Taking the leap...Poland here we come!

The past few months have been probably the craziest of my life. Within 24 hours of each other, my husband changed career plans from dentistry to medicine and we found out I was pregnant. A few weeks later we left for a family visit in Brazil. Returning to Utah, our next few weeks were a blur. First there was the disappointment of a miscarriage. Then studying and taking the MCAT, solving a tax auditing issue, panicking at 10:45 pm when we find out that the passport photo won't work and the only photo center that is still open will close at 11, and then driving Alex to the airport at 4:30 the next morning so he can fly to LA to get a Polish visa AND a new Brazilian passport within 4 hours. 

(Wait, there's more.) 

Selling our apartment contract, selling all of our furniture, packing everything else, re-packing everything to store at my parent's house...the list goes on. And yes, we were both still working at our jobs during all of this. 

I get panicky just writing about it...

Predictably, when we finally boarded the plane my brain was doing the equivalent of that thing that happens after a day at Lagoon--right when you are about to fall asleep and you jerk awake with the feeling of somersaulting through the air. 

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We flew to New York (I tried without success to convince Alex that visiting an airport doesn't count toward our list of "visited" places...but he still wanted to take a picture,) then we flew to Istanbul. If we were to take any pictures, that should've been the place. I have never been around so many Muslims in my life. And orthodox ones too; women covered from head to toe, even wearing gloves, with only a small hole for their eyes. This time, we thoroughly enjoyed playing our long-layover-game where we watch people walk past and comment on the first thing that stands out about them.

After just one overnight flight we already look exhausted

Two days after leaving (I have no idea how many hours...we went through too many time zones) we arrived in Warsaw. First stop: Holiday Inn :) After running out of water at the airport, and not finding any drinking fountains, we were both thrilled to see water bottles in our hotel room. Turns out, it wasn't water, at least not in the American sense of the word. It was a fizzy, tasteless, sugarless thing. Terrible! Apparently the Poles love it.

After a delicious Polish breakfast of crepes, pastries, fruit, nutella, yogurt, and a wide assortment of breads, meats, and cheeses, we left for the city that will be our home for the next two years. 

Alex took a picture of me enjoying our Valentine's Day breakfast at the hotel

I don't want share too much about Lublin yet, since the next post will be an introduction to the city, but I have to share one small tidbit that probably doesn't actually typify the average Pole, but is a good story nevertheless. While we looked at apartments, we spent the first four days at a hotel down the street from the medical school campus. For $50/night, it was ritzy. Each evening, after dinner we went to the hotel spa. Besides the two saunas and hot tubs, we sat in "the cave" where the ceiling and walls mimicked stalactites and we breathed salty air and listened to classical music and water dripping. One evening we were relaxing in our hot tub when a couple came out of the sauna and headed to the hot tub right next to ours. The man wore just a towel, as we were instructed to do when using the sauna. But rather than go into the locker room to put on his swim shorts, he just headed straight to the hot tub and pulled off the towel just feet away from our shocked faces. Alex practically jumped on me to cover my eyes. haha. 

Welcome to Poland!?