Ms. Panic

If you read my blog, you know that most of the time I laugh at my boyfriend. It’s kind of mean so today I will show you what it looks like to live with me.

I would like to work as an interpreter. I’m on the fifth year of Italian philology so sometimes I receive a commission from a translation office. These commissions last for about a week and take place in the factory 25km away from Poznan. The company provides buses so the commute isn’t bad.

There are two different buses which set off from two different parts of Poznan. Before our moving I was using one of them and I’d never had any problem. Then, I moved to a new apartment and I had to start using the other one. And here our story begins.

During the summer, I received a new commission. My shift would start at 2 pm and finish at 10 pm. Nothing new to me. A day before I received a new timetable, I checked where the bus stop was and went to sleep.

The day arrived, I left home knowing that I would be at the bus stop 10 minutes earlier. And I wasn’t wrong. There were a lot of people, so I was just standing there and waiting for my bus. After 10 minutes there was no bus.

• It must be late – I thought, but I wasn’t that calm anymore. – What if I’m at the wrong bus stop?!

Suddenly, I saw that the bus. I started breathed again and then stopped breathing at all. It didn’t pick me up. It turned left instead of driving straight ahead along the street. (At this moment I have to tell you that in stressful situations I always panic). Instead of thinking what to do, I quickly called my boyfriend.

• I’m at work, I can’t talk.
• But the bus didn’t stop! – I said almost crying (from the tone of my voice he knew it was an emergency)
• How is that possible?
• I think, I’m on the wrong bus stop – I wasn’t crying. Yet.
• Ok, wait a moment, I’ll check it for you.
• Ok 😦
• Book an uber to the terminus and take the city bus. Calm down, you have plenty of time.
• Ok, thanks.

So, I booked an uber and saw that it would arrive in 8 minutes.

• What happened? Did you book an uber as I told you?
• Yes but it will be here in 8 minutes, that’s too long, I will be late!
• It’s not that far, you have 25 minutes to arrive to the terminus, you’ll make it.
• Ok 😦

The uber arrived, the driver was very nice and understanding so he did everything to catch the bus for me. I realised that I’d be there on time but the stress was still enormous.

• Why are you calling? Did you miss the bus?
• No, I’ll be right on time but I don’t have any money to buy a ticket and I can’t pay with a debit card on the bus! – of course my voice was full of panic.
• I’ll buy it for you with an app and send you a screenshot.
• Ok, thanks 😦

I arrived there on time, to be honest I even had 5 minutes until the departure. There were 2 different buses. I knew the route of one of them because I used it before during my previous commission. But my app showed me that the other one would arrive at the factory too and that it was quicker. I wasn’t quite sure if it was true so I asked the driver:

• Do you stop in XXX?
• Yes.
• Ok, thanks.

The bus set off so there was nothing else I could possibly do. I checked that I’d be in the factory 5 minutes to 2 pm so I should be on time. I did it, so why was I still stressed? I texted my SO that I was on the bus. “Great! Text me from the factory”. I was sitting in the bus, trying to calm down but I was still nervous. After 20 minutes I was a little bit calmer. Suddenly, I saw the factory I was working in. It was behind the huge field, I looked around I saw that there are only 4 people on the bus. I checked the time – 2 pm.

• I don’t like it – I thought – we should have been there 5 minutes ago.

I sat next to the driver and asked:

• Excuse me, when will we arrive to XXX?
• I’m not going there (the whole world stopped).
• What?! I asked you in Poznan if you go there and you said that you do! How is it possible? I’m late for work, how will I get there now?!

The driver seemed to be very confused. He apologised to me and said that I should get out now and there is another bus to the factory. Well, my options were  limited so I did what he said. I got off the bus in the middle of nowhere, I checked the timetable and found out that the bus he was talking about would be there in 50 minutes. I looked around. The only thing I could see were huge fields and a factory behind one of them. You can imagine the level of my stress. I couldn’t give up, the factory didn’t seem to be that far so I checked on the phone how far it was exactly. 6 km, 30 minutes of walking.

