Puppy in the National Museum

Hello my Friends,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebrations. I am sure your kids are occupied with new toys and you are stepping back to the office to see “what’s going on with Anna and the gang?”

Well, we survived Christmas with the family and Twins birthday.

But let me start where I dropped off last time. The story with registering our car in Poland went  smoothly but with lots of driving on my side. First, I drove to mechanic to do the inspection. It was Saturday, so traffic was not so bad, and I was driving for about 45 minutes to get there, the last leg of the road was on a dirt road due to construction of fancy new one along the one in description. Still, I made it (I should remember to write “persistent” in my cover letter) the place was open, the inspector came to me and asked if all of necessary adjustments are done. I acknowledged that and then he asked me if I have all of the necessary documents translated. I said I do all but the title and of course I had to get that translated too, so I went back home empty-handed – without inspection. At home I went through all of the papers I was carrying with me to the inspector and … I found the translation. Apparently, when the car was going through customs somewhere in Chojnice somebody did the translation for us. I was not aware of that. But remember I was persistent or determined to get inspection done so I called a couple of places and one of them was still open. Once again I got to the car and drove on. The first place I went to by mistake scolded me for lack of front license plate (that one was stolen during transit) and the guy did not want to talk to me. The second place was very friendly (Fiat dealership on Karkonoska) but they were not authorized to do inspection on imported cars, however they recommended a close by place. I checked that place but it was already closed. So, I said to myself I will start my efforts again on Monday. Which I did – Monday morning inspector from that close by place did not like my car, recommended so that I get all of the adjustment redone and he recommended his friend’s place. I ignored him and went again to my first place 45 minutes away from my home. The inspector I met was the one I spoke with on previous Saturday, he asked me standard questions “Why did you get back from USA? How long did you live there? Are your kids bilingual?” (Of course I went there with all of my children.) Nice man. My Ford passed the inspection without any problems and then the inspector used original title (not the translation) to write-up certification. Next step – RMV or DMV Polish edition. Surprisingly clerks were NICE and HELPFUL and I mean it. Officially we are Lublin residents  not Wroclaw and it could be a potential problem with getting Wroclaw’s license plates but with a statement that we are going to be residents here and not there I was granted a permission for local plates. Ok, I got the plates but there was a slight problem – American plates have holes punched out for mounting them on a car, Polish ones do not. So how do you mount them? I wondered. Well the answer is simple you get sort of frame that is mounted on the car and you slip in license plate into those frames. Great but where do you buy the frames? Here I got creative I went to the close by VW dealership and asked if they sell them, I had no idea where else is a store you could buy them, and I did not have my MA plate anymore. “Ask and you shall get” it was true with me, too. I got those frames for free and now I am advertizing the VW dealership on my American car. Cool.

Due to never-ending, taking turns on being sick with my kids I decided to make a birthday party at home. Slawek was not so hot to that idea “How are you going to put 29 people in our apartment?” Helena and Michal invited twelve school mates for the party and Slawek was convinced that all of the parents will want to stay with their children. It was not what happened. First of all only seven kids came and only two moms stayed with us. Second of all the party was fantastic! I had a theme – Christmas decorations for a craft, Polly Pockets and Thomas and Friends for a free play. I am sure you know about fuse beads – the ones you make a design on a template then iron finished design and all of the loose beads became one piece. So, I gave those for the children and they were mesmerized! At first they had no idea how those beads will hold together but once they saw it they did not want to play with anything else, for hour and a half they were making designs. They were even happier when they found out they are going to take them home. I swear, it was a big hit! The two hours of the party went by really quick. I think Polly Pockets and Thomas were barely played with.

We went to Lublin for Christmas. Of course, Slawek and I had to have a difference of opinion on how to get there. I wanted to drive there in our car, he wanted to take a train or a bus. Finally we made a deal that if the forecast calls for snow by December 21 we will go by bus. We agreed that the train is not a good way of traveling because we may not have a seat for the entire journey, besides I was repeating that the last time I was on a train I was sick for three weeks afterwards. Then Slawek found out that there are horrible delays on the railroad. The forecast did call for snow and icky weather but we went by car. People are the same regardless of the country, so there were so many travellers that we could not buy tickets.

This way we test-drived Polish roads. They are not horrible, all the time! We drove from the west side of Poland to the east for 267 miles (431 km) and we made it in 9 hours (no highways just something like state roads – one lane in each direction). On our way to Lublin we have stopped for brunch at a restaurant in Wielun, little people had french fries and Kasia had pasta with bacon and wild mushroom. The pasta was delicious, the whole meal was about $12. Poland seems to have some bright sides.

Family Christmas was pretty and exhausting. We had a traditional supper on Christmas Eve at Slawek’s family and then with mine. We spent Christmas at my nieces home (half day) and we enjoyed her four-month old boy who is really big now (he was a 10 lb at birth) he is about 19 lb. Big bundle of joy! On Boxing Day we visited three places – it was a marathon and I was glad to retire the next day to cross-stich I brought with me to keep boredom off. As usual my picky eaters were harassed by strange foods offered by grandparents, they yielded only to home smoked sausage and ham(Kasia ate both, twins only the latter). Other than that they resisted everything new. Surprisingly kids did not want to go back to Wroclaw, but they did. Our way back was a little faster despite worse weather, it snowed for the second part of the journey. You do not have to ask who did all of the driving – Slawek. I only took the car out of the garage making half a million tiny turns and then put the car back in there – same story. Still, we made it safely and my husband was glad we drove. I was glad, too. Despite the fact he did not let me drive ; – )

Oh, the big news Slawek and I went for a Christmas dinner organized by his company. Kids stayed with a baby sitter. It was nice evening.

Today Slawek was almost locked up at his workplace because he did not know it is a short work day. Security guy let him out so he could celebrate New Year with his family.

As for the puppy in the National Museum, I saw one when I was there with my family. Strange thing, they barely let the visitors in at the Steward Gartner Museum in Boston, here they let you in for free every Saturday (to permanent exhibitions), give postcards of the museum collections to kids, picture taking is allowed and so are the puppies…

Happy New Year to all of you!

Anna

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