettiest marathon route in the world. Either way, we'll definitely be making a trip there before we leave Europe.

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    2. That's definitely true about the English thing. When I was in Krakow we found almost no one who could speak anything except Polish, including the lady working the desk at our hostel. We had 6 languages covered in our group (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Greek) but it didn't help!

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