• Hi honey, are you already in the factory? – my SO asked happily.
• I took the bus, the driver told me that he was going to the factory but he wasn’t listening to me and now I’m in the middle of nowhere, 6 km away from the factory with no bus, uber or taxi! 😦 😦 😦 – I bet he understood only the small part of what I said because I was already crying.
• Oh, don’t cry. Send me your location and I will check how I can help you – he hang up.

 

2.15 pm. I knew that he couldn’t do anything and that I had to be at work at that moment. I had no other option, I saw a car and I stopped it. Luckily, it was a really nice lady who saved me and decided to help me. I was at work 20 minutes late. Considering all of the “adventures” that I had, it wasn’t that bad.

Now you can see that I constantly laugh at my boyfriend when the only person I should be laughing at is Dear Ms. Panic.

P.S. I’ll still be laughing at him.

I like to move it, move it!

Do you like moving to a new place? Neither do I. This summer, we switch apartments which required from us a little bit of work. Well, maybe not a little bit. You know what? When I think about it now, it was a lot of work. Even more than a lot.

Last time, we borrowed a truck from our friend to transport all of our stuff at once. The truck was HUGE. We didn’t even occupy half of it but it was quite a convenient way so we decided to do that again this time. We had already had the keys to our new apartment so we had to transport everything and give the keys to the old apartment back to its owner. That was it. Only those two things: transport the things and give away the keys. East peasy lemon squeezy! But let’s start from the beginning.

The plan was simple at the beginning. Then we saw our calendars and the weather forecast. We confirmed that it could have been simpler. From the first version of the plan (transport the things and give away the keys) we arrived at the final one (pack all the things, borrow the truck in the evening, get up at 6 am and start to load the stuff into the truck while the temperature is lower than 30 degrees, at 11 am I have to leave my boyfriend and go to the dentist, meanwhile his job is to lock our old apartment and transport everything to the new one, after the dentist I have to arrive at our new apartment and we have to unload the truck, after that he has to give the truck back to our friend and turn home ASAP because we have to unpack as many things as we can, the next day he can go to the conference in Warsaw and I organize everything). Difficult difficult lemon difficult! But it was the only day we had left to do that so we didn’t have much choice. In the end, the plan wasn’t THAT bad.

My boyfriend went to borrow the truck and in the meanwhile I started packing everything. When he came back home, he helped me and we packed our things pretty quickly.

• See? – I said – It can be done. You’ll see, everything will be great. (what a naive creature I am…)

The alarm woke us up at 6 am. Here it comes. There is no time to cry, let’s do this! We started to take everything downstairs. Amazing! It was 6 am and there were already 25 degrees, what a great day for the moving!

It wasn’t easy and took us almost 5 hours but we did it. Almost all of our staff was in the truck so I wasn’t feeling bad when I was leaving him alone. But, what surprised me was the fact that last year our things occupied half of the truck and this year the truck was full.

• Interesting – I thought – I think I really need to break up with IKEA.

After my dentist’s appointment I knew that my teeth were beautiful and healthy (I’m so modest), so we went together to our new apartment. Luckily, one of our friends had some free time and decided to help us out so unloading the truck didn’t take that much time. After one hour of walking with packs in the summer heat we finished it! We did our happy dance and bought ourselves some ice cream. We did it so we deserved it.

We established that my SO would give the truck back and I would start cleaning up. The next day he had the conference and I had an appointment with the owner of our old apartment. Everything was cleaned up so I just had to go there and give back the keys so we could receive our deposit. That can’t be difficult, right?

The next day, my SO left Poznan and I was sitting in our new apartment. I was drinking my favourite coffee and eating some croissants. Perfect morning. I noticed that my boyfriend didn’t put his keys on the table so I called him and asked:

• Where are your keys? I have to give them back today and you didn’t put them on the table.
• Oh, they should be in my jacket or in my backpack.
• Ok, thanks. Byeeeee.

I started looking for them but to my surprise I couldn’t find them anywhere. I called him again, this time I was a little bit concerned.

• I can’t find them. I was looking for them everywhere! Are you sure that you didn’t take them to Warsaw?
• I don’t think so… but I’ll check. (after a while) No, I don’t have them.
• Ok, so where are they? Without them we won’t receive our deposit back…

So, it turned out that he left his keys in the truck. What a genius. That wouldn’t be a problem if not the fact that this friend borrowed his truck to another person. Another person who wasn’t using it in Poznań so I couldn’t just go there to pick them up. In two hours I had an appointment with the owner and only one set of keys. Well, even giving back the keys isn’t easy when you are dating my boyfriend. What can I say? He’s making my life less boring.

