Sunday, June 1, 2008

The List

Happy June 1st (Dzień Dziecka w Polsce, by the way)! That means that I have less than one month left here in Kraków. There have been plenty of goods and plenty of bads, so here is a running list –which I am sure will be updated as I keep thinking about things– of what I WILL and WILL NOT miss about life in Kraków/Poland/Europe/Abroad. And since I am generally an optimistic person (meaning not yet 100% Polonised) this list seems to favor the positive recollections... for now.

+ THE POSITIVES
  • being able to hop on a train and cheaply travel to any part of the continent when you've got some time on your hands
  • not having to be at the train station more than 15 minutes before departure
  • morning walks to school along the Wisła and Wawel Castle
  • hearing the hejnał at the top of every hour, especially late at night
  • discovering new running paths up to and around the Kopiec
  • the Planty
  • Park Jordana and the Błonia
  • the smell and color of rapeseed fields in the countryside
  • my international friends (especially the Hungarians and their cooking)
  • getting some free money at the beginning of each month from the Polish Bureau of Education
  • Polish piwo and wódka
  • dare I even say that I might miss surówka and kapusta?
  • for sure all of the beets and barszcz
  • how even though the dollar has taken a nose dive, things still cost half-price
  • how no matter how bad my last self-administered haircut turned out, there will always be some Polish girl with a worse euro-style something on her head
  • making up for lost time in the sense that I am living the life that most people already went through in college
  • the way foreigners pronounce my name - long "a"s just sound better
  • Chór Uniwersytet Rolniczego
  • Vladimír
- THE NEGATIVES
  • the so-called "napkins"
  • all the hand-washed laundry
  • laundry in Piast
  • pigeons in Piast
  • cranky receptionist dude in Piast
  • ok, just Piast in general
  • and all those stupid pigeons in general
  • not being able to express what I'm thinking among Polish speakers and consequently feeling shy, submissive, and not intelligent
  • not being able to master the difference between pronouncing "ś" and "sz," "ć" and "cz," as well as "ź" or "ż"
  • trying to ride a tram down Karmelicka during afternoon rush hour
  • the smell of the horse carriages on the Rynek (ewww)
  • the time gap between the end of the day bus schedule and the beginning of the night buses

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