I would like to give my regards to you all, fellow posters, fellow samplers of these Eastern European states. I would also like to send you all my apologies for my late entrance into this blog.
There's so much that can be said about a month spent here in Wroclaw, so many things done and seen, that I think I'll just have to skip summary and move directly on to a few impression and events.
Perhaps the most important impression of Wroclaw for me really stems from the nature of our dorm. Wroclaw from the 13th floor is a mass of orange roof tops, forest on the outskirts of the city, and clusters of aging soviet block housing in the distance. The view has changed so many times, and taken on so many different types of moods and garbs. On certain days early on, when it was snowing hard, the sky was so full of snow that one could only see a little past the first rows of snow shod houses below. Sitting and smoking in the stairwell, I would watch the white flecks hammering through the wind tunnel created by the dual Oloweks. On a certain occasion, it was snowing fiercely and blowing hard between the two spires, and up from below flew one beleaguered pigeon, trying to manage the updrafts, and finally roosting on a jutting cement beam, I watched him for a while.

Then on other days, the view which was so often white and grey a few weeks ago, would take on the black flapping frenzy of a hundred thousand blackbirds swarming by the spires in which we live. The first time I noticed this phenomenon I was smoking. A black mass came into view above the city many blocks off. What frenzied flock was this? I leapt to my feet to look from the window, and lo what a murder it was. The flock of ravens stretched for many blocks, hundreds upon hundreds deep and wide, it swept up and back on itself, curling around as a great dragon of asia might twist through the clouds. It grew closer and closer, and finally drew up and charged Olowek, breaking upon the spire to swarm over and around it and move on.

Now on to more societal issues. Upon arriving, I had the distinct impression that the basic code of conduct for Poland worked in different ways from that which us Americans might be used too. I think my favorite personal example of Polish manners takes place in the grocery store across the street from our dorm. I was about to check out, and when I came to the check out lines I noticed that one was somewhat shorter than the others. There was a lady in her early sixties already in line, and a shopping basket in the aisle next to her. It looked like everything was going all right, so I stepped past the basket, it wasnt really in the middle of the aisle, but kind of sticking out into it. I realize now that that meant that the aisle was closed, but at the time for whatever reason I didnt make that connection. I stepped over the basket and was about to set down my groceries on the belt, when the lady who was checking out, mind you, not the lady at the cash register, but the sixty year old one in the aisle, turned to me with a wild eyed expression. Her whole presence puffed up like an irate grouse as she drew back and the blood rushed to her face, and with a throaty Slavic cry, summoned up her reserves and gave me a very startling shove.

Do widzenia for now,
Gabriel Morgan