In the end, we received our deposit back with few days of delay. When we finally received it I was so happy that I went to IKEA and bought two desks. My relationship with IKEA is really distressing…

And we have to find a friend with a bigger truck.

Until yoghurt do us apart

When you have been in a relationship for a long time, you think that you know the other person very well. That you can’t be surprised by his or her behaviour anymore. Well, that’s not true. If you want to truly know your SO, you need to live together in one apartment. Then you know everything. Let’s start from the beginning.

When we started living together I thought it was kind of funny. For instance, each of us bought 2 yogurts, so together we had 4 yogurts. For me it was clear: one yogurt for a day. I bought two, so I didn’t have to go again to the shop. My boyfriend ate both of them at once. Then he looked at me and asked:

• Can I eat yours too? I will buy it back for you tomorrow.
• Sure, eat it if you want.

And he ate it. That wasn’t the only time it happened. After moving in together I discovered that my boyfriend was a yogurt addict. He can’t eat only one when he knows that we have more in the fridge. He will eat them all. It could be worse. And after all, he always buys them back for me so I can live with that.

I bought 6 bottles of Actimel once. He drunk all of them. I don’t even know when he did that. The only thing I know is that he did that during one evening and when I wanted to drink it, it was gone.

• Really?!
• Sorry, I’ll buy them back tomorrow.

To be honest, it’s some kind of yogurt so I could see that coming. He bought it another day. 6 bottles of Actimel. When I wanted to drink it, I opened the fridge and saw that there was only one bottle left.

• Are you kidding me? You really can’t control yourself? I should have 6 bottles and there is only one!

He only made his sad puppy eyes which meant: you are right but I won’t say it out loud. But as I already said, it’s just yogurt and I can live with that.

Yesterday, when we were in a shop looking for the snacks, my attention was caught by peanuts in potato chips.

• I’d like to eat them, do you fancy?
• Not really, no…
• Ok, I’ll take them for myself.

We came back home and started to play a game. I opened my peanuts and put them in the middle of the table.

• You can eat them too, if you want.
• Thanks.

He took one peanut. Then two. After a while he just took the whole pack and poured them into his mouth. Half of the pack at once.

• You are unbelievable…

After that, I started to consider buying my own fridge or a locker. But it might be an exaggeration. I ate his monte snack instead.

 

Oh neighbour, my dear friend!

For a few years my boyfriend had been telling me that he wanted to buy himself a motorcycle. Not a scooter (a can with wheels, as he claimed) but a proper bike. I never really liked the idea but he was just talking about it so I didn’t mind it, after all what could have happen? Well, he bought a motorcycle. I didn’t see that coming. I would lie if I told you that I was happy or even calm. My SO was happier than ever and me? Every time we saw this machine we looked like that:

(no, I’m not the one who is dancing)

Of course I let him be happy. 90% of our conversations were about the motorcycle so mostly I was just sitting in silence and letting him talk about that. I think that he noticed that I wasn’t thrilled but he wanted to talk about his new “toy” so badly that he didn’t care much. About a week after buying that thing he looked like that:

and I looked more like that:

But I’ll never forget that one day. It was Saturday, we had a lot of free time but the weather wasn’t really great. It was about to rain but my boyfirend wanted to ride his bike so sooooo much. Of course. I told him to do only one small lap because it was dangerous to ride in the rain. He might be annoying but fortunately he is not stupid so he agreed with me. After 5 minutes he was back, a little bit sad.

• What happened? – I asked politely.
• I parked my motorcycle and our neighbour was passing by, he said: “Lame weather to ride a scooter”.

May I just tell you that this is the biggest insult to the motorcycle?

I like our neighbour. I like him a lot.

How not to travel

We’ve been to Italy! It wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be but we did it!

As you know it wasn’t my first attempt for this trip and till the last day before the journey we weren’t still sure if we were going because of my boyfriend’s ID (or should I say his lack?). But he finally got it on Friday and the very next day we could go to the airport and start our vacation.

