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Zooba,

"My" Piatkowa is near Blazowa, which is near Rzeszow. I visited there last year.

Someone later told me the name means "five blacksmiths" - or 5 somethings (I don't remember what they said) Can you tell me?

welcome everybody in the forum! I noticed that today we have 12-16 visitors, at least when I am here.

Please, feel free to contribute in our discussions!

Hello, Nancy M. - the word Piatkowo, Piatkowa comes from the word "piatek", which means Friday. Only if it was "Piatkowal it could means 5 blacksmiths. And your Piatkowa is far away from mine - about 300 miles (for Polish this is far).

John, from St. Peters, Missouri. I'm American, of Polish ancestry on my mom's side (Harasim / Pachucki). Though I lived in a house growing up where at least 3 people spoke Polish, us kids were never taught, nor spoken to in Polish. After doing the research a few years back, I found my Grandmothers family, still living in the same place she was born, the village of Mikolajowek(between Augustow and Raczki). I've taken some Continuing Education Polish classes, as well as used "self teaching" resources and learned some Polish. With one of my daughters and my God-mother, we I visited the family "on the farm" last month. Amazing adventure. Planning on going back in two years�..

Hi John!

Welcome to the forum! Please tell us more about your trip to Poland ---any photos?

Nancy

Zooba,

I like your picture <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

John, welcome to the forum. I hope you would enjoy participating in our discussions!

Only 981 photo's <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> .. Many duplicates of course with 3 camera's firing at all times! I'm still trying to get the "lay of the land" here, so when I figure out how to share pictures, I'll certainly make some available.

Our Family are dairy farmers and own a few cows, and grow some feed. It is a relatively small operation. I'm not sure how they can make ends meet at all, and considering they treated us like royalty, I'm sure we destroyed 8 months budget. This I shall fix in time. Two of their children spoke a few words of English (but only to my daughter), so my 20 year old, their 21 year old son and 18 year old daughter spent lots of time on the "translator". They have an old computer, with no internet of course. Two of the children are in "higher education", and have no dealings with the farm other to live there when not at school. Their job is to study. While our communication was at time rudimentary, it was mostly sufficient. Lots of laughing, millions of questions, some frustration at the communication gaps... and lot's of Wodka! My daughter wishes to go back the summer after next, to which I will open a new thread to discuss. All in all, the family was wonderful, the Northeastern Polish country side beautiful, and the tears cried by all when we left traumatic. To use the Polish proverb: "splakalismy sie wszyscy jak bobry".


Thanks for the welcome!

Hi John
Welcome to the forum - there are a lot of nice people on it, so I'm sure you will enjoy.
I had the same problem thoughts about photos, so I took the free offer of Webshots and opened albums of the ones I had chosen and wanted to share. If you want to have a look at mine before you decide, go to [url=BellaOnline ALERT: For anti-spam reasons, we restrict the number of URLs allowed in a given post. You have exceeded our maximum number of URLs.

John,

I am sure you will figure out the "lay of the land" quickly! Some of us have opened free accounts at Webshots and just put a link in our messages. For example:Nancy's Photos

If you have your own website, you can insert pictures directly into your post here (but not all 981... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

I am sure your daughter will be interested in the adventures of our friend Hussar (Tomek) who spent this summer in Poland. Hussar's Trip

Thank you one and all for the warm welcome! This will be fun. I've looked at some of the photo albums mentioned, and read a few of the threads. When time permits, I'll try to get an online album going.

Nowego Polskiego Rodzina! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />