The Holidays Again

It's that time of year again.

I've been fortunate the past few years to be able to enjoy the holiday season with my family. But, alas it was bound to happen eventually and this year marks the first year that I will be without them. Instead I'll be sitting in my dormitory binge watching movies. Somehow, it just doesn't seem the same. It's like there isn't any holiday happening at all. I didn't even realize that tomorrow was Christmas Eve and the final day of Hanukkah until someone else pointed it out.

I suppose it will hit me more in the coming days- as unlike in the U.S. EVERYTHING in Poland is set to close down. I went shopping today and I think I have enough food to make it through!

Last weekend I went to Berlin to get some things sorted out and I got to visit a few of their Christmas markets. They're all so festive and beautiful! I wish my family could have been there to share it. I feel like I rushed past things or walked through quicker than I would have if someone had been there with me. I was going to buy a few things, but my enjoyment was interrupted by a sudden thunderstorm. Yeah, you read that right- a thunderstorm in the  middle of December.

Unfortunately, I was pretty soaking wet after this. And on top of that I pretty much had no place to go to dry off or get warm since I had already checked out of my hotel and my train wasn't set to leave for another 6 hours. So I made my way back to the Haufbahnhof (main train station), went to the food court area, got a coffee, and attempted to study.

Three hours later my eyes started to droop so I bought another coffee, but I couldn't resist the urge anymore and I put my head down on my textbook to try and rest for a minute. What I was not expecting was to have two very (excuse my language) bitchy workers come and wake me up and tell me off after only around two minutes after I did this. Yes, I know sleeping in public areas, not a great thing to do. But, seriously? I'm sitting here with my coffee and snack that I just bought, with my bags, and my medical textbook book- do I really look like I'm homeless? And even if I were, I would hope that you'd treat someone with a bit more respect!

I eventually hopped on my train back to Poland. The train in question was headed to Moscow. Everyone on it was jabbering away in Russian the conductor didn't speak German, or English, or even Polish for that matter (though the languages are similar enough- I just had no idea what he was saying). Luckily the woman in my compartment was able to translate and we talked almost the whole way back to Poland. We exchanged e-mail addresses and hopefully we'll stay in touch. She made what would have been a miserable 5 hour trip very nice and seem short (unfortunately for her the trip to Moscow from Berlin is about 20+ hours).

Anyways, that's pretty much it as far as what I've been up to- besides working in the hospital (which I love by the way).

Oh and it's not going to be a white Christmas here...it's hovering around 50 degrees fahrenheit (10 degrees celsius) and it hasn't stopped raining for the past 2 weeks.