With the exception of the last couple of days, Sarah and I haven't been eating out nearly as much as we used to, and have been enjoying the use of a kitchen free of "business hours." We have branched out a little, trying a couple of cafés, a pizzeria, a milk bar, and this cute little bistro that is (lamentably) right across the street from our building. Not only is it delicious, but it's very affordable and offers a wealth of traditional Polish food in addition to a few dishes from other cultures. For example, today at the Bistro BSB we decided to sample Hungarian potato cakes and pierogi filled with meat and cabbage:
I've been finding that the majority of words I recognize so far are words that pertain to food--in other words I am proving yet again that I am very much my father's daughter.
I'm finding Radom surprisingly quiet for a town roughly three times the size of Kamloops. Even late at night back home there is always some kind of noise. Here, things are quiet for the most part, with the occasional exception of the odd person singing loudly as they stumble home from the pubs nearby. Yesterday there seemed to be some sort of military ceremony in front of the church on Zeromskiego, and we had to good fortune to see it beginning from the classroom where we were all having a meeting to discuss our plans for our first lessons. Ania (one of our bosses) explained that the building across from us was an "army church," and that these ceremonies occurred from time to time. It was interesting to witness, even if we didn't know what was going on.
The language isn't the only thing that has taken some getting used to. In Canada the government has recently gotten rid of the penny--here there are many more coins than we are used to. We have the equivalent of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cent denominations, and every value under 10 zloty is a coin. The bills are different sizes in addition to being different colours, but that just makes them easier to find in your wallet.
Shopping for groceries has also been a different experience, but certainly a positive one. With new surroundings has arisen the need to try a few new foods, and occasionally finding different ways of preparing the foods we used to make at home. For example, until today we did not have a small pot for making rice, so we got creative with our curry and ate it on a bed of ramen noodles instead. It's a little unorthodox, but decidedly delicious!
Some places sell pre-packaged ground meat the way most Canadians are used to finding it, but the market in the mall near our house actually allows you to choose the amount of meat you want and will grind it right in front of you! It was neat to watch and was relatively lean when it cooked down. We barely had to drain the fat off of it at all.
As if adjusting to life abroad wasn't enough, our bodies decided that Sarah and I needed to grapple with our first Polish colds this week. In spite of our need to go out, explore, and make our flat a home, we have both been extremely exhausted. We found some excellent cold pills to remedy the situation, but I found myself quite sleep deprived for the first few days because we didn't realize that the first box we bought was mostly caffeine! Lesson learned.
The other useful thing we learned has to do with power bars and the nature of the circuitry in our apartment. When we got our plug converter back from Gwen, we thought we would try to plug in the power bar we brought back from Canada. Our computers and e-readers worked just fine without converting the voltage, so we thought trying out the power bar that way couldn't possibly hurt.
We were dead wrong.
Not only did the extra voltage blow out the surge protector, it shorted out the fuse that controlled all the electrical sockets for our apartment. We tried to call our boss for help and found her unable to answer the phone, so we sent a frantic text message to Gwen (our co-worker) asking her to send an e-mail to our other boss to see if he had any suggestions on where we might find the fuse box. He replied (though Gwen) that we should be able to find either a black button or a red switch in the hall.
We were stumped at first, searching in our flat and the hall outside looking for this mysterious button so we could turn our outlets back on and restore power to our fridge. Eventually we remembered seeing a cupboard above our door when the cable guy came in to give us internet and decided to look in there. We found one of the black buttons that Witek had mentioned, but alas it was the breaker for the bathroom. We sent a few more text messages explaining the situation and were about to give up when I got curious about what was above the shelf in the cupboard above the door. Even standing on a chair I was still to short to see over it. In the end Sarah braced herself on the chair and I stood on her back to gain a few extra inches to see over the shelf...and there were two more circuit breakers that we hadn't seen earlier! In fact, one of them was the very miscreant we had been looking for.
Most houses in North America have each room and most appliances on their own breaker (most, but certainly not all). It seems our flat has all the outlets for most of the space on one breaker, all the lights on another, and the bathroom/laundry room on one all by itself.
The moral of this story: if you are traveling with a Canadian power bar for your electronics, remember to use a VOLTAGE CONVERTER with them.
As a result of our experience we have since purchased European plug ends for our laptops.
At the moment we are at home, waiting for Gwen to get off work and come home from her school in Zwolen. After that, the three of us are meeting up with Kate and going to check out some of the night life in Radom. Tomorrow night we get to meet with some of our Polish co-workers and spend another night out on the town.
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