1 month mark

So a month has passed now since I departed the UK to live in Poland with my love. It's been fun, it's been exciting, it's been a new experience but it's also been stressful, lonely, encapsulating and challenging.

Rather than write up more events and happenings (of which there are few) I'll make a list of everything positive and negative I have learned as a lesson since my short time here. I'll start off with the list of positives!

POSITIVES:

* Cost of living is significantly cheaper / routine expenses are smaller

* There are systems in place to handle most forms of inquery without the hassle of a thousand departments

* Public transport (though a mixed blessing; see later) is efficient and handled well

* Cuisine, while simple, is exciting as it shows new ways of doing things with the same goods we are used to

* People in the streets, while inquisitive, often don't care about what you are doing (see; smoking, photography, drinking, shouting) they keep themselves to themselves usually

* Architechturally and scenically, it's a beautiful city with history and lots of places to go / things to see(/do)


NEGATIVES:

* Polish - as a slavic language with a case-system and completely devoid of articles (a, the, an) with only 3 tenses and a context-based understanding - is not only difficult to learn and understand, but also to speak. For an english speaker to see a word like 'szczęśliwi' (happy) is disconcerting, to pronounce it is even more so ;)

* Lack of personal space; there is no such thing in poland. At traffic lights waiting to cross the road people will stand up your arse, on public transport rather than wait for the next tram, much like london underground, people just stuff themselves like sardines into it, even if it means you are being groped and frolicked in ways you didnt know were possible. Also, if people wish to get past you on the street, its completely normal to just touch your ribs, hips or arm and move you out the way. (In england, this would get you a broken nose)

* Queuing is a nightmare! People have very little respect for other peoples time and energy. Unless your genitalia are pushed up against the person in front of you, people will take every opportunity to squeeze in front of you in a 5mm gap without a care, apology or explanation,

* Change and money in stores is odd. for such a supposedly open culture where people have no taboo's about touching strangers' hips and ribs, or just cutting your queue, or rubbing themselves pervertedly up you in a packed tram... it's so forbidden for a cashier to give you change in your hand, instead they insist on putting it on some little silly tray and then you spend the next 5 minutes trying to scoop the coins up while the people behind you get increasingly impatient.

* Football hooligans here are even worse ;)



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And so concludes one month in passing since I arrived here, with new experiences, new knowledge, new stresses and new enemies. I look forward eagerly to what the next month and the month after and so forth brings for me.

 At Lake Malta ;) loves x