This is my product, which I am developing, and will soon begin trying to market to English language schools here in Kraków.

This video looks best fullscreen and in HD.

Carrie and I stood near the main square (on the very end of Szewska street) during the funeral mass for the president and his wife.

Lately I've been putting some extra effort in trying to improve my Polish. Oddly enough, in Poland I haven't had too many opportunity for conversation with normal people about normal topics. Mostly I speak Polish with the officers of various government offices. There is a lot of bureaucracy in Poland and for the last 6 weeks or so we've been to at least one office a week, primarily the tax office.

Anyway, one of my efforts to speak more normal Polish has been recording YouTube videos in Polish. I've recorded one every Sunday for the past 4 weeks.

Here they are in chronological order:

March 20th, 2010

March 28th, 2010

April 4th, 2010

April 11th, 2010

We got some disturbing news this morning. At about 8am CET +1 (our time here in Poland), the Polish president's plane crashed in Russia, killing him and his wife along with many others. The head of the Sejm will now lead the country.
Below is a snippet from the BBC.com article.
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A plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski has crashed near a Russian airport, officials say.

Russian media reported that 87 people were killed in the crash near Smolensk, and a regional governor was quoted as saying there were no survivors.

Polish officials said Mr Kaczynski was on board along with his wife Maria and several senior government figures.

They were in Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when the Soviets killed thousands of Poles.

The BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw says the crash is a catastrophe for the Polish people.

He says Prime Minister Donald Tusk was reportedly in tears when he was told.
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see more here...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8612825.stm

As some people may know, I have studied Polish language mainly on my own and mainly by reading and listening to books.

While I can't say enough about how well this approach has worked for me, one of the problems has always been the lack of a large selection of books in the Polish language and the cost of purchasing them. In the States, only a few books (really popular ones) are available in bookstores and only old, obscure books are available at the library.

However, this afternoon, I was at the most amazing place in Poland so far... the library! ;-) There are thousands of books in Polish and they are all for free!!

I just got my library card and a few books. Life is good.