From what little I've seen of the night life in Radom, I know one thing hasn't changed in moving here: I still prefer to hang with friends in pubs than spend the night dancing in a club. We went out for a little while with a couple of co-workers to see what things were like and discovered that you are required to check your coat at the door regardless of where you go. At least that was optional at home. The one club that the girls decided to stay at wanted 20 PLN just to check your coat and pay the cover charge. Since it's not really my thing or Sarah's, we just offered to take the other girls' coats back to our flat and let them dance the night away on a much smaller budget than the coat check would have allowed. On the way up to this place, we also noticed a lot of people smoking on the landings, and neither of us could breathe by the time we got to the top of the stairs. At any rate, it sounds like they had fun.
Today was a little better. One of our Polish co-workers organized a little meet-and-greet with some of our other colleagues at the pub we had considered going to last night, but had decided against because we didn't want to check our coats. We met everyone there tonight and had a pretty good time. The food was to die for, and the selection of non-alcoholic drinks was actually very decent. It has a small dance hall just off the main dining area, so you have the choice of hanging out where you can still hear the conversation, or going to dance among the loud music and flashing lights. There is a non-smoking section on the upper floor and a smoking section in the basement, by the entrance to the dance hall.
It's still a little strange to me that people can smoke in public places here, when you consider that it's illegal back home. They were selling duty-free cigarettes on the plane, there were smoking booths at the airport in Frankfurt, and people seem free to smoke everywhere here.
Saturday, 28 September 2013
Friday, 27 September 2013
More Apartment Pictures!
| The exterior of our building. Our deck is the one above the satellite dish on the right hand side of the picture. |
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| The living room. |
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| More living room, the door to the hall, and the wardrobe. |
Getting Out and Getting Used to Life
It's been a busy week. Now that all the girls are here, the last few days have been spent preparing us for the year to come. Half of the girls have already started teaching, but the rest of us start on Monday due to a few scheduling conflicts the school was having difficulty working out. From what I gathered in our training seminars, we are supposed to help our students learn life skills such as teamwork and time management in addition to English--a philosophy I can get behind.
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.
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.
Friday, 20 September 2013
Getting Settled
Huzzah! We finally have Wi-Fi in the apartment, but naturally the only adapter we had that offered a 3-prong outlet seems to have bitten the dust. This is going to make it tricky to plug in our laptops until the lady who borrowed our plug converter returns from Berlin. At least the 2-prong adapter Dad gave us works for the other things that need to charge.
It is great to be in our own space. It still needs a few basic things before it's completely homey, but it's ours.
So for now I give you the view from our balcony, and shots of the kitchen. I would load more, but the battery on my laptop is dwindling and I have no means of charging it for the time being.
I will load more when the electronics situation is fixed. In the meantime, those of you who have access to Sarah's Facebook will find the full line-up there for your perusal.
It is great to be in our own space. It still needs a few basic things before it's completely homey, but it's ours.
So for now I give you the view from our balcony, and shots of the kitchen. I would load more, but the battery on my laptop is dwindling and I have no means of charging it for the time being.
I will load more when the electronics situation is fixed. In the meantime, those of you who have access to Sarah's Facebook will find the full line-up there for your perusal.
Monday, 16 September 2013
Radom
Well we made it.
I think this entry will have to be short and sweet as I am currently sitting at my imminent (maybe?) place of work, borrowing the wifi -- with permission of course.
It seemed like the ride to Radom was decidedly shorter than our wait at Chopin Airport to pick up our unfortunate coworker whose luggage seems to have found its way to Norway instead of Poland. She seems quite lovely, and definitely has more experience than I do. The problem with actually having a moment to think is that I also have time to be nervous about the fact that young minds will soon be depending on me for knowledge! I really hope I don't screw this up.
While the internet is still yet to come, I finally have a Polish phone number. Once I top up my account I will have to see about contacting my family. I hate the fact that I had to leave them at the beginning of a crisis...and I was abruptly ambushed by finding Grandma's phone number in my contacts this morning.
Being happy for her doesn't make it hurt less. I wish I could be around the people who are also in my position, but alas...
At least I have Sarah.
I think this entry will have to be short and sweet as I am currently sitting at my imminent (maybe?) place of work, borrowing the wifi -- with permission of course.
It seemed like the ride to Radom was decidedly shorter than our wait at Chopin Airport to pick up our unfortunate coworker whose luggage seems to have found its way to Norway instead of Poland. She seems quite lovely, and definitely has more experience than I do. The problem with actually having a moment to think is that I also have time to be nervous about the fact that young minds will soon be depending on me for knowledge! I really hope I don't screw this up.
While the internet is still yet to come, I finally have a Polish phone number. Once I top up my account I will have to see about contacting my family. I hate the fact that I had to leave them at the beginning of a crisis...and I was abruptly ambushed by finding Grandma's phone number in my contacts this morning.
Being happy for her doesn't make it hurt less. I wish I could be around the people who are also in my position, but alas...