While we were at the airport in Poland I was extremely happy, I knew exactly what I wanted to visit in Milan and Bergamo and I knew that it would be happening soon. I passed through the gates and started grabbing my things from the tape when I heard that the gate started to peep. I turned around and saw that the reason of it was my boyfriend. Fortunately, it was a random control so I’ve just walked away and waited for him. I was waiting for a long time so I started to worry and came back to se what was going on. It turned out that the crew didn’t want to give him back his jacket because they saw something suspicious. I’ve never had a similar situation so I didn’t know if that was something serious or just another random control. After a while my SO regained his jacket, approached to me and said:

• I forgot I had a pocketknife there.
• Really?! First, you don’t have your ID and now you came to the airport with the pocketknife? What is wrong with you?
• They took it away, I won’t have it back.
• It’s your smallest concern, trust me…

At first I was a little bit angry but in the end nothing bad happened so we started to laugh at it quickly. We sat near our gate and started to watch a movie. Everything was perfect again.

After a half an hour we received an information that our flight was delayed so instead of departing at 21:30 we had to wait till 23:30. It turned out that in Milan there was a hailstorm and all of the planes there had to wait for better weather. It would be comprehensible but really? The weather is bad in mid-May in Italy? Is it even possible or the universe just doesn’t want me to go there? The delay wouldn’t be a problem if not the fact that our hotel didn’t have 24/7 reception and we couldn’t check-in after 1 a.m. I decided to call them and try to explain this situation and find a solution. Instead of finding a solution I heard something I wasn’t even expecting. The receptionist told me a very surprising rule: “If you won’t be here until 1 a.m. your reservation for all the nights will be cancelled”. I was shocked since I had already paid for the whole visit. Luckily for us, I knew Italian so I was able to negotiate with her. After half an hour of stress, we established that our first night would be cancelled because no one would wait for us for entire night but if we came there in the morning we would receive the room for the next two nights. That wasn’t perfect for us but we had no choice. If you think that the rest of the trip was better you are unfortunately wrong. Here you can see a quick review:

• We arrived in Italy at 2 a.m.
• We spent the night at the airport afraid of sleeping because some people there were just creepy.
• We came from airport to Bergamo at 7 a.m. when it was finally bright outside.
• We discovered that the reception opened at 10 a.m.
• We were waiting for another 3 hours at McDonald’s because it was raining (beautiful…).
• At 10 a.m. the receptionist told us that check-in started at 2 p.m. and she couldn’t give us the key yet because the room was not ready.
• We gave up and went sightseeing because we didn’t want to lose another couple of hours.
• In the evening, we finally entered our room, exhausted.
• After sleeping for 10 hours we thought that our problems were over and we went to Milan.
• The next night, we went to sleep and suddenly heard that someone was knocking at our door.
• It was two girls with a huge suitcase who received exactly the same room (which hotel does that?!)
• One hour later, they luckily received another one so we could finally go to sleep.

After all of these situations, we came back home and I can say that we’ve been to Italy but as you can see, after reading all of this, the memories aren’t as happy as they would seem at the beginning.

What can I say? I love Italy but Italy doesn’t love me and this trip assured me about my platonic love.

I survived Wings for Life

As I told you before, I was training for Wings for Life World Run for the past two months. At the beginning it wasn’t a piece of cake for me but after some time I started to keep in really good shape. I was feeling more and more confident and finally after one and a half month of training I felt ready for the run. But nothing lasts forever.

One week before the run I started to sound a little hoarse. It didn’t really bother me but I started to take pills. After a few days, my condition wasn’t that great anymore. I obviously fell ill. Why obviously? Let me remind you that a few months ago I was going to visit Italy with my friend, do the thing I dreamt about since I started to study and our trip didn’t take place because of me (more specifically because of my weak organism which had a high fever). So here I present you with my new motto: Another dream, another illness!

This time I was really angry about it but what could I do? Together with my boyfriend we decided that he would run and I would walk, in the end it wasn’t all about running but about helping the others and collecting as much money as possible for the foundation.

