Kyle in Poland: Days 91-92

Devastating news, Sad times, Solid workout, Grocery store trip, and more, Photos at the end

Before I begin, I will say this story is a rather sad one.

On June 29, I woke up late and immediately began working on a story. Not long after, I received a phone call from my mom. Sadly, she informed me of the devastating news that our 12-year-old mini schnauzer, Willie, had passed away.

Willie was advancing in age, but this was out of the blue and a surprise to us all. My mom told me what took place that morning and I simply couldn’t believe it. I sat there and cried for a very long time, utterly devastated.

For over a decade, Willie had been my best friend, the most loyal and sweet companion that I could have ever asked for. He truly was family and we always treated him as such.

Now that my little buddy was gone, I felt an immense sadness that I would never see him again. I thought about all the memories we had together and all the small details that I loved about him. The thought of going home and him not being there to bark and greet me left me feeling completely gutted.

Safe to say, I had a horrible day.

For the most part, I laid around, depressed, and cried. Although Willie was a dog, he had a massive part of my heart and had been there with me since I was a ten-year-old child, a true focal point in my life.

Later in the day, I attempted to be halfway productive and began transferring notes from my Polish phone to my American one. This took a decent amount of time, and whenever I finished, I made myself eat a couple sandwiches at around 7:30 p.m.

Not much took place the rest of the day, and around 10 o’clock, I settled in for the night.

The following day, I woke up early but had no desire or motivation to do anything.

After some time passed, I eventually made myself get ready and shower. Once that was done, I laid back down and proceeded to take a two-hour nap, unintentionally.

When I finally woke up again, I made a couple sandwiches for lunch and edited a story until it was time to get ready for the gym.

I went through all of my daily stretches and then walked out back to grab a bike. Unfortunately, it happened to have a flat tire, so I was stuck with walking as my only mode of transportation.

Along the way to the gym, I encountered a strange situation. I had my headphones on and was minding my own business when I noticed a car slowed down next to me. So, I removed the headphones and looked over to see who was in the vehicle.

The man turned out to be a complete stranger, so I was a bit perplexed as to why he would stop. He looked over and spoke to me in Polish, which of course I did not understand. I decided to simply smile, give a thumbs up, continue walking, and eventually the man drove away.

It was a harmless situation, but I was unsure whether he was trying to be nice or up to no good. Either way, I had no plan of finding out his intentions.

A few minutes later, I made it to the gym.

For that session, I did my “day three” workout, which consisted of goblet squat, dumbbell split squat, front lunge, one-leg dumbbell RDL’s, calf raises, and 600 abs, the most I performed during my time in Poland.

I had a great workout but was surprised there were so few people at the gym. On a normal day, there were at least several people working out, and a couple of trainers to go along with them.

This time, however, there were only a handful of people in the facility and no music was playing, so the atmosphere was a bit dull compared to usual.

I finished up and walked to Biedronka on the way back to grab a few groceries. I ended up buying two jars of milk, bread, three jars of jelly, crackers, a pack of kielbasa, three packs of pierogis, and a box of wings for $21.

I walked back to the apartment and unpacked everything. Afterward, I talked to Jocelyn and cooked both kielbasa and pierogis for dinner, which turned out great.

Once I finished eating, I showered, and laid around on my phone until I went to sleep.