At least I have Sarah.
Friday, 13 September 2013
Time Spent in Warsaw
I wish I could say that the last few days have been insanely busy, but the truth of the matter is I'm fairly certain jet lag has stolen mine and Sarah's stamina.
After my post on Wednesday, Sarah and I roamed a few of the streets around the hostel before our plans were slightly dampened by the pressing need to fend off a nasty migraine that threatened to ruin the day. I discovered two things that day: firstly, the migraine fighting team I carry in my purse REALLY puts you to sleep when you're already exhausted. Secondly, Polish Powerade is insanely sweet. I had to force myself to drink enough of the bottle that I could dilute it, and still had to do so twice before it was palatable. I fell asleep around 2 in the afternoon and didn't wake up until about 7 the next morning.
Thursday was fun.
We got up, had breakfast at the Hostel and then made our way to the bus stop at the roundabout with the fake palm tree. From there we were attempting to get to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, but wound up missing the stop entirely. Not only were we lost, we couldn't even ask for directions by the time we got to the suburbs because nobody on the tram spoke English. In the end, we got off just before the end of the line and took another tram that appeared to be heading back to the centre of town and eventually found the right stop because the route map indicated that there would be a station named after our intended destination. We were also assisted by a lovely Polish girl who was trying to find her way to the same place.
For most of my experiences with Canadian museums, they are small buildings that you can easily navigate in an hour or two. That was definitely not true here...
We spent about 5 hours in the Warsaw uprising museum and didn't manage to take a good look at everything. In fact, Sarah was so exhausted by the end of the upper floors that she missed the exhibits in the basement entirely and I only had time for a quick look because I had arranged to meet her by the "water closets." All in all it was still a very informative experience and I am very glad to have gotten a look into a small part of the history of the city we have been visiting for the past few days and the country we will be calling home for the next few months. By small I mean that it was a brief period of time in relation to the span of history, not that it was insignificant. It definitely wasn't. I wish I could say more, but the words fail me.
Today we met a couple of young ladies over breakfast at the hostel and struck up a discussion about plans for the day. Emily, who had only arrived that morning, mentioned that she was going on the "Orange Umbrella" walking tour of Old Town Warsaw that morning. Thinking it sounded like a fun idea, we went with her to Sigismund's Column, where the tour started and ran into the other girl who was staying at the hostel. From there we followed Beata --our native Varsovian guide-- through the reconstructed Old Warsaw. Unfortunately most of the city was destroyed in the Uprising, so almost nothing we saw was original construction. The Soviets were very thorough in their re-creation of the Old Town, so you could almost be fooled into thinking you entered a time capsule from the Renaissance.
Sarah and I are relaxing at the hostel for now, but we are both thinking we might check out some of the nightlife on our last evening here. At night we keep hearing a great deal of singing and live music from the local pubs, but we are generally undressed for the night and too tired to want to satisfy our curiosity. Coming from me, that means a lot.
Warsaw is very beautiful. I wish we could stay longer, but I am also very much looking forward to Radom, and our apartment so that we are no longer living out of four fifty-pound suitcases. I'm sure we will be making the occasional weekend visit to this lovely city over the next ten months.
After my post on Wednesday, Sarah and I roamed a few of the streets around the hostel before our plans were slightly dampened by the pressing need to fend off a nasty migraine that threatened to ruin the day. I discovered two things that day: firstly, the migraine fighting team I carry in my purse REALLY puts you to sleep when you're already exhausted. Secondly, Polish Powerade is insanely sweet. I had to force myself to drink enough of the bottle that I could dilute it, and still had to do so twice before it was palatable. I fell asleep around 2 in the afternoon and didn't wake up until about 7 the next morning.
Thursday was fun.
We got up, had breakfast at the Hostel and then made our way to the bus stop at the roundabout with the fake palm tree. From there we were attempting to get to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, but wound up missing the stop entirely. Not only were we lost, we couldn't even ask for directions by the time we got to the suburbs because nobody on the tram spoke English. In the end, we got off just before the end of the line and took another tram that appeared to be heading back to the centre of town and eventually found the right stop because the route map indicated that there would be a station named after our intended destination. We were also assisted by a lovely Polish girl who was trying to find her way to the same place.
For most of my experiences with Canadian museums, they are small buildings that you can easily navigate in an hour or two. That was definitely not true here...
We spent about 5 hours in the Warsaw uprising museum and didn't manage to take a good look at everything. In fact, Sarah was so exhausted by the end of the upper floors that she missed the exhibits in the basement entirely and I only had time for a quick look because I had arranged to meet her by the "water closets." All in all it was still a very informative experience and I am very glad to have gotten a look into a small part of the history of the city we have been visiting for the past few days and the country we will be calling home for the next few months. By small I mean that it was a brief period of time in relation to the span of history, not that it was insignificant. It definitely wasn't. I wish I could say more, but the words fail me.
