Friday, July 20, 2007
One more thing...
I almost forgot one of the best things about Poland: the ice cream! It's so much better than back in the states. So creamy. So tasty. So loaded with flavor. And they have all sorts of different flavors. And it costs about half as much. People usually get at least two scoops, and they think it's wierd if you don't get each scoop a different flavor. My favorite combo so far: raspberry and lemon. Yummy!
Friday, July 13, 2007
Pros and Cons
Things I love about Poland:
1. The sites. There are so many amazing things to see here. Tons of old buildings, statues, parks, etc. Every time we go somewhere new, there's always something unexpected and really cool. Luckily I have my camera on me about 90% of the time so I'm able to document most of what we see. I post the best stuff on my Flickr page, but that's only a fraction of the pics I've taken.
2. Public transportation. It's pretty easy to get around to wherever you need to go here. For 20 bucks a month you can ride the trams, buses, and metro all you want. That's way cheaper than taking th DC metro. We've only been on a couple buses so far, but the tram is our best friend. Our stop is just outside the apartment and the most you ever have to wait is 10 minutes, but it's usually a lot shorter than that.
3. The history. I don't know much about it, but I'm going to learn as much as I can while I'm here.
Things I hate about Poland:
1. The language barrier. Everyone told us not to waste our time learning Polish because almost everybody speaks English here. Bullshit. It's a lot harder than we expected. Even though we can get around just fine, it make things pretty difficult sometimes. Some of the younger people speak English because they teach it in the schools now, but you can forget talking to any of the older people.
2. The language. I want to meet whoever is responsible for this crazy ass language so I can bitchslap them. It's hard enough that half the letters sound like other letters, but some of the sounds in these words are humanly impossible to pronounce. "Sz" sounds like shh, "cz" sounds like ch, and there are words that start with Szcz. "Krz" and "prz" sounds like shh, too. Don't even get me started on all the letters that have little squiggly things on the bottom of them.
3. The drivers. Our car isn't even here yet and I already have road rage. These people are crazy. I've heard that it's because they've only been driving for about 20 years, but that's not a good enough excuse for me. I've only been driving for 13 years, so screw that. There are posted speed limits, but I don't even know why since the cops don't seem to care. And somehow they manage to squeeze four cars into three lanes. And they LOVE their horns. I was shocked that I hadn't seen any accidents since I'd been here, but last weekend Kim and I saw someone smash into the guy that pulled out in front of him.
4. The fashion. Lots of the females dress all nice and business-like, but the others wear the craziest clothes. They LOVE red shoes. The brighter the better, wether or not it matches anything else they're wearing just doesn't matter. Camouflage is everywhere. And not normal camo, either. Just about any color you can think of (think pink). The only one I haven't seen is hunter orange, so I'm thinking I should bring some back from the states and sell it here. I'd make a fortune!
And there are tons of people that wear shirts with English text on them, but I can't help but wonder if they even have a clue what it says...
5. The haircuts. I don't know what the hell the dudes here are thinking. Half of them have the same stupid haircut. Kinda like a mullet and mohawk hybrid. They shave the sides of thier heads, except that it looks more like when a dog chews out patches of it's own hair.
6. Movie release dates. We get most of the movies the US does, but they can take a few months to get here. The last Pirates movie was released at the same time as the US, and The last Die Hard movie was only about a week later, but we still don't know when Knocked Up is coming. But the worst thing is that Transformers isn't here yet and it's driving me effing crazy!
*Funny little FYI about the last Die Hard movie (which was awesome): It's called Die Hard 4.0 in the rest of the world because nobody outside the US would understand the "Live Free or Die" reference.
1. The sites. There are so many amazing things to see here. Tons of old buildings, statues, parks, etc. Every time we go somewhere new, there's always something unexpected and really cool. Luckily I have my camera on me about 90% of the time so I'm able to document most of what we see. I post the best stuff on my Flickr page, but that's only a fraction of the pics I've taken.
2. Public transportation. It's pretty easy to get around to wherever you need to go here. For 20 bucks a month you can ride the trams, buses, and metro all you want. That's way cheaper than taking th DC metro. We've only been on a couple buses so far, but the tram is our best friend. Our stop is just outside the apartment and the most you ever have to wait is 10 minutes, but it's usually a lot shorter than that.
3. The history. I don't know much about it, but I'm going to learn as much as I can while I'm here.
Things I hate about Poland:
1. The language barrier. Everyone told us not to waste our time learning Polish because almost everybody speaks English here. Bullshit. It's a lot harder than we expected. Even though we can get around just fine, it make things pretty difficult sometimes. Some of the younger people speak English because they teach it in the schools now, but you can forget talking to any of the older people.
2. The language. I want to meet whoever is responsible for this crazy ass language so I can bitchslap them. It's hard enough that half the letters sound like other letters, but some of the sounds in these words are humanly impossible to pronounce. "Sz" sounds like shh, "cz" sounds like ch, and there are words that start with Szcz. "Krz" and "prz" sounds like shh, too. Don't even get me started on all the letters that have little squiggly things on the bottom of them.
3. The drivers. Our car isn't even here yet and I already have road rage. These people are crazy. I've heard that it's because they've only been driving for about 20 years, but that's not a good enough excuse for me. I've only been driving for 13 years, so screw that. There are posted speed limits, but I don't even know why since the cops don't seem to care. And somehow they manage to squeeze four cars into three lanes. And they LOVE their horns. I was shocked that I hadn't seen any accidents since I'd been here, but last weekend Kim and I saw someone smash into the guy that pulled out in front of him.
4. The fashion. Lots of the females dress all nice and business-like, but the others wear the craziest clothes. They LOVE red shoes. The brighter the better, wether or not it matches anything else they're wearing just doesn't matter. Camouflage is everywhere. And not normal camo, either. Just about any color you can think of (think pink). The only one I haven't seen is hunter orange, so I'm thinking I should bring some back from the states and sell it here. I'd make a fortune!
And there are tons of people that wear shirts with English text on them, but I can't help but wonder if they even have a clue what it says...
5. The haircuts. I don't know what the hell the dudes here are thinking. Half of them have the same stupid haircut. Kinda like a mullet and mohawk hybrid. They shave the sides of thier heads, except that it looks more like when a dog chews out patches of it's own hair.
6. Movie release dates. We get most of the movies the US does, but they can take a few months to get here. The last Pirates movie was released at the same time as the US, and The last Die Hard movie was only about a week later, but we still don't know when Knocked Up is coming. But the worst thing is that Transformers isn't here yet and it's driving me effing crazy!
*Funny little FYI about the last Die Hard movie (which was awesome): It's called Die Hard 4.0 in the rest of the world because nobody outside the US would understand the "Live Free or Die" reference.
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