Under the Weather

The Wisła Outside Wawel at Night

So I didn't escape Marta's (my roommate) cold after all. I got very sick and spent the entire week in bed building up immunities to European germs. Turns out Marta's mother is a doctor and she has a GIANT box of medicine underneath her bed. Her and my suite mates were very concerned about me. They thought I looked pretty bad and were convinced I had a temperature. The thermometer reading kept coming out way too low and they were very perplexed by this. I tried to explain that my temp is normally low, but they said that the result was impossibly low. It was centigrade so I couldn't offer much help. Then Marta got on the phone with her Mom and the three of them were crowded around the box of medicines arguing about what I should take in a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian while they all took turns intermittently feeling my head. As all the medicinal instructions are in Cyrillic, they explained what I needed to take when and how often in a mixture of English, Polish and gesturing. They finally made me drink something, take a spray for my throat, a spray and drops for my nose and put something like vapor rub on before I went to sleep. Then Marta insisted on making me a special tea with jam that she brought from the Ukraine. It was delicious. It had whole raspberries and was not very sweet. The whole situation felt completely ridiculous. I never in a million years thought that I would be surrounded by teenagers taking care of me, but I just surrendered and felt much better because of it. They were very sweet. Every day each one of them checked-in to see how I was doing. I have not been that sick in a long time, but I am much better now!

The Walk Along the 72 Line

I finally got all my proper forms of Polish identification. Below is my dorm ID, my school ID, my train pass and my train pass ID. I need all of them on a daily basis which seems a little ridiculous. AND, I still need my U.S. driver's license to get into clubs. 

After being here almost a month I encountered  a ticket checker for the first time on the tram. I was staring out the window, zoning out and this older man came up and poked me and said, 'przepraszam!' I just looked at him, bewildered as to what he could possibly want. Then he waved this thing that looked like a handheld credit card machine at me and said, 'proszę dokument.' Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head and I pulled out my card which he touched to the machine and then headed on his merry way. I now know what they mean when they say these guys come out of nowhere. They are normally dressed, so you would never see them coming. 

The Plethora of IDs I have to Carry at all Times