Today we met a couple of young ladies over breakfast at the hostel and struck up a discussion about plans for the day. Emily, who had only arrived that morning, mentioned that she was going on the "Orange Umbrella" walking tour of Old Town Warsaw that morning. Thinking it sounded like a fun idea, we went with her to Sigismund's Column, where the tour started and ran into the other girl who was staying at the hostel. From there we followed Beata --our native Varsovian guide-- through the reconstructed Old Warsaw. Unfortunately most of the city was destroyed in the Uprising, so almost nothing we saw was original construction. The Soviets were very thorough in their re-creation of the Old Town, so you could almost be fooled into thinking you entered a time capsule from the Renaissance.
Sarah and I are relaxing at the hostel for now, but we are both thinking we might check out some of the nightlife on our last evening here. At night we keep hearing a great deal of singing and live music from the local pubs, but we are generally undressed for the night and too tired to want to satisfy our curiosity. Coming from me, that means a lot.
Warsaw is very beautiful. I wish we could stay longer, but I am also very much looking forward to Radom, and our apartment so that we are no longer living out of four fifty-pound suitcases. I'm sure we will be making the occasional weekend visit to this lovely city over the next ten months.
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
We're Here!
It's quarter to ten in the morning here in Warsaw...meaning it's almost 1 AM at home.
We arrived at about 6:30 in the evening, got to our hostel by 7:30, and were asleep by 8. Yes, you're reading that correctly--the first thing we did on arrival in Warsaw was sleep.
When we first got into the cab at Chopin and actually started heading into the city, I thought it looked a lot like Vancouver: sky scrapers, new construction galore, and rush hour congestion. But then as I was watching people weaving in and out of traffic and forcing their way into lanes where it did not seem like they could possibly fit I realized drivers in Vancouver looked sane and cautious by comparison. It made the roads and drivers in Kamloops look absolutely pastoral by contrast. Their cars also really resembled a convergence of canines at the local dog park: everyone seems to drive with their nose up the tailpipe of the person in front of them.
Also, the area surrounding Warsaw is flat...and I mean prairie flat. The only difference is the fact that there are trees everywhere. I looked out the window as we were making our descent and thought for a moment that we had passed through an inter-dimensional wormhole that came out in Alberta. For a girl who grew up west of the Canadian Rockies, that can be a bit alarming and a little disorienting for the first few days. At least it looks like the mountains are only a short train ride away from Radom if we start getting homesick and want to seek higher ground.
Today we will start branching out from our temporary digs at the New World St Hostel. The rooms are comfortable, the staff is fantastic, and it seems to be fairly close to almost everything one could possibly want to see. I will keep you all posted on our adventures over the next few days. One of the first things on our agenda will be trying to get Polish cell phones.
This promises to be interesting.
We arrived at about 6:30 in the evening, got to our hostel by 7:30, and were asleep by 8. Yes, you're reading that correctly--the first thing we did on arrival in Warsaw was sleep.
When we first got into the cab at Chopin and actually started heading into the city, I thought it looked a lot like Vancouver: sky scrapers, new construction galore, and rush hour congestion. But then as I was watching people weaving in and out of traffic and forcing their way into lanes where it did not seem like they could possibly fit I realized drivers in Vancouver looked sane and cautious by comparison. It made the roads and drivers in Kamloops look absolutely pastoral by contrast. Their cars also really resembled a convergence of canines at the local dog park: everyone seems to drive with their nose up the tailpipe of the person in front of them.
Also, the area surrounding Warsaw is flat...and I mean prairie flat. The only difference is the fact that there are trees everywhere. I looked out the window as we were making our descent and thought for a moment that we had passed through an inter-dimensional wormhole that came out in Alberta. For a girl who grew up west of the Canadian Rockies, that can be a bit alarming and a little disorienting for the first few days. At least it looks like the mountains are only a short train ride away from Radom if we start getting homesick and want to seek higher ground.
Today we will start branching out from our temporary digs at the New World St Hostel. The rooms are comfortable, the staff is fantastic, and it seems to be fairly close to almost everything one could possibly want to see. I will keep you all posted on our adventures over the next few days. One of the first things on our agenda will be trying to get Polish cell phones.
This promises to be interesting.
Monday, 9 September 2013
Big Day
At the moment I'm sitting at the airport in Vancouver, waiting for the plane that will carry me the greatest distance from home that I have ever traveled. If I were a little more awake, I'm sure my excitement would be as visible as my curiosity-however I've been drained by a series of long days.
And I have to admit that the excitement of the day is marked by sadness too. I learned that my grandmother passed away at 3:30 this morning, and it bothers me a little that I have to leave right in the middle of a family crisis. What else can I do? She would want me to go.The plane just arrived. Next time I blog, I'll be in Europe.
And I have to admit that the excitement of the day is marked by sadness too. I learned that my grandmother passed away at 3:30 this morning, and it bothers me a little that I have to leave right in the middle of a family crisis. What else can I do? She would want me to go.The plane just arrived. Next time I blog, I'll be in Europe.
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