Observations...

I actually wrote this a little while ago but posting it now.
Some interesting oberservations:

-Dogs (Pies): no, not dog pies, it is actually pronounced differently. People walking dogs are everywhere!! It just seems so popular to have a dog here for some reason. All kind of breeds, sizes, colour... I miss cats >< (my buddy, Stefan has two cats but they're pretty crazy ones, puts on attack mode whenever strangers are around)

-Smoking: I miss smoke free bars/restaurants!! gosh... I hate hate hate smelling of cigarettes in my hair, clothes whenever I come home after being in bar/restaurant. I'm passive smokin' lots here.

-Greetings: here you usually greet with kiss on cheek (guys and girls), just handshakes between guys, hugz/cheek kiss between girls. I think it's rather nice, though sometimes I get confused whether it's meant to be a hug or kiss on cheek :P

-Pharmacies (apteka) and some small shops in general: I'm really not used to all the items being behind the counter. I like picking up products, looking at the price, reading the description (though it's not like I'll understand much of the descriptions here) then buying it! not just asking for things. I can't believe being a pharmacist, I needed help the first time I needed something in the apteka here :P

-Pet shops: I went into a pet shop yesterday and OOOMMMGG!!!! they were selling spiders and taurantulas as pets and lizards!!!! freaky!! who would want those as pets!! yuuuucck!

-Fish/apples: I miss eating fresh fish, like I don't even see supermarkets selling fish, only frozen ones. Once in a shop, our saw these marble looking rectangular blocks in the freezer and I asked the shop keeper what it is and it's supposed to be fish!! and Plus I miss decent apples - i know it's not apple season here but still!! I was at this market hall (Hala Targowa) where they had heaps of fruits/veges stalls and I went around every single stall looking for good quality apples and I couldn't any!! i was sooo disappointed! at least the oranges are ok here. (NB: I wrote this a while ago but today I did manage to find ok fish)

One month into my traineeship

OMG! I was supposed to keep this blog up! Hence the reason why I haven't told anyone this blog site yet cos I wanted to make sure I will keep up with blogging before I tell people that I actually do keep one.

Well, I finally managed to set up this nomadlife.org blog business so now I have a real @y blog well suited to my time here in Poland.

Went to my first Polish class this morning! Virginia, Hamie, Aline and Chris and I got up bright and early for our lesson with Kasia. We were all such eager students with our notebooks open, pens, highlighters all waiting to be used, ears peeled ready to absorb as much Polish as possible. Probably intimidated our teacher a bit :P not used to seeing such an enthusiastic bunch. It was great! We learnt our alphabet - practising our 'cer, chee, cher' rz, cz, dz etc (those lovely consonant strings) and proudly spelt our own names. It was also great being a student and getting a feel of how my students feel in class and what kind of things are appreciated by students. For example, more practise with new vocab/phrases we've learnt, personalise things we've learn so that we can really own the new language and also drilling is important to get the pronunciation right cos people do want to get it right. I always fear that my students would find drilling boring but especially beginners level, it is so valuable.

I'm really determined to learn as much Polish as I can while I'm here... I want to be able to understand conversations or at least get the gist of it sometime soon!

Tonight met up with Johnny who is crashing here at my place tonight, yay a fellow kiwi! So happy to get a visitor! It just felt so strange that a month and a bit ago, we were just at New Market, talking about what's going to happen when we get to Poland and now, I'm here and 'supposed' to be the expert/guide here already. Don't really feel like an expert but at least I can do the day to day stuff and get by. I'm feeling quite settled here already I guess... it didn't take me that long actually. I remember my first night in Wroclaw and sleeping in my new flat and thinking how comfortable it was and settled I felt already. He asked if I was home sick yet... and to be honest, it hasn't hit me hard yet. I don't know if it's because I'm still in my 'honeymoon' stage of traineeship or what. Of course I miss my family, hanging out with friends, just chilling at home and all that but maybe it's just cos I've been kept quite busy here so far?

Gosh now I'm just blabbering on and on here in my blog. Ok I will try to keep this blogging up!