"Sweet dreams american girl..."

Yesterday and today have been days of discovery. We were walking to school yesterday morning and saw an obscure hole in an apartment building wall that said "Pizzeria." It looked fairly clean, so Courtney and I made a pact to try it for lunch, instead of the normal chemistry building canteen that we regularly visit. Maybe too regularly, since there are a man and a woman working there, the former speaks english and the latter does not, and whenever the woman sees us she abruptly spins on her heels and beckons the guy. He knows us now and has started smiling when we ask, once again, if they are serving anything without pork. And he knows that we always order one Coke regular and one Coka Light. But YESTERDAY we made a new friend at the pizzeria... which has an awesome atmosphere with paintings and sailboats everywhere, wooden log walls, and a comforting smoky wood-burning stove smell. He kind of a squirrely guy who spikes his hair into a faux hawk and doesn't speak enough english to know the word 'pork,' but he put ICE in my drink yesterday when I asked for it, so all other faults (fashion, language, and otherwise) are forgiven. Plus, the cheese pizza with peppers is amazing. And as Damian would say, the white sauce isn't so bad either.

But yesterday I also discovered that "wettability" is indeed a real, english word, and that I should be published by the end of this summer ordeal! I had to translate Polish/English into understandable english... a feat which took almost three hours for a 10 page article... but the end result was gratifying. I realize that I'm being used for my skills in my native tongue, but actually finishing something (a paper, no less) felt accomplished. Task #1, completed. Oh yeah, and just in case you were wondering, wettability is the ability of an object to be wet, usually with a polar solvent, like water. Why is has two "t"s".. I have no idea.

And finally, yesterday my mother lead me to discover skyscanner.net, the world's most amazing European trip planner website. They help you get from point A to B as quickly or cheaply as possible, even if you have to book with two different airlines to get there. Which means that Courtney and I, plus Michael, David, and Markie as traveling buddies, will be in Amsterdam on June 19th, Paris on the 21st, Milan on the 23rd, Switzerland skydiving sometime around the 24th, and Rome somewhere in there. And we don't have a return ticket yet so we may just have to drive back through Austria and the Czech Republic, but who cares because the adventure is worth it. I'm expecting to have a blast.

Which leads us to today. I definitely used my dear friend skyscanner.net (I'm started to sound like a commerical for this place) to book tickets to Barcelona. Or rather, Courtney found and booked these tickets - and a hostel in this cute little town - to go to the RUNNING OF THE BULLS!! I'm really, really excited. First because I've never been to Spain, but secondly... because it's supposed to be an amazing ordeal where you stay up all night, sleep on a park bench if you get tired, wash your hair in a public sick if you feel that it's more important to get clean than to keep yourself from contracting tetanus, and generally meet a bunch of really interesting people... oh yes, and see six bulls chase down a crazy mob of even crazier men. Courtney and I would run, of course, if she hadn't just had knee surgery in December.

But today was also about sad discoveries. Both Damian and Dr. Stanishevsky are gone; Stan for the duration of our trip, and Damian for two entire weeks. It was incredibly quiet at the office today. Usually we're all jumping around, hyped up on the incredible amount of coffee that Polish people drink, and playing fake karate combat every chance we get. But Kristin was sick today, Sonda was diligently researching, and both V-Tech and Silent Bob where out of the office for most of the day. Court and I knocked on Dr. Mitura's door just go get some human contact (and maybe to discuss our projects just a little bit.) Seriously, today we discovered loneliness.

The silence became so tangible at one point that I opened iTunes, cranked my MacBook speakers up to maximum, and started blaring ABBA's "Mamma Mia" in honor of my dear friend Jozey Kovach... the music was infectious... and Courtney and I both sprang out of our chairs and started jump-dancing around the room in quite a ridiculous manner, using our pens as microphones. We just needed a little bit of crazy.

We did learn something really cool today when we were talking to Mitura, that we would have usually been otherwise too distracted to have listened to: finals are over this week and the Polytechnika (our University) spends a million dollars to have a giant open air discotheque in the arena. Every year, about 10,000 people show up to listen to Poland's greatest bands, drink a lot of beer, and dance the night away under the stars. Mitura urged us to go, with a least one boy who will make sure we are safe, and to skip the beer but go big on the dancing. I'm not a fan of beer anyway, it's disgusting, but I do think it would be really amazing to be part of a crowd of 10,000 under the night sky. Where else would I have the chance to do that... on a night that cost Poland one million dollars? The energy alone will be palpable.

I think I'll be lame and go to bed now. It's only 9:30 p.m., and in the words of the Sound of Music, "the sun has gone to bed and so must I." I meet with my research professor tomorrow to finalized plans about the hospital and I want to be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when she arrives. A smile always tips the scale in your favor.

Oh... and just for fun. Could you leave a comment if you read my blog? I'd like to see how many people keep up with this thing.

My quote to live this summer by:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed

 by the things you didn't do than by the ones you 

did do. 

So throw off the bowlines. 

Sail away from the safe harbor. 

Catch the trade winds in your sails. 

Explore. Dream. Discover.

-Mark Twain

(I quoted Mr. Twain because my adorable father called me his Mark Twain in an email to me this evening.)