Did a three hour conversation at work today in Polish!

Today I had to take my friend, a Ukrainian refugee, to a government appointment as his translator. I had to do a lot of work getting the government to accept me as his translator, but I finally succeeded. <br><br>We did the paperwork and now he's all set to work here, and my contributions were:<br><br>- calling the government to get them to send him a new invitation code. They asked me what the address was and when I told them they said that was an old address and he needed a new one. He said "Wait a minute, that's not my address! I wouldn't know that!" <br>- explaining to the government what documents he had in Ukrainian and Russian<br>- explaining what he was saying as he sometimes got flustered and frustrated with the whole process. <br><br>Anyhow, there was a very nice government worker there who was very curious about how I'm from the US and speak Polish. She was impressed that I was brave enough to come live in Poland, and I was impressed that she was in her 30s and had never traveled outside of Poland. I've been all over Europe, but there's a lot I don't know about this continent.<br><br> &nbsp;<br><br>Anyhow, we had about thirty minutes left in the office and she started asking me how I ended up in Poland. I told her that I've been here since 2005, and she asked if I was Polish or not. I said that I am not Polish, but that I am from a Polish family. I told her I'm 75% Polish, 20% German, and 5% Mongol. She went "Wait what, what do you mean you're Mongol?" I explained that my grandmother had a facial shape that was common in Mongolia, and that there was ongoing research to determine if Mongols actually went all the way to Europe in the 1200s-1300s. I read an article from the BBC in 2005 that suggested that about 8% of all Hungarians and Romanians were of Mongol descent. She was utterly fascinated and asked me questions for about 20 minutes about Mongols in Poland. Apparently it was a topic she knew nothing about.<br><br>So, all in all, the appointment lasted about an hour, and we had a 45 minute conversation at a coffee shop on the way there and about another 45 minute conversation at a coffee shop on the way back. <br><br>It's been a while since I've used Polish this much. I had to think hard several times to use my vocabulary correctly, but all things considered it went well. I was happy to use Polish again and I have to say that I'm doing better than I thought!