Names - I need to add JoAnna to the list of common names because I am meeting so many of them - our cleaning lady, the new doctor I found, a career/relocation coach working with BBH to help spouses adjust, and even a physical therapist. Aneta is another one, and there are at least two Adas and two Kubas at the kids' school.
Everyone wears high heels - walking through the square (on the cobblestone, I have no idea how they do it), early Saturday mornings out and about (although the ones I have seen may possibly have been hookers!), even at Tesco pushing a kid in a shopping cart (and the outfit is usually topped off with a really short skirt or short shorts). Did I mention how ugly the shoes are? When I walk by shoe stores I glance in and so far I have not really seen anything that would make me even want to go inside. I am guessing I am going to have to wait until visits back to Dublin or the US in order to do any kind of shoe shopping- which kind of stinks because doing it here would be a lot cheaper. Clothes-wise there is an H&M, Zara and Mango which we had in Dublin so I should be all set- and two of those have a kid section which is good. We do see a lot of Wranglers around, I wonder if there is a store? I remember I used to have a favorite pair of purple cordouroy wranglers when I was in 6th grade, wonder if I can find some here? While I'm on the subject of shopping, I was happy to find solid deodorant and foamy shaving cream for Mike (instead of the gel), two things we could never find in Dublin.
Pedestrians have the right of way- I was used to this years ago, going to college in CT and then moving to Boston- freedom to just walk out into the street with no fear of getting hit by a car. Then I moved to Dublin and as a pedestrian I feared for my life. I need to really pay attention here when I drive around because it is a very pedestrian-friendly city (which doesn't make much sense to me considering the drivers are so crazy) so people really don't look at all before walking into a crosswalk, and I have had a couple of close calls because I am just not used to it.
Businesses stay open late- I love this one. It was on of the things that annoyed me about living in Dublin, most stores closed at 6pm, except on Thursdays when they stayed open until 8 (which isn't late enough in my book). Here they are open at least until 10pm, which makes life a lot easier if I ever have to run out for something after Mike gets home from work. Tesco is open 24 hours, and I saw a few 24 hour pharmacies. Even the little post office in our neighborhood stays open until 9, I couldn't believe it.
Most restaurants serve all-day breakfasts. Another thing we had a problem with in Dublin- taking forever to get out of the house on the weekends, really wanting to eat eggs or pancakes and then having to eat a hamburger or a sandwich instead because all the places we went had stopped serving breakfast. But on the flip side, it's really hard to find sandwiches here, so you win some, you lose some I guess.
Taxis are cheap, but you can't hail one on the street. You have to go to a designated taxi stand, or call one. Annoying if you ask me.
Krakow is a very catholic city. There are churches everywhere, and nuns and monks. The other day I saw a nun tooling through our neighborhood on a bike and I really wanted to take a picture but I thought I might be struck down by a lightning bolt if I had. I believe Ava is supposed to make her First Communion next May so right now I am in search of an English-speaking religion class that she can go to. Otherwise we will have to throw her into the wolves and put her in a Polish class- which probably won't end up being too difficult for her I guess. She is taking Polish at school twice a week, and the other day she went up to a street vendor and ordered a bagel in Polish- "Dzień dobry. Jeden serem proszę- Nie? Sesam proszę, dziękuję!" Which means, hello, one cheese please. no cheese?sesame then. Thank you!!
The cutting off is out of control. I think I touched on this in an earlier post, but people love to cut in front of you here. I took the bus the other day and there is a machine on the bus where you buy your ticket. I watched a person get on the bus, stand in front of the machine to buy a ticket, but when he took 1 millisecond to dig some change out of his pants pocket a woman behind him with change in her hand just pushed her way in front of him and threw her change right into the machine. I couldn't believe it, but he didn't seem phased by it at all. This also happened to me at the shopping mall when I was standing in front of the ticket machine looking in my purse for money to pay for parking and I wanted to deck the person.
They don't use top sheets. I noticed this when we were living in Dublin, more so when we traveled around and stayed in different hotels throughout Europe. The beds just have a fitted sheet covering the mattress, then a duvet (comforter) on top. I hate, hate, hate this, as I cannot sleep without a top sheet. Not to mention it really skeeves me out because i am sure most hotels do not wash the duvet covers after each guest leaves (I know they don't wash comforters that often in the US, but maybe since you can take the duvet covers off they are washed more frequently in Europe? I hope?)...We brought most of our bed sheets with us from the US, but I do remember buying new sheets at IKEA when we lived in Dublin and I was able to find a top sheet- it took a lot of searching but I did find them. But at the IKEA here they don't sell them at all, not even on the website. It was really hot this summer and our comforter was too heavy so I needed a top sheet over me, so I ended up having to dig a mismatched one out of the closet to use on our bed.
May, June, August, and September are the months to get married. We weren't here in May but the past few months we did notice that every single time we went into the main square we saw a bride and a groom wandering around with a photographer. It turns out any month with an R in it is a lucky month to get married (June= Czerwiec, August = Sierpien, September = Wrzesien). May (Maj) doesn't have an R in it but has great weather even though it's not a lucky month. So people put their wedding garb on and get pictures taken during the week, and then usually get married that Saturday. One day we saw a bride a groom walking along, and the bride was munching on one of those zapiekanka things while the groom chugged a bottle of beer. Mike and I actually felt sorry for them because they looked all alone and we thought wow, that must have been one boring wedding. But obviously they were just on their way home from a photo shoot.
Dry cleaning is very expensive. I think we used to pay around €2 or less to get Mike's shirts cleaned in Dublin, but here they charge almost 17 pln which is about €4 a shirt. This is the dry cleaner that is in the Tesco shopping center so it's the most convenient one for me to get to (which isn't really convenient at all). The first time there we dropped off about 15 shirts and the woman looked at me like I was crazy. She kept pointing to the price list but I really didn't have a choice. Since then we have found a place that's only about €3 a shirt, but it's right in the city center so the parking stinks and it's really hard for me to get there. I am thinking that I'll just wash the shirts and maybe our cleaning lady will iron them for us, we need to figure this one out.
Everybody smokes. This goes for Europe in general, we have noticed this ever since we moved to Dublin. Fortunately most places have banned smoking indoors (thank goodness, I can't even imagine that). Unfortunately, they can still smoke outdoors. This wasn't as much of a nuisance in Dublin because the weather wasn't really nice enough to eat outdoors at a restaurant . But here we eat outside every time we go out, and we are surrounded by smokers and it really ruins our meal. I still think they should designate smoking sections outdoors well, or even just stop manufacturing cigarettes altogether : )
I'm still confused at gas stations. Most places are full service, and when I pull in the attendant will go over to my gas tank (which is on the opposite side of the car) and just stand there. I mean, he isn't even trying to look into the back passenger window to figure out what I want. So I end up having to get out of the car, walk over to him, mumble in English and then point to the gas I want then get back into the car. I just don't know what I am supposed to be doing, or why he doesn't come over to the driver's window and ask? Weird.
There's lots of hitchhikers here. I see them a lot heading down the main road that leads to a place called Zakopane, which is about 2 hours south of us near the Slovakia border and a big skiing destination in the winter.
I cannot for the life of me find regular lined notebooks. Ava needed some for school and I ended up having to order them from the PTA. The other day I was looking for one to use when I start my Polish lessons but the only ones most stores sell are grids with really small lines so trying to write within the lines is pretty difficult, and then skipping lines just seems to take up too much space. Poland must be filled with lots of mathematicians and statisticians I guess...
LOL, I love the things you post about. I wish I could come visit. *sigh*
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