A New Poland

I'm running quite behind on entries, so I will try to get caught up before our trip to Russia. It may be somewhat difficult, however, because my Mac has finally fallen victim to the strange forces of Olowek and is no longer functioning. It suddenly decided that it no longer knew where to find my hard drive, so I'm going to have a great time trying to get that one fixed.
However, despite the shortcomings of my computer, I am beginning to fall in love with this city. Twelve weeks after arriving may seem a little late, but better late than never, right?
The day of my arrival, the weather was nice. It quite reminded me of a North Carolina winter, which was perfect, because I'm not the largest fan of winter weather. The day was sunny and even somewhat warm, and I was a bit ill at myself for packing snow boots and sweaters. Two days after being here however, the temperature plummeted, the sky darkened, and the snow began to fall. At first it was beautiful and entertaining, and I thought then that I would love the city, but after weeks of bitter cold and trudging through snow and no sight of the sun, my opinion of the place matched the bleak atmosphere outside. Then rains came, and though at first I was happy to see them (finally, something different), they were miserable as well. It turned all the snow to sloppy slush and you were frozen to the core and soaked by the time you got indoors. I never wanted to venture outside, and I even began letting myself think about how nice it would be if I was home.
But eventually, the sun cracked through the cloud covered sky, and it slowly began to warm the earth. Snow melted and in it's place there was grass, with little flower buds pushing their tiny heads up from the mud. Trees budded, shrubs showed signs of life. And then one day, everything was green! There were leaves on the trees, the sun was out, birds were singing, peacoats and scarves were left at home. The city was alive again and so was it's people. Everyone wore a frown in the winter, no one was ever pleasant. But now people smiled, you heard laughter when you walked through the park, and the cashiers at Carrefour even greeted you with "Dzien dobry" and a smile before scanning your items and shoving them at you.
People are now venturing out of doors and making themselves seen. This weekend past, Deep Purple came to play in the Rynek in Wroclaw, and the crowd they drew was unbelievable. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, hours before Deep Purple would play, there were already thousands of rock-clad Poles, with guitars in hand, playing along with opening bands. I've never seen Rynek like that before, there wasn'teven space to move.
Overall, I think I'm finally starting to get a grip on this Polish life. And I have to say, it might not be so bad after all.