Today marks my three month anniversary in Szczecin: time to
take stock of where I am and how things are going.
On the good side:
Made nice friends, have a fine apartment in a nice
neighborhood, close and convenient to everything.
On the iffy side:
Maybe I’ll get to stay here, maybe my stupid arm will start
working better and maybe the sun will shine again.
It shone today in a slice of blue sky, but by the time I
got up to stare out the window, it (and the slice of blue) retreated behind the
seemingly perennial cloud cover.
That’s the quick version; now for the extended play.
People
Indeed, I keep on meeting nice people, Luisa and Ewelina
being prime examples of such.
I should tell you that, when Luisa informed me, a while
back, that Polish people tend to be rather abrupt, I didn’t quite believe her,
exactly because everyone had been so nice.
Now I know better.
When my recently broken arm and I were on the bus and a
rather large woman sat down next to me, I tried to communicate to her that my
arm was in a cast and could she please not jostle it as she had been doing.
Not on purpose, of course. She kept fiddling with her
purse and shopping bag.
I didn’t know how to say please; all I did was show her the
cast with a look of supplication on my face. I didn’t understand her words but
her gestures were clear: I should just move to another seat... even though I
had been sitting there before she came along!
Since then, I’ve had other rude interactions: with the gate
guard at the post office and with a man who refused to get out of the way so I
could get off a tram. By that time, I knew how to say ‘excuse me’ but he still
wouldn’t move!
In the case of the gate guard, I didn’t understand anything
he said but, like the woman on the bus, his tone and body language came through
crystal clear.
Obviously, learning the language will be a priority, if only
so that I can stand up for myself when I get barked at.
Language lessons
For all of the languages I can speak, I have never taken a
language lesson outside of high school – and I already knew the languages
they were teaching!
So taking language lessons is a first for me.
I have trained as a language teacher and taught language
lessons, so I have a rough idea how such things should go... but then, not
every teacher has the same methodology.
I like my language teacher: she is smart, funny, pretty and
personable. I don’t particularly care for her teaching style, though.
I will admit that I am perhaps not the easiest student to
teach: always full of questions, trying to find connections – root words,
conjugation, declensions...
Granted, we’ve had only 3 lessons and last session was the
first time she assigned homework. As we’ve done no review of material studied
in the previous lessons so far – just jumped right in to new material, I hope
there will be at least some review from now on.
And pronunciation! A very difficult aspect of this language,
but we’ve done no role play (the conversations in the textbooks) and no drills.
Mostly, I end up repeating after the CD that came with the book... I could
just do that at home, by myself!
Food
There are, ahem... some er... slurp gulp...
tasty things to eat here; for one, the sheer variety of breads.
I have only tried a few breads and dishes.
By no means am I an expert on Polish cuisine, but there have
been forays that I delight in telling you about.
The most popular side dish is a tangy pickled cabbage that
so far, has been served with every meal out that I’ve sampled. Whether it
features with every meal... according to my two friends, yes, it does.
The favorite snack food is called pasztecik, a
deep-fried yeast-dough snack filled with either meat or veg and served with a
side of clear borscht that I have yet to sample... so much food, so little
stomach!
The second-fav seems to be the Doner kebap, which I’ve
sampled plenty of.
Pizza here does not seem to have the punch I am used to:
crispy crust, lots of cheese... I have only sampled 2 pizzas since I’ve been
here and, while the occasions were memorable, the pizza seemed a little on the
frugal side compared to past pizzas I have devoured.
I’ve mostly been cooking at home, to tell the truth. With my
left arm incapacitated (and being a left-hander), I really didn’t want to
embarrass myself by dribbling food down my front in every restaurant across
Szczecin.
Also, I am trying to stick to a German diet: big meal at
lunch, light breakfast and dinner.
Here, there is a large variety of sausages – including
Polska kielbasa, in case you’re interested. Recently, I discovered these
amazing bacon chicken wraps...
In short, no problems with food.
And if there were, I could always head to BK, Subway, McD or
KFC! NOT!!!
Bureaucracy
I find officialdom in Poland to be at least as convoluted as
in China, if not more so.
I’ve already told you all about the demands for
documentation at the
office of foreign affairs; now I share the other ones.
My first brush with bureaucracy involved the post office;
their sending me a registered letter to inform me I had to pay customs duty on
the meds I had ordered.
Once that was paid, a second letter informed me that the
Lidocane shipped to me through the mail was a controlled substance that needed
special permission for receipt.
Lidocane? I didn’t order any Lidocane!
Come to find out, it was about my thyroid meds again; they just
wrote Lidocane on the letter.
This time they were requiring a special dispensation letter
from the postmaster general in Warsaw, permitting me to receive my meds through
the mail.
How was I supposed to get that???
And why did they charge me 288 Zloty
customs duty before assuring themselves that I had the postmaster’s
blessing to receive my meds?
No, they didn’t refund the customs fee.
My next brush with bureaucracy was at the hospital, in
consultation over my broken arm.
Indeed, it needs surgery. However, because I did not yet
have insurance, I would have had to pay for the operation in full, out of
pocket, before even being considered for surgery.
Money was not so much the issue as getting it here is; I can
only withdraw so much from my stateside bank each day.
And insurance wasn’t going to help at this point; they all
have a pre-existing condition clause that wouldn’t cover my arm.
Nevertheless, armed with insurance, I went back to the
hospital two weeks later, on my appointed day. They told me I had to prepay for
the appointment because I had no insurance.
They charged me 80 Zloty to tell me I needed surgery and I
should really make arrangements... nothing else; not so much as removing the
cast or taking a new X-ray.
The arm still works but it is now deformed. I am doing
therapy on it by myself. It seems to be getting better, little by little.
How is Szczecin Working Out?
I have a (heated) place to live and food to eat. I have a
bit of social contact and all of the solitude I need to get my writing done.
There is no bike riding yet. For one, my busted wing needs
to heal better and for two, it is a bit cold and wet.
Walking is going better now that the vertigo has subsided.
It helps that I have Nordic walking poles; they lend a bit of stability.
There are plenty of buses to ride yet, but I’ve pretty much
covered historic Old Town on foot – Szczecin is not a megalopolis.
Now I just have to find the castles and a few other
landmarks!
I am hungry to travel; to board a train and go exploring
but, with the uncertainty of my permanent stay here, I am reluctant to spend
frivolously lest I have to relocate in a few months, should my visa not be
approved.
I’ll admit I am not filled with wide-eyed wonder at the
prospect of uncovering this country’s every secret like I was in China but I am
privileged to live here... however long the stay may be.
All in all, I quite like it!