Chicago is the Most Polish Populated City Outside of Poland

There was an incident. I was at a Super Bowl gathering and low and behold someone who was foreign was there. AKA 'a foreigner.' Well, I'm apparently horrible at guessing accents, and was convinced this young woman was Polish, obviously because Chicago is the largest Polish populated city outside of Poland. I think it's my lack of foreign relationships and general depth in the last two years since returning from France that's contributed to this terrible state of being. Oh, yeah, I studied abroad in France two years ago. Yikes.

So, at this gathering of young people I've met in the last half-year, this foreign woman — we'll call her Jan, just to level the playing field — and I start to chat a bit. Not about anything in particular, mostly about her roommate's Masters Degree in "Anatomical Drawing of Dead People." That's the official course of study ... I don't think anything of it. So her English isn't so bueno, and whammo.

She leaves. And the talk begins about how this French woman this and this French woman that. Jan's no longer just a foreigner, Jan's a regular Parisian. Well, I should have just kept my puckers closed, but had to tell everyone, that yes, I have been known to on occasion speaka' le français. I even know how to make the "ç" on the keyboard. And so the argument ensued about whether she was indeed French or Polish. It sounds more intelligible than it was. Trust me. In short, outside of Poland, Chicago is the second most populated with Poles. Learn somethin' new every day.