I think I've gotten to the point where I remember enough polish to hold my own in a bar somewhere outside Krakov.
Well, at least the getting hit on part.
At the climbing gym, there are two polish fellows whose names I'm not sure I ever got but who we cross paths with often enough, who caught on real fast that I understood what they were warbling at each other when I started answering their questions.
The taller, curly headed one announced today, while we chatted on the floor as Dave belayed Jay up a chimney that is going to take a very long time for me to get to, that in order to improve my polish more efficiently I should date a polack.
Swiftly, in polish, his friend interjected "but HE's engaged", which I somehow managed to understand, having completely lost track of which language we were speaking in.
The now-engaged curly-headed polack explained that he was engaged to his buddy's ex-girlfriend, because she wasn't good enough for him.
It would appear that I am familiar enough with polish-style sarcasm to have begun to catch on at this point in the conversation.
So when the tawny-haired fellow announced that HE was available and more than willing to give me a few private lessons, I managed to muster up enough polish to ask
"wait, let me ask my boyfriend" and then in english called up to the general lower back area of Mr. Pyke
"Hey Dave, can I date a polish guy for a while to improve my polish?"
"Sure."
Both boys giggled and I think the younger one somehow finished off with a "well, let me know" and we went our separate ways to separate walls.
We kept running into each other at this 5.6, at that 5.8 and I managed to get a couple of jokes out, and either they're incredibly gallant about humouring spastic blondes who won't sleep with them, or I may have made a modicum of sense.
This weekend I turn twenty six, which makes it almost twenty years since I last spoke polish at home.
Suddenly rock climbing is making me feel better about a lot of things that I somehow lost over the years.
My strength, and maybe a touch of my capacity for language.
Just a touch, though.