Friday 17 April 2009

Happy Post!

See, we're off to Budapest for the weekend (must charge camera) and I don't want my blog to be left open at 'discrimination' and 'xenophobia' for the weekend, so I'm going to write a Happy Post, full of Cheerful Things.

1) Chocolate: I finished all the Easter chocolate (already), and I'm on a sugar high.

2) We had a conversation class on the European Union this morning. Topics for discussion were suggested by members of the class at the beginning of term and this was one of mine (note there was no limit given to the amount of things we want to discuss, and I'm argumentative). In line with the plan, at ten on a Friday morning no-one else had anything to say on what is basically a very boring topic, so I was able to enjoy the sound of my own misplaced końcówki for almost an hour and a half.

3) Salsa dancing: salsa is great, we go to these salsa dance nights and dance with strange men (mostly computer scientists... oh crap, I forgot to finish that post) and after class we have started going to the pub with Real Polish People who speak to us in Real Polish (with końcówki).

4) Twitter: I'm wondering whether or not to sign up to this. It sounds like a lot of extra effort but it would be well worth it to be able to subscribe to Stephen Fry's succinctly witty Tweeting. I found out that there is a Polish version called 'Blip' (Bardzo Lubię Informować Przyjaciół), but I wonder whether this has the same implications in terms of sharing news. The now well-known example is that of the plane landing in the Hudson, which was posted on Twitter by a bystander from his camera phone, long before CNN had got the story. If the service only runs in one country, surely the potential for promotion and networking - at international level - is hindered? (although obviously it's much better at national level, language being the same, greater incidence of local people signing up, etc.).

5) Taxes: I may have to do a tax declaration for the four months I worked in Poland last year (although hopefully I'll get a rebate, since I spent the rest of the year in the UK and my company, such as it is, is registered there). More importantly, this means that I will have to visit the Urząd Skarbowy, which should be hilarious and very blog-inspiring.

6) Did I mention that we're going to Budapest tonight?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Off to Budapest ? read this and be careful...

http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/news/news_archive/single_page/article/11/ophelie_bret/

pinolona said...

Gee thanks for the encouragement!
How about 'Budapest, what a cool city, you'll have an awesome time!'

Michael Dembinski said...

The point of Twitter being what?

"im going to toilet but theres no recycled paper so ill go elsewhere..."

Geeks and stalkers apart, who's really that interested in getting 25 micromessages an hour about twitterers' humdrum minutia?

Anonymous said...

Pińcia ugrzęzła nam, tylko czy w Budzie, czy w Peszcie. Kto będzie wyzwalał Pińcię?! Proszę się wpisywać!

Pino stacked, only where in Buda or in Pest? We will rescue her! Please write your names in order to make an equipe!

Anonymous said...

Wawel's Dragon - first!

pinolona said...

Jestem! Jestem! Tylko miałam trudne tłumaczenie na dzisiaj i poza tym egzaminy, i nic ciekawego nie zrobiłam więc nie miałam tematu na blog post. Ale dzięki za wsparcie.

Still on holiday in Budapest, if only! :)

Michael, I heard that Twitter was really useful for Marketing and PR because it's a quick way to update information and exchange news. Not entirely sure what I'd write if I were on it though!

Anonymous said...

So how was Budapest? How many days would you give it if visiting for the first time... keeping in mind I just want to soak in the spa and have a good massage followed by sitting in nice cafe after a day of site seeing.

pinolona said...

Hi mochafueled,

I reckon you need three days in Budapest. We arrived very early on Saturday morning and luckily the youth hostel we stayed at was Awesome and let us come in and sleep for a few hours, since no-one had booked our beds the previous night.

So that was Saturday to sight-see, slowly, then Sunday to wake up late, walk slowly to the baths and spend the whole afternoon there, and then Monday to hang out a bit more and eat ice-cream before getting the train back to Krakow in the afternoon.

If you're on your own, maybe just two days. But I think it'd be a squeeze to fit in sightseeing plus the baths in just one day!
I'm sure there were a few things we missed too.