Week 1: The move and settling

My name is Jamie (Jay) Scott. I am 20 years old and I originate from Leicester, England. For the last 13 years I have been living on the South East coast in the iconic city of Brighton & Hove. Two months ago I made a joint decision to leave the UK behind and move to Poznań, Poland to be with my beautiful girlfriend. I had been to Poland twice before this; in May and August of this year, and these two visits certainly solidified my decision.

On October 5th, 2010. I departed the UK - train from Brighton to London, tube and overground to Stansted Airport, and then a plane to my new home!

The move itself was not very stressful. At home in Brighton I spent some time going through old boxes, and boxes, and ... boxes, however all that I brought with me was a 13.2kg suitcase containing clothes and a few books. My backpack with my precious EOS400D camera, and of course important documents - passport/birth certificate etc. So as you can imagine, unpacking in my new home took an astonishing 30 minutes (even then that's possibly an exaggeration)

So how goes it so far? I'm getting used to public transportation here in Poznan, I use only tram, and I am confident in finding my way to the major areas of the town - Stary Browar, Stary Rynek, Plaza + Pestka, Malta Lake, and I am becoming familiar with street names, tram station names etc. Language is a bit of a barrier - Mówie i rozumiem troche po polsku, ale niezbyt dobrze! I know enough to communicate basic things - costs, directions, introductions, asking what things are, asking to speak more slowly or to speak in english, etc etc, but I am not confident buying things and I feel very nervous everytime I am forced to utter a Polish word!

So am I missing any comforts? Banking is a challenge with an international account and only a visa debit but I am finding ways to overcome this. I do miss my cats back home, and I miss the freedom of being able to put on my headphones, get on my bike and cycle around my city - something that would probably get me killed, seriously injured, or fined if I attempted here :) To some extent I feel a little isolated and trapped, confined to only a few places. I know nobody here, and so when my girlfriend is working I feel quite lonely - hopefully this will change soon. I've made posts on the popular polishforums.com to see if anybody is interested in meeting up, and I've sent off C.V's to a few language schools in the hope of obtaining a position for a native-speaking English teacher.


Well, that's all I can think of for now! I will continue to make new posts as I progress with my transition of culture, lifestyle and language from that of the UK to Poland. With a major update once a week and possibly smaller minor posts inbetween if anything is of noteworthiness :)

Pozdrawiam!