Polish Lessons and Shopping

We definitely plan on taking Polish lessons because NOTHING is in English, aside from most of the menus when you eat dinner around the main square. I mean, I know we were moving to a country where they spoke Polish but I had heard (and experienced) that a lot of the young (35 and under) crowd in Krakow spoke English. But it's much different living here and dealing with day-to-day life - in Polish. Some days I feel like my head is going to explode. I need to allow myself about 2 1/2 hours to go to the grocery store - NOTHING is in English, even at Tesco which is the store we used to shop in in Dublin. Okay maybe the box of organic eggs was in English, but it wasn't too hard to figure out what those were. Thank God for google translate on my iphone - but 'Serek wiejski lekki zyj zdrowo' is an awful lot of weird letters to type just to find out the container is light cottage cheese - live healthy! It's bizarre to me because in every foreign country we have been to, if we found ourselves forced to figure out the native language I think I have at least been able to recognize a word or two - or it wasn't too hard to figure out what something might be, or what the main word within the 15 words you're looking at is that you need to translate. But here I am just at a total loss. It doesn't help that the two grocery stores I have been to are HUGE - which is good because unlike in Dublin, I can pretty much find whatever it is I need in one place. But the down side is there are about 20 different brands of bread, milk, cheese, yogurt, ham, etc. so it takes forever to figure out what is what. And forget even trying to read the ingredients. I had finally figured out all the brands that we/the kids liked and now we're starting from square one. Ava used to be a big milk drinker but she doesn't like the way the milk tastes here (or in France). Jack doesn't like the cheese in his cheese sandwiches (which is about the only thing he eats these days). I used to buy mostly organic dairy products and meats (all available at Tesco) and then I had found a great organic shop in Blackrock that sold organic apples, strawberries, chemical-free cleaning products, soaps, etc. etc. Now I am just trying to make sure I'm not buying cow's tongue instead of ham slices, or goats milk instead of cow's milk. This morning I heard a couple speaking English while they were shopping and I wanted to run up to them, hug them and yell 'Please for the love of God tell me where I can find the brown basmati rice or the capers?!?!'

We have been looking for smoke detectors because the house doesn't have any, so the other day I went to a store much like a Home Depot. Again, it was huge and there were aisle after aisle of sinks, toilets, wood, doorbells, shelves, and a million other do-it-yourself crap that I didn't need - I was dragging around the kids with me so I finally gave up trying to find them myself and asked for help. Of course the person didn't really understand English, so she told me to wait while she found someone who did. After about 10 minutes someone else who really didn't understand English pointed me to the alarms and then ran away. So I stood there looking at 10 different kinds of alarms - were they for smoke, carbon monoxide, gas? I translated one and it said 'temperatury' or temperature ( I wish it were that easy to translate) but what did that mean - would it detect smoke? or just heat?! So I had to wander back to find someone else who could help explain everything to me. Ugh! This is when I start to sweat and get a headache, Jack without fail tells me he needs to pee, Ava realizes she lost one of her little toys a million aisles ago and I end up leaving the store without buying anything! I know eventually I'll get the hang of it, but after one trip out shopping and I am mentally and physically wiped out. If I do manage to buy something (I did get a few floor fans and a dehumidifier!), the instructions are all in Polish. And that's a whole lotta words to translate. I thought it was a little weird since in Dublin I used to get frustrated by the fact that every food item or box you opened had everything in ten different languages  - and English was never listed first. Now I keep expecting to see English but no such luck.

Speaking of Ava and Jack, I just have to mention how amazed I am by their behavior. They have both been angels lately (for the most part). Back in Dublin they were constantly at each other, really it was more like Ava had decided she was too old and mature for a little brother so she didn't want anything to do with him. So they were constantly fighting, or crying, or whining about what the other had done. But now, in a new country without any friends (or TV!), they have become inseparable! Thank goodness. Before we moved I was really stressed about having them home all summer long, not knowing if we would find a babysitter so I shuddered at the thought of dragging them around to do all my errands - but I am just truly amazed at how well behaved they have been. Over two hours in a grocery store has been enough to send me over the edge but I think they are just happy to get out and discover new places.

So back to the Polish lessons - after things settle down a bit I plan on taking lessons (and the kids will be learning it 3 days a week in school), but so far we have picked up a few basic words since we've been here. Based on my google translating before we moved here I thought hello was 'czesc', but it's really 'dzien dobry'. Thank you is 'dziekuje', and please and you're welcome is 'prosze'. Here are little videos of the kids speaking Polish. Ava has picked everything up so quickly, any time I had to say thank you to someone those first few days I would tap Ava and tell her to say thank you in Polish for me. And when the relocation guy was here the other day he was very impressed with Jack's pronunciation of thank you, he said he sounded 100% Polish. Soon enough I guess! But man, couldn't we be learning French? Or Italian? Or at least German so maybe I could speak to some relatives! Ah well, some day we'll find some use for any Polish that we may (or may not) pick up. Something tells me it's not going to be quite so easy for Mike and I...