"You can't buy happiness but you can buy books and that's kind of the same thing."

So…. I need to confess, that I entered the part of exchange when I don’t have any time for blogging and my enthusiasm for posting all the time about everything has burnt out. I really thought that it would never happen to me, but apparently it’s an ordinary part of an exchange and I need to go through it.

Christmas Eve (24.12) felt really weird this year. Even if my host family is partly polish which is expressed mostly in their love to pierogies (American spelling ;)), it was not the same with sneaking into the kitchen with my younger brother to pilfer some Christmas food. 

For entire day my American mom and I were baking cookies and in the evening, when you were in a middle of celebration, we went to Mexican café for tacos. Later that day I’ve met my two sisters, who have just came back from Europe (one of them works in London, and the youngest one decided to visit her and travel a little). Both are red-headed, taller than me (and I’m not a dwarf), talkative, loud and full of energy. 

First thing we did on The First Day of Christmas (25.12) was participating in catholic Christmas mass. As I have never been in American Catholic Church I was really enthusiastic about discovering all the differences, however there weren’t many of them (I’ve immediately noticed an american flag in a corner and Vatican City's in other. Another difference was that communion is given away in two forms- bread and wine).
After a few minutes of casual hang out in home we all hit the road (I felt in love with trucks. One day I’ll buy one, place comfortably 10 people in there and travel across country listening to 60’ music. I’ll to do that right after I learn how to play the banjo. Which, of course, is going to happen very soon. Duuuuh). After three hours of drive we arrived to my host dad’s sister’s house. We unpacked in our rooms (house was really big, all 12 of us were sleeping comfortably) and I got overly excited about shower curtain with political map of the world. We spent really nice day enjoying family, which part I started to feel just after a few hours.

Second Day of Christmas (26.12) was the day when rest of family arrived and I met my oldest sister (also red-headed, talkative, and full of energy, but this time not that tall :)), her husband and a baby (we had two babies in total during Christmas Days). We were spending really nice time doing nothing in particular, and in the evening we sat at the table to eat our Wigilia (that’s exactly how my host family calls it). They are aware that traditionally it is on Christmas Eve, but after years of trial and error they have decided that spending time with your family is more in Christmas spirit that sticking to a certain date. We shared oplatki (another polish aspect in my host family’s heritage) and started eating. They know barszcz, however in this family they traditionally eat a Greek Lemon Soup. There were a lot of fish, shrimp, potatoes and mushrooms, but I preferred pierogies. They tasted differently that the ones I’m used to eat during Wigilia, but different does not mean worse or better. 

After dinner (let me explain the names a little. During my English classes in Poland I was taught that dinner is “obiad” and supper is “kolacja” and I grew up in misbelief that that’s the proper way to name meals. No one has ever warned me, that people in other countries may have different meal order than we do, except informing me about lunch, which always figured in my mind as “earlier dinner”.  Since my arrival I haven’t heard the term “supper”, not even once. They eat dinner around 8-9pm, so it may go under our term “kolacja” and that’s why I name meal we ate for Wigilia a dinner) we were hanging out in living room and my host cousin’s boyfriend showed me his tattoo asking if I can translate it. HE HAD A TATTOO IN POLISH. It was supposed to mean “He does the best he can” (the quote from this guy’s father’s favorite movie), and was pretty accurate (it missed only ‘jak’ word).
We spent evening and night (until almost 3am) playing games and running around the Ping-Pong table.

Third day if Christmas (27.12, and yes, I know there isn’t such a thing) I corrected some crazy tumblr knowledge, as if in Poland we hang spiders on Christmas tree (!?!?!?!?!?!?) and got back to Leonardtown (where my American home is) when we unwrapped our gifts. What I really like about Christmas here is that every package had a sticker to whom it belongs, but also who bought the gift so everyone knew who to thank and entire process became more thoughtful.

On Saturday (28.12) my host dad took me to the bookstore in old part of town, which has all those “rare, used, and out-of-print books”. It draw my attention from the very first time I saw it and when I finally entered the only thing I could do was to open my eyes wider and wider. Imagine the book store in which you can find things you haven’t even dreamed about, all those various books that seem to be just one big mess, but when you look closer you can discover a pattern. Books on a shelf, below shelf, literally ON a shelf, in a stack in a corner, everywhere. Some were new, but most of them had already some story behind. I ended up buying three, in which two didn’t have a summary on a cover (well, they lacked this colorful cover, and the hard cover in this type of books does not contain anything but a title). It adds a little bit of spice to my life, going on a blind date with a book!
I had found some pictures, so you can pretend to understand my enthusiasm!

On Sunday (29.12) we visited my oldest sister’s mother in law, who is Filipino. We prepared some traditional Filipino dishes (Lumpia and Pansit) having so much fun. My sisters didn’t believe when I told them that I’m bad at cooking, but they may have changed their opinion when I almost killed myself with a knife (I have no idea how it happened! In one moment I’m cutting carrot, a second later I almost lost my finger!).
Day ended with Pusoy Dos, which is a traditional Filipino card game (sometimes called a “Filipino Poker”). You don’t know what achievement is, if you haven’t outplayed a Filipino men in his country’s game after only a day of practice! :)