June 30, Warsaw.

It's amazing how being verbally isolated from everyone around you can make you feel like you're on another planet. Today, after the meeting, I walked down to the Big Store (eerily reminiscent of Wal-Mart) to browse around and find some munchies. I get looked at by New York men often enough, but here it felt like everyone was staring at me because I was _different_. It's strange to walk around and feel so alone, and pretty helpless. I was looking for the cracker aisle, so I could have a vehicle for my Brie cheese, but all I could find were cookies! I wandered around the entire store looking for some hard flour-based salty thing, and the closest to cracker I found was something like Melba toast. I tried to ask people, but I guess I choose poorly, because three out of three didn't speak enough English to understand what I was looking for. I walked back determined to find Krzysztof (our host) tomorrow to ask him how to say the numbers 1-10, half, please, thank you, excuse me, sorry, and I don't speak Polish. Those seem like the essentials. Maybe Where is the bathroom would come in handy too.

I went to the fruit section and got some kiwis (3) and green apple (1). Then I went on my cracker hunt. As I was walking around in my giant circles, I happened to pass the fruit/veggie section again, and noticed that there was a clerk sitting in the middle of it surrounded by scales. People were lining up, putting their bags on the scales, and having the clerk stick price tags on them. I didn't understand how I had missed it the first time - I guess I never thought of that method of buying produce, so I didn't think about it. Anyway, I walked up and got in line, and when I held up my kiwi bag to put on the scale, the clerk shook her head and said something in Polish. I was so startled that I just turned around and left, and for some reason I figured that you only had to weigh vegetables ahead of time. So I wandered around some more and found my Melba toast and got in the cashier line, and just as it was becoming my turn I realized that that line of thought didn't make any sense at all, and that probably the kiwis were sold by piece rather than by weight, but that didn't let me draw any conclusions about the apple. So, to avoid the embarrassment of having the cashier try to explain - in Polish - why I couldn't pay for the apple, just in case I went back to the produce section and got back in the weighing line. I put my apple on the scale, and sure enough, she printed out a sticky and put it on the bag. Satisfied, I took my produce and cheese and toast back to the cashier and paid. I didn't even fumble with the coins!

The experience reminded me of one time I was in UFM (excuse me, Morton Williams University Supermarket). I was buying lettuce or something, and two girls about my age asked me about the apples in broken English (they spoke Russian). They didn't know whether the price listed was per piece or by weight (weight), and then they didn't know what the kilogram equivalent of one pound was (2.2 lbs = 1 kg), and then they weren't sure where they had to weigh the fruit they wanted (the cashier will do it for you). I helped as much as I could, and since I had just booked my ticket to stay here in Poland for two extra days - alone - I hoped my goodwill would lead to good karma over in the Eastern Bloc. I don't think it has, so far, though one guy was very helpful in locating the cheese.