Don't ask me the time.

Back in Krakow. New session of classes. It's not the same without the Germans.

I have come down with a cold. It is no fun meeting new people when you are shoving a tissue into your nose every five minutes. The group of students for this session is much smaller than last time, and they are not a vocal group. I went to lunch with four German girls and found myself completely dominating the conversation. When I stopped speaking, no one would say anything. I feel that if me--shy, quiet Yvonne--is the loudmouth of the table, there has to be a problem. The excitement level of the group--on a scale from 1-10--should be at about an 8. (HELLO! We're in Krakow and the weather is gorgeous and we're learning Polish and we're meeting new people!). This lunch group, the energy level was at about a 3.

My class only has four students in it, including me. One of the other students is Jill, a Brit who was in my class last session and who likes to talk, and then two boys who don't say much. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, our teacher is Agnieszka, who couldn't be more pleased to be teaching us Polish. No matter what we say, she nods her head with enthusiasm. Her excitement level is about a 10. As Jill would say in her thick northern England accent, "She's just lovely, isn't she?"

And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have Marek. Marek speaks no English and gets mad when I ask Jill questions in English.

"Speak only in Polish!" he commands.

Dude, we're only in level 1B. How I am supposed to ask "What does this word mean in English?" in Polish and then have her answer me in Polish. It makes no sense.

I think he is anti-English. Today, he made us go around the room and say how many languages we spoke well. Half points were given if it was your native language. Tobias got 2 points, Jill got 1.5 points and Andreas got 1.5 points. Marek would only give me .5 points.

He then proudly smirked, "I know Polish, French and Italian. I have the most points! And I am the only one who speaks French!" Then he pumped his arm in the air as if to indicate "I'm the best!" I swear, you would think he was French himself. These are the kinds of games Marek plays.

And he plays by his own rules. Later, I got into an argument with him because he said that May 1 is Labor Day and no one has to work, and this is common for all countries.

"In America, this is not true," I said in Polish. "It's in September."

He refused to believe me (wouldn't I know better than him?), and made me bet a beer on it. He owes me a beer. But somehow I know he will win.

The past two days, we are learning how to say time in Polish, and it is impossible for me. First, the times are presented in military time. So say the time I am given to translate is 19:30. I am terrible at math in my head, so I have to concentrate really hard and think, What time does that mean? And so I calculate for moment and realize, okay, that means 7:30 and so the Polish word for 7 pops in my mind. But it is useless because in Polish time, you say 30 minutes to 8. So then I have to think about the word for 8 instead. And then I have to remember how to say the correct form of the words because it changes depending on the time.

As you can imagine, this takes an extremely long time for me, especially when I am put on the spot. Today Marek tortured me by making me say "from 11:35 to 13:40." After the ten minutes it took me to say that, he made me repeat it. The bastard.

This afternoon, I went with a small group to Wyspianski Museum. Stanislaw Wyspianski was kind of like the Leonardo da Vinci of Poland--a brilliant man from the 20^th century who was a painter, stained-glass designer, playwright, architect, furniture and costume designer. I loved and was inspired by his pastel drawings; he had a way of capturing expressions on people's faces in a very realistic way. The museum had his sketches and ideas on different stain-glass projects, and we made our way to the Franciscan Church to see his designs first hand which were some of the most beautiful I have ever seen.

But what really startled me was when we walked past the gift shop, I saw one of his works of art that was not featured in the gallery. It was a sketch of a young girl with shoulder-length hair, hand over mouth. This very picture hung in my childhood bedroom. When I was little, I thought this was a drawing of me. A few years ago, my sister, Annette, and I talked about this picture and she said she had always thought it was a drawing of her.

And now I know who drew it. Roksanna, our guide, said this is a very famous drawing in Poland. They make many reprints. All those years, I thought it was only special to me.

God by Wyspianski.

Beautiful colors.

I thought that was me!