Konin

The weekend started out with St. Patrick's day.  Fil and I purchased a nice bottle of Irish whiskey to begin the evening.  Tomek had reserved a table at the Dubliner under the Castle so that is where we were going to head eventually later.  Earlier that day we had a histology test that went well so I have enough points to not take the last test.  I left for Konin at about 1430 on Friday.  My Polish teacher let me leave early and was happy/surprised that I was going to go to a nearby town to spend the weekend.

Konin is about 90 km away from Poznan, so roughly an hour and you will be there.  Konin allegedly in invented the condom.  Kon means horse in Polish and that is the origin of the name.  It has a population of about 80,000.  Fil's parents grew up there.  Fil's cousin, Tomek also grew up there, as did Mikloj.  Fil's dad and Tomek's dad are brothers and Fil's mom is sisters with Mikloj's mom.  We walked around the city Friday night seeing the sights and sounds.  We ended up going to Tomek's 'bomb' shelter, an underground bar, to spend most of the night as all of Konin was closed.  It was quite nice hanging out drinking and smoking cigars with Tomek's dad for much of the night.  It was a funny weekend with respect to the language barrier between me and all of their families.

The following day we went to the Konin Zoo.  Next we went to the 5th largest basilica in the world, Basilica of Our Lady of Lichen, in the nearby city of Lichen.  It is allegedly the 2nd largest with respect to its size above ground.  It was breathtaking.  Later we went back to Mikloj's house and watched a Polish movie with his parents and drank some good Champagne.  The next day we went around to a few other places ending the night with a great dinner.  It has been a while since I had a delicious proper meal, needless to say breakfast every morning.  It was a great time and I was happy to finally make it to Konin, I'm sure it won't be the last time.

Yummy

Nice Ola

At Dubliner

Na Zdrowia (to health)

Michal

Tomek

Professor and Ola

Dubliner, it really has the feel of Ireland

Michal

Sour face

Another sour face

arm wrestling Tomek

Poland is SO colorful

Relaxing in Milkoj's living room.  The house was awesome, so many cool things about it.  Shower with a huge built in shower head in the ceiling.  upstairs and downstairs with 2 kitchens, I could go on

Sweet tunnel

All the clocks are wrong in Konin

Entering the 'bomb shelter'

Cutting off the end of the cigar

Traditional poland, vodka and meat sticks.  The shot glasses were 60 years old.  

Bartender Tomek

The zoo

Broken compass

Nice carving.  There are tons of churches around Konin too.

Some animals

The statue that would be covered by plastic to represent a condom

part of their stary rynek

something to do with the KON (horse) in Koning

the official shield/symbol of Konin

where Mikloj had his 21st birthday.  Cool flower paintings on the walls.

Town hall

Rare gems were taken to central Europe from the Baltic Sea using a route that went through Konin right at this point.

Basilica of Our Lady of Lichen

The backside 

it is huge

A wedding was taking place

The picture doesn't accurately portray its immense size

A replica of the Jesus' journey up to the mountain

The group

The Church where Fil's parents got married

Polish sunset

?

Mikloj's mom's garden, she talks to her plans, like my mom!

The caribbean blue water.  It's color is due to pollution from the power plant in the distance.

The van almost getting stuck in the mud

Mikloj's Family

St. Patricks Day

I had a fun St. Patrick's day with lots of pictures.  Now off to Konin, a town about an hour away.  I'm going with Fil and Tomek, Tomek's driving.  May or may not have internet, but I will update with pictures upon my return.  Do widzenia

Warmth

So lately it has been pretty warm, almost 60!  I've been spending my time getting prepared for histology.  We have a quiz coming up and I need to get 17 out of 50 on each of the last 2 to be able to take the final, pretty doable.  We had an anatomy exam last week and I did very well, highest score.  I watched some movie with Dennis about Ghana and learned a lot about their culture.  They have president type of figures but each town has their own King.  The king is somewhat above the law and they can do whatever they want.  They still have some wild rituals about how kings don't step on the ground and expressing displeasure by taking a king's shoes.  I hung out with my friend Valerie and her roommate last Tuesday then went to Karolek, the other dorm, to have an American evening, beer pong!  It was very fun, the champs, Fil and I, held down the table for most the night.  We only played for a couple hours then headed back to our respective rooms for the night.  Good times.  

This weekend was fairly relaxing too.  I did meet with El ProfessOR and Tomek to hangout for a while and I went home before they went out.  I didn't feel like being out until morning time.  Nothing too much else to report.  Here are some random pictures from the last couple weeks.  

Dennis' toothbrush

He actually started using mine for some reason.  I couldn't find it one day then I saw it in the bathroom.  I keep my in my bag on the shelf.  I left it in there one day and I guess he just started using it.  Weird but at least it is better than his old one.  

2 Fridays ago

Last Friday, snow all melted

At the shot bar, post Anatomy Exam with Maja Valeria and Michal

Friday night at 11 in the library.  Yes that is a beer being poured into a coffee cup.  Our friend Christer goes to the gas station and delivers these gifts to those who are crazy enough to be at the library until close on a Friday.  

Nice view from the 2nd floor of the library.  Coffee (sans beer) and my histology book.

Chill Week

So this was the beginning of a new semester.  We finished chemistry, PE, embryology, First Aid and added Biology and Philosophy.  I am keeping my fingers crossed to get out of them as I have done them previously.  As for the week.. nothing really but anatomy and class.  We have an exam Monday so everyone has been studying a lot.  I feel pretty good about it, I have studied a lot and I think I am well prepared.  It is fairly stressful as you can still learn new things but I know almost all of the Board Review Series book on the upper limb, back, head/neck and thorax.  I spent countless hours in the library after class this week so it will be nice to sleep in and get some rest finally.

Today was a nice day.  I went to bed at 2am woke up at 4am and read biophysics for our new seminar class, instead of the lab, thank goodness.  It is at 8am across town so we left the dorms at 7 and this seminar was quite nice compared to the craziness of the lab last semester.  I signed up to present on cell potential Na K Ca.. all the things I learned previous at UCSD so it should be nice.  I do that next week.  I also signed up to give the introduction presentation on xrays.  Today our seminar was on ultrasound, pretty interesting.

Following class I was at the library in the quiet room.  My good friend Valerie studies there and I joined her recently and found that I like it.  I was there from about 4 to 12.  Following that we had some choice beverages at Wilhelm's place and watched the Lion King, pretty awesome.  In the mean time Valerie cut my hair and it looks pretty awesome.  Usually I have people buzz it because it is hard to mess up that way. I thought she could do it old school with scissors and it turned out great, so I have found my new hair cutter in Poland!  Tomorrow I will sleep in and study some more anatomy.  I spoke with a friend today, Michal, about how he felt about the test because he is well prepared like I am and he said he has taken all these practice tests and they are pretty easy so he is not going to stress about studying more, so I will join him with that mentality.  Time to go to sleep though, I have been up for almost 24 hours, again.

Pictures to be posted soon