The big day finally arrived. The weather was perfect. We dressed up for the occasion and went to the starting line with our rigid plan: he runs, I walk. We’re going to Italy next week, so it was obvious I couldn’t get more ill. The atmosphere was amazing, eight thousand people were ready to run for those who can’t, all wearing the same T-shirts we received from the marshals. The joy grew and at that moment I looked at my SO and said:

• I will run the first kilometre with all these people and then I will walk, ok?
• Are you sure? You are ill.
• I’ll be alright, I’ve been waiting for so long, I can’t miss it!
• OK.

So the run began and we had a new plan: he runs and I run for one kilometre and then walk. Easy peasy lemon squeezy! After one kilometre, knowing that my boyfriend trains regularly and runs a lot quicker than me, I pushed him forward, screamed “Run Forrest, run!” and looked how he disappeared happily in the crowd. To be honest he disappeared very quickly although I didn’t stop running. That’s right! The atmosphere – people who were running and supporters who were encouraging us – was so amazing that I couldn’t even imagine walking there! I was running during all the run and I wasn’t tired or worried about my health. Not even once (not very responsible). When the “Catcher Car” with Adam Małysz on board overtook me the only thought I had was: “I wonder how long I will run next year”.

This run is really something magical. Together we raised almost 6 million dollars for people living with spinal cord injury. I encourage everyone to participate in this event.

 

Should I stay or should I go?

As a student of the Italian philology I love Italy. I’ve been there a few times as a child and as a teenager but now I’m an adult and I really miss this country. I started my BA studies and then I finished them and in those years I didn’t go to Italy, not even once.

In Poland, we have winter vacation in February. My plans for that time was to sit at home and relax. I wanted to do that with my lovely boyfriend but one day he announced that in February he was going to London with his friend and his father to a football match. Of course I wasn’t invited to this bro trip (thank god). I was happy that I didn’t have to spend my money on some match that I wasn’t really interested in but at the same time I was aware that my plan was ruined. I mean, I could still stay at home and relax but when you do in on your own it’s kind of depressing after two days (let alone a week!). I began to think what to do with myself and then my angel arrived. My friend asked me if I would like to go to Italy with her.

• Say no more, I’m already packing my suitcase.

I was so happy that I finally had an opportunity to visit my favourite country that I started to be a little bit annoying. At the beginning, my boyfriend was really happy when I was dancing around the flat and singing about my trip. After two days, he started to ignore my behaviour (his tactic was to wait patiently until my departure without ruining my mood – good one).

Our plan was easy: I go to Milan and after three days he flies to London. The evening before my departure I started to feel weird. My temperature was at 37.3°C so I thought that my organism was just tired and I had to go to sleep. The next morning, the temperature was the same. I figured it was good news – it wasn’t rising , so I started to take medicines and rest. My flight was at 11 p.m. so I had plenty of time. About 2 p.m. it was only at 37°C so I decided that I had to start packing: I got up and suddenly felt terrible. The fever was at 39°C and I had to cancel the trip. Normally, my heart would have been broken but I was feeling so bad because of the fever that I didn’t even have strength for that.

My boyfriend took care of me and yet another day he started to feel sick too. I commanded him to go directly to the doctor for antibiotic and guess what? Thanks to that he went to London. I was still lying in bed and not feeling well and he was in London like nothing had happened! When he came back, he felt sorry for me so he promised me that together we would go to Italy this year.

It’s April. We bought tickets for 11^th May to Milan. I can’t even describe how happy I was. Unfortunately, my happiness couldn’t last more than one day. Exactly one day after buying those tickets my SO came to me and said:

• My ID is valid only till the end of April.

Genius! He couldn’t check it before! The new one will be ready on 11^th May (did they pick this date on purpose?). Of course, I still love him but I just kind of… stopped showing any affection after that info? Am I a master of not going to trips or what?

The eggs-iting results

In my last post I described my family’s tradition: painting Easter Eggs. Now I would like to show you this year’s results.

