The visit of my dad and brother the past three weeks brought to light some aspects of Polish life which I have readily adopted into my own behaviors and expectations of daily life. Some of the stories are comical, others are just humdrum daily life things. So, I give you a few "signs" that I've lived in Poland for awhile.
Our first story begins almost immediately after arriving at their sleeping quarters in Gdansk. The apartment they were staying in hadn't been lived in over night for a while, so I wanted to open the windows. It was a bit chilly, so my dad told me to crack the window. Without thinking, I turned the handle 180 degrees and cracked the top part of the window open. My dad jumped up, grabbing his heart, and shouting "Oh no!", thinking that I had broke the window. Nope, European windows just have two ways of opening them...I forgot that it's not normal. And thus I broke into a fit of hysterical laughter.
We ate out a few times in Gdansk, but when we headed down to Krakow, restaurant usage increased exponentially. With eating out came my dad's complaints of the slow service. During one dinner in Krakow, I was happily chatting away after finishing my meal when his complaining surprised me. I looked at him and smiled and said something about enjoying my meal. Eating out in Poland (and most of Europe from my experience) is a bigger deal than in the U.S. Thus, people take their time and enjoy their family or friend's company, often lingering for a while after the meal to finish up a beer or drink a post-meal coffee. There's little of this eat and run mentality that's pushed on us in the U.S. Partially due to the culture and partially because waitresses here don't live off of tips!
Our first story begins almost immediately after arriving at their sleeping quarters in Gdansk. The apartment they were staying in hadn't been lived in over night for a while, so I wanted to open the windows. It was a bit chilly, so my dad told me to crack the window. Without thinking, I turned the handle 180 degrees and cracked the top part of the window open. My dad jumped up, grabbing his heart, and shouting "Oh no!", thinking that I had broke the window. Nope, European windows just have two ways of opening them...I forgot that it's not normal. And thus I broke into a fit of hysterical laughter.
| They're really ingenious...and I think my house in America might one day have this kind of windows |
Riding trains with my dad was also quite an adventure. Unlike planes, trains require absolutely no security screening and they don't arrive early for you to get on. The first four trains, I bought our tickets before the train left and we did things Dad's way...arriving over half an hour early to the train station (boring!). For the last train from Katowice to Krakow, we arrived twenty minutes early to buy our tickets and dad was quite concerned about missing our train. As it was, we still had to stand on the platform and wait for its arrival for a few minutes.
On the subject of trains, I have to give my dad credit. He became quite comfortable with my 95% confidence interval of all directional issues, mostly regarding being on the right train, in the right direction, and choosing the right stop. On our train to Krakow, some brilliant train conductor forgot to change the sign inside the train...so I was pretty sure we were on the right one, but I wasn't 100% sure that we weren't heading up to Poznan. It's pretty much a "hold-your-breath-until-the-conductor-comes-and-if-he/she-doesn't-let-out-a-lengthy-stream-of-angry-sounding-Polish-you're-on-the-right-train" experience. I was really proud of my dad for embracing the reasonable uncertainty that is my daily life in Poland. I'm not usually 100% sure what I'm doing is right...and I've become okay with that fact.
In the end, my dad was impressed with my Polish skills. A few times, in the depths of exhaustion I couldn't for the life of my translate a menu to English. Unfortunately, the restaurant only had Polish menus and I struggled with the translation for 'papryka' five times in a row (it's peppers...like red, yellow, green peppers). We also had a few chuckles over the translation of some of the menus. Now, I get menus in Polish because I understand about 90% of food vocabulary (at least the important stuff like ingredients). On one of dad's meals, he had "pork scratchings" which was the translation of "small pieces of bacon."
In the end, my dad was impressed with my Polish skills. A few times, in the depths of exhaustion I couldn't for the life of my translate a menu to English. Unfortunately, the restaurant only had Polish menus and I struggled with the translation for 'papryka' five times in a row (it's peppers...like red, yellow, green peppers). We also had a few chuckles over the translation of some of the menus. Now, I get menus in Polish because I understand about 90% of food vocabulary (at least the important stuff like ingredients). On one of dad's meals, he had "pork scratchings" which was the translation of "small pieces of bacon."
Since I started with windows, I'll end with windows. Polish windows (as with most European windows) lack screens. I leave my windows wide open all the time. I like fresh air and my apartment is high enough up that the bugs are to a minimum. However, my dad was TERRIFIED that we were going to wake up with a pigeon in our room, an issue that actually never really crossed my mind. Even so, I really like fresh air so I didn't let pigeon fright scare me away from opening my windows (Ask my brother, I hate pigeons). I mentioned it casually to a friend that lives in Gdansk and she told me it's not unheard of because she's woken up before with a pigeon in her room! So not all my dad's fears were baseless!
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