New Friends and New Places

Last week we had a busy week. I am not sure if I mentioned before that an American family we know here (Mike met the guy through work before we moved here, so his wife and I had been in touch on email a bit) invited us over for a BBQ one weekend and another American family was there, whose daughter is going to be in Ava's class. We invited them over for a play date, along with a family that just moved here from Boston (the husband works for BBH). They have two kids, Danny is almost 8 and will be in Ava's class, and Keira is 5. All the kids got along great and Ava and Jack were beyond excited to have made some new friends. We ended up going out to dinner with Danny and Keira later in the week, along with some of the BBH crowd who are here on short assignments. The following day Ava told me that last night had been the best day of her life, and when I asked her why she said because there were so many people at dinner, they all spoke English, and her new friends were there! I guess it doesn't take much these days to excite her. I am happy they have some friends finally but the down side is that Ava asks me about 20 times a day when we are going to see them again!

A different day we had another play date, this time it was with the wife of the General Manager of the Sheraton and his two daughters - one is 5 and the other is 15 months old. He is Belgian but his wife is from Lithuania - we had them to our place and the kids had fun running around in the back yard. THe family has been living in Krakow for a year and a half and live in an apartment inside the hotel. Again the kids were so happy to have more kids to play with, and I am happy to now have four new girl friends : )

Jack and Keira - I think Jack has a big crush on her (don't mind the red marker around his eyes, he was showing off by drawing all over himself). Hopefully his current Irish and Spanish girlfriends won't find out : )

Jack getting crazy with Danny and Keira (he took his shirt off because he got it wet)

Ava and Keira

The rest of the week we spent out and about. I think I mentioned before that Krakow is not known for it's fresh fish. I have been nervous to buy it but was told fresh fish deliveries are made on Thursdays so one day I bought some salmon at Tesco on a Thursday and it seemed fine. Our babysitter is Polish and she told me about a fish market so this past Thursday I decided to try some fish again. The kids were up early - they have been staying up late and sleeping until about 9 this summer, but they were up around 8 - so we all got in the car, dropped Mike off at work and then ventured to the fish market. I ended up having to call the babysitter because I couldn't find it at first, it turns out it was in the parking lot of a big store called Sergos. The market itself was tiny, it reminded me of the place where I used to buy fish when living in Southie. They didn't have a big selection but I was making tuna so they had that and I went on my way. Again, pretty far from the house but I guess not too bad to do once a week. The fish was good but I didn't notice it being any better than the fish at Tesco, maybe if I were using it as sushi I could tell a difference. Ava gobbled it up but Jack refused to touch it - again.

Saturday we ventured out shopping because I needed more mosquito screens for the doorways so we went to another Home Depot-type store near the airport (have I mentioned it takes about 8 minutes to get to the airport from our house? Pretty convenient). When we pulled around the back of the shopping center to park we discovered a huge toy store which obviously the kids were happy about - but I was too because I have been wondering where we were going to shop for Christmas ( I bought most of Ava's birthday presents in Dublin before we moved because I didn't remember seeing any toy stores).  It was called Smyk's, like Smyths in Dublin. They seemed to have everything there so we wandered around for a bit and then took so silly photos. There was an Alma next door so we got some groceries and headed back home.

Yay Smyks!!