As always, everything started with my father’s complaining. My sister joined him as quick as a wink. The show started and after half an hour all of us were sitting at the table and painting eggs. What surprised me the most was the attitude of my sister. She didn’t paint one or two but THREE eggs (what happened to my sister?!). Of course, I didn’t want to be worse so I took another one and started to work on it. In the meantime, my boyfriend was sitting in the corner and working on his “special project”. He didn’t want to reveal what he was painting but he was so excited about it so I didn’t even want to disturb him. Suddenly, while I was painting my third egg, I saw that my sister took another one! (Seriously?!) The battle began. Each of us started to paint as many eggs as possible. When we both finished our fifth egg something extraordinary happened. My mother entered the room and forbade us from doing it. The woman who always had trouble with making us paint Easter Eggs now wanted us to stop. A miracle! With all of this confusion I forgot about my boyfriend. He was still painting that one egg. “That must be a masterpiece” – I thought – “it’s impossible to paint something for that long, what is he doing there?”. And that was the moment when he finished this work, came to me and showed me this little sweet Minion.

What can I say more? See for yourself our works of art.

And what Easter Eggs did you make?

Happy Easter one more time!

Eggs-iting Easter

Every family has their own traditions. For instance, on Easter my family paints Easter eggs. When my sister and I were children we did it more than eagerly, we had a lot of different felt-tip pens, the whole range of colours. We could paint whatever we wanted, the possibilities were infinite. Our parents did it with us, so every year during this one evening we would all sit together and have fun. Such an adorable memory.

Some time passed and my sister and I became teenagers. Our dad started to show his aversion for this tradition. Each year he would start complaining that he had to paint not one but two Easter eggs! My sister and I found out that apparently not all members of our family had fun during this evening and we started to wonder if we really liked to do this. My older sister figured that she couldn’t even paint properly so it was obvious that she also didn’t like to do that.

Years were passing and with each following the moods were changing. My father and sister rebelled and the only one that was trying to maintain our tradition was my poor mother. However, every year it would finish just as she wanted it to: everyone painted two Easter eggs. But the rebellion was getting stronger and stronger. The range of colours of our felt-tip pens reduced (ok, we had only a black one). Dad and sister started to put only one dot on them and argued that they were minimalists and these were their concepts. I still didn’t truly know if I liked to do this or not, so I couldn’t decide which team I was on, until one day. But then it hit me. I joined #TeamMum.

From that day on, we have been fighting together for our tradition but the truth is that it was gone years ago. There is a new one now – our “fight” which in fact is our way to spend time together and laugh.

Eventually, the time has come. I had to introduce my lovely boyfriend to our unique family tradition. He likes it. That’s why I’m sure that he is the one.

Happy Easter everyone!

Let’s (not) go shopping!

Spring is coming so we’re all changing the content of our wardrobes. My boyfriend decided that he wants to buy himself a new thin jacket and asked me if I could help him. I’m a girl so of course I was more than willing to go shopping. Furthermore, I decided to make use of this opportunity and buy something for myself as well.

The weekend arrived and we went to the shopping mall to buy ONE jacket. We entered the shop and he went to see the menswear; I wanted to see the womenswear first. What hit me was the quantity of clothes. The assortment was just amazing! The clothes were beautiful, it was hard to try and buy only a few things (WHAT A SHAME!). After the first impression I recovered and told myself: “Calm down, today is not about you, you’re here to help your boyfriend find a new jacket!”. I turned around and wandered to see what my boyfriend chose.

• There is nothing interesting here, let’s go to another shop – he said.

I looked around this huge shop.

• Are you sure?
• Yes.
• Before leaving, can I just do a quick run around the shop? Maybe you omitted something?
• If you must.

From the tone of his voice I could easily hear that he was irritated and cheesed off. I started to search as fast as I could and luckily only after 5 seconds I found something interesting. I took the jacket and gave it to him.

• I don’t like it.
• You don’t have to buy it. Can you at least try it on?
• If I have to…

So he tried it on, went to the mirror to see how it looked while I was looking for other options. I gave him another one but this time he wasn’t arguing at all. He took the jacket from me and tried it on almost eagerly! Did he really like the first one and didn’t want to admit that? Shocking (sarcasm)… With every following jacket the smile on his face was growing. After trying six jackets on (oh, there REALLY wasn’t anything interesting in that shop) he decided to buy the first one (the “ugly” one).

So we went to the checkout to pay and left the shop with not one but TWO jackets. I have no words…