Last day before class

So yesterday was the last day before we start teaching classes. The Polish kids spent most of the day moving into the dorms, and the teachers (us) spent the morning in meetings, planning our classes and our afternoon and evening activities. Lunch was AMAZING. We had crepe type things stuffed with cream cheese and raisins with chocolate and strawberries on top:

We also moved from having our meals in the dining room that was in some of the previous pictures I posted to being in the large cafeteria. The students all eat cafeteria style, taking up their trays, and all the teachers get our food brought to us. Fan-cy!

Later in the afternoon I decided to go for a walk down by the river. I can't believe I hadn't gone down there yet! It was so pleasant, with lots of people walking around and sitting by the river. There were a bunch of couples making out too -- I guess PDA is more acceptable here.


They had a lot of these boat thingies that were actually floating bars. I didn't go to one, but I bet it's really pleasant to just sit out on the river and have a drink in the afternoon.


Here's the view facing away from the river. You can see the walls of the town and some of the older buildings inside. I guess Torun is a big tourist destination for Polish people because it is historical (kind of like a Williamsburg, I guess).


I don't know what this little wooden building is, but underneath it was a wall that had some sort of weird trippy mural on it.


...which somebody graffitied

Oh Ludvig...


Anyway, today I had my first morning of classes. It went really well -- much more smoothly than I was hoping for. I did a little "lesson" about American universities, and then I had them read articles from the Marquette Journal and explain them to the class in English. There's a real variation in their skill levels. I had three classes, and in each class there was at least one person who was really really good at English-- raising their hands, talking about how they wanted to travel to California, or asking me questions after class. There was also at least one kid in each class who seemed to not have learned much English at all and who were really uncomfortable speaking in front of the class. Hopefully these 3 weeks of class will be helpful to them.

Well that's all for now! Tonight we're doing a scavenger hunt, pitting the homerooms against each other. My homeroom's color is red, and we voted on the name "Red Rhinos." Go Rhinos!