Made it!!

I'm here!!  I'm using a public computer in my hotel lobby (Novotel Centrum if anyone is in the neighborhood and wants to stop by).  Just got back from a short visit to the PwC office and a surprisingly good Thai dinner, complete with real Asian chefs (not sure if they were actually Thai, but hey, at least they were the right skin tone).  I also walked past a pho place so just with that, pretty much all of my dreams came true.

It has been quite a day(s) and doesn't yet feel like I live here, but maybe it's because I am in the hotel until I can find an apartment (which I will do next week).  Or it's because I'm so tired and delirious I don't know what day or time it is.  I left the SF apartment at 7am Tuesday and thanks mostly to a long delay in Chicago, I arrived in my hotel in Warsaw on 4pm on Wednesday. 

Tweeder was nice enough to drive me to the airport 5 hours after we went to sleep (after a night filled with popcorn, shots, and bingo...and somehow the bartender got the entire bar to sing the only song he knows with my name in it...which was "happy birthday"). Kevin was in town too so it made for a fun last night in the city. I'd post a picture or two but cannot since I can't upload it to this computer (or am not smart enough to know how to).

With my 2 suitcases in tow, and equipped with several PB&Js and a gallon size ziplock bag of Stacy's pita chips, I was ready for the journey.  On my flight to Chicago, the guy next to me clearly wanted to chat, but I kept nodding off (afterall, the on-screen movie was Letters from Juliet). He asked if I was coming or going...I said going, to Warsaw, but for some reason told him I lived in Pacific Heights still rather than tell him I was moving. Was I still in denial???

But then during my layover, I called my credit card companies to tell them about then move...this time I told them that the address change was effective immediately! It was a strange feeling telling them I was moving...like moving there literally as we speak.

Overall, I was delayed in Chicago for nearly 5 hours. While waiting to check in, I scoped out all the Polish people in line at Lot airlines, wondering if anyone was going to be my neighbor and to look for any Asian-Poles. None. Then a lady tells me I get to go to the front of the slow moving line. Nice. The 2 girls working the ticket cuounter are cute girls in their 20s. Double nice. Hopefully Poland is filled with those (kinda kidding but not really). They tell me I get an $8 food voucher since the flight was delayed, but I still have 3 PB&Js left so don't really need anything.  I can't waste, so I get soup and a banana, which added up to about $5.50. The cashier says I don't get any change so I should just spend all $8. So I get 2 more bananas. Now my bag has 3 PB&Js, 2 bananas and 3/4 gallon of pita chips. Don't be jealous.

In the business lounge I pick up a Polish newspaper thinking my Rosetta Stone has paid off and I am magically fluent. Well, let me summarize all the words I recognized: nie (no), jest (is), marriott, and ha ha (which I assume means ha ha, otherwise I guess I don't really recognize it). I have a long way to go with my Polish. I get out my dictionary to translate, and now I know that "waluty" means currency and that someone on the front cover is being called a "fatygowal". I didn't bother looking that word up, because the word fatygowal is entertaining enough and it probably can't mean anything better than how it sounds. It's like a name that wives call their lazy husbands who won't leave the couch. From now on, that's what it will be. 

I was able to sleep a little on the flight between Chicago to Warsaw (it about 9 hours), but I was surrounded by a grumpy lady who kept giving me evil looks, and a big-bellied, drunk American who kept yelling out to his friend "Whoa, she's so hot. She took off her sweater".  WTF?  Gosh those Americans are obnoxious. 

That guy was definitely a fatygowal.