The Shower

Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.
-Nolan Bushnell

I left my towel at Aunt Rhonda's.

There are two reasons why I left my towel: first, I had used it that morning and didn't want to pack a wet towel in my suitcase. Second, I figured that every hotel or residence I stayed at would have towels that I could use. For the most part I was right, but being right for the most part is the same as being wrong.

Fast forward four weeks into my summer travels. It was my last night in Poland and I was staying at a facility set up by some church. I decided I wanted to take a shower - it had been rather hot that day and I had spent 3 hours in a stuffy communist-era train. I gathered my deodorant, razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, and my comfy pajamas that smelled like they hadn't been washed for weeks (they hadn't), and prodded down the hall to the bathroom only to find that it was locked. I sighed, flashed a disgruntled smile at someone who muttered something to me in Polish, and went back to my room. I paced back and forth multiple times until I was bored enough to see if the bathroom was finally open. It was. I opened the door with no trouble and happened to notice that there was an absence of a lock. Puzzled, I inspected the door more closely. Turns out one has to pull instead of push. Who would've thought?

I walked to the back of the bathroom where the single shower room was located. I opened the door and observed the tiny room. It was completely covered with tile, as most European bathrooms are. There was a large window on the wall adjacent to me covered by a curtain. Three hooks hung on the wall presumably meant for changes of clothes. The shower was on the wall to the left, and try as I might, I couldn't find a shower curtain anywhere, which totally negated any use those three hooks may have had. There weren't any towels either, so for the third time that evening I meandered back to my room - this time in search for a towel. I couldn't find one. I looked in all the wardrobes, all the dresser drawers, and on all the beds. No towel. Sighing, I zipped open my suitcase. My goal was to find the most absorbent, yet quickest drying material that I had with me. T-shirts, jeans, and underwear flew out as I dug. Finally, I found what I needed.

My H&M scarf.

Thankful yet again that I refused to buy polyester, I made the trek back to the shower, scarf in hand. I was then presented with the problem of how to keep the scarf and my change of clothes dry as I showered. I couldn't hang them on the three useless hooks, and I certainly couldn't leave them outside the door of the shower room (although, I forget why). Finally, I decided to place them behind the window curtain and pray that I wouldn't get lead poisoning from the chipping paint gathered on the windowsill. I had visions of the curtain suddenly catching a draft and flying open leaving me exposed to all of Poland and without any dry clothes to change into. After dropping every single sock I had with me into the water gathered on the bottom of the shower, I managed to get clean, dry (thanks to my multi-purpose scarf...ha! the fashion designers didn't see that one coming!), and into my comfy pajamas.

As I made my final stroll to my room, I resolved that I will eventually design a t-shirt that boasts "I survived the shower." The words will be written in the gaudy typeface that every B horror movie uses, and you can betcha that it will double as a towel.

-Matthias

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Of Poland, Czech, and Narnia

"It's over there, just beyond the lamppost"
-Lucy Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

When I arrived at the hotel where I am currently staying in Poland, one of the first things pointed out to me was a lamppost. Three of the young women on my team rushed up to the lamppost exclaiming "It's like the lamppost in Narnia!" In reality, the lamppost looked nothing like the light fixture that Lucy found in Narnia, but we spent the next few minutes discussing Narnia and how we wished we could move there. Little did we know how close we actually were to the real Narnia.

Several days later we crossed paths with the lamppost again on our way to a forest that boasted beautiful waterfalls. A feeling of familiarity struck me as we walked through the trees. Somehow the topic of movies came up and one of our Polish friends interjected that we were walking through the forest where The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was filmed. We were in Narnia!

A Narnian waterfall

Look! Narnia!

After the stumble across Narnia, the travel bug hit us and we decided to go visit another country. The camp we are at is located close to the Czech Republic border, so we decided to hike up a mountain and step foot in Czech. The hike actually turned out to be a ride in a ski lift longer than any I've ever been on. It took us over a half hour to get to the top of the mountain. By the time we reached the top, we were so exhausted that we walked in, took a picture, and got back on the ski lift to go back down.

On the ski lift. I'm the one in the background sticking my tongue out...

Finally, I suppose I should mention that the English camps that I am filming are going super well. I'm getting great footage and it is so neat to see how God is working through us to impact the people of Poland. Thank you all for praying for me! As you can tell, I am enjoying myself - which is a huge praise as I was not excited whatsoever to go on this trip. Little did I know that I was about to go to Narnia.

Pożegnanie!
-Matthias

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The Incredible Shrinking Pants

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
-Anais Nin

In honor of the fact that my family will return from Romania in exactly two weeks, I have decided to uncover a peculiar phenomenon that, as far as I know, has never been brought into light. It's called The Incredible Shrinking Pants.

Throughout my travels in Europe, I have bought clothes. Of course, the clothes that I bought fit wonderfully on my body in the European dressing rooms. As would be expected, I brought the clothes back to the United States with me in my suitcase. This is when the phenomenon occurs. You see, instead of  the clothes getting bigger (as one would expect, everything is bigger in the US) the clothes actually get smaller. It's not an immediate thing, it sort of happens over a period of time. One doesn't notice it happening, until one day, that fateful day, it all becomes clear: clothes from Europe are designed to shrink when taken outside of European borders.

Today was that day for me.

I must say, I'm rather perplexed as to how it happens. I'm thinking about it quite hard as I sit here and eat my nightly snack of Oreos and ice cream. How does one design clothes to shrink?! I mean, if that method could be successfully figured out by American designers, it would cause a revolution in the fashion industry! It'd be motivation for people to lose weight! 'Buy this shirt and lose 10 pounds in 5 weeks! If you don't, the shirt simply won't fit leaving you without anything to wear!'

Hmmm.
-Matthias

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