Winter chills

I still have a good twenty-eight or so posts to get through by the end of the year. This is going to be tough. I feel a lot of photos coming on.

It's starting to get really cold in Brussels now. Not just ordinary cold, but damp, foggy cold that chills you through and through. The radiator in my bedroom doesn't work. I've heard that you need to bleed radiators. This sounds like one of those rather disgusting but secretly fun things - like picking scabs or pulling out hangnails - that you do as a child sitting cross-legged on a rather dusty floor waiting for assembly to start. I realise that's probably a rather over-detailed simile but I have a very, very clear image in my mind here of the boredom and the floating dust mites and those disgusting curtains decorated in a fetching pattern resembling psychodelic spools of Marmite. Once, I unzipped my summer dress all the way down the front and couldn't zip it up again. I was marched out of assembly and had to change into an abandoned dress from the spare clothes cupboard. My Mum never dressed me in zips again. What do you expect, giving a seven-year old easy access to zippable fashions?

I did tell the landlord about the faulty radiator and he sent round a plumber. When I say 'plumber', obviously I mean the landlord's sister's cousin's brother-in-law who's a bit handy with a spanner and used to watch Home Improvement quite a lot. The plumber stuck a little Allen key or something in the corner of the radiator, there was a loud, satisfying hiss and some water dripped out. I'm sure it's something I could do myself...

I also need to put blinds in upstairs. My flat has attic rooms with beautiful, big skylights, perfect for lying back on a snow-white cotton duvet and dreaming that you're floating on a cloud. Unfortunately, at three in the morning when there's a full moon they're not so good. Yesterday I snapped awake and lay in the chilly moonlight, trying to sink back into a lovely dream where I was catching up with an old friend who's recently moved back from Australia. The only thing is, it's not my flat. And I resent investing in something that I'm going to have to take down and paint over in three years time. The flat is definitely my home, but I still feel that I'm camping to some extent. The kitchen especially doesn't feel like mine (although it's miles better than the old place, which looked like this:

)

The new one is a definite improvement in that it has actual work surfaces. And more than two hobs (which I never use because I am lazy and useless and don't have a dining table yet and haven't found my local veggie market). And no cockroaches whatsoever. 

Note the tasteful tiling in my old kitchen. I have to admit I probably failed to appreciate its full splendour, largely because I was utterly bedazzled by the subtle charms of the bathroom:

Now, I've commented on the weather, written something vaguely amusing about my childhood, given you an update on the flat and some photos of real estate failures past. That's my blogging duty over for the day, bonne nuit!

Oh wait. Polski update. Uh. I have one lesson a week with a very patient Polish lady and we are going through a fascinating textbook on economics. I am also trying - and failing - to remember the difference between siedzieć komuś na głowie and zawracać komuś głowę, and many other such expressions, also from a textbook. 

On a fairly regular basis, I bump into a Polish person at a party and have a long and apparently fluent conversation with them which in reality probably consists of:

- oh wow, you speak such great Polish!

- thanks, I make lots mistakes. I live in Kraków two year.

- How did you learn?

- I go language school and then UJ, Cen-tre foooorrrr Po-lish langu-age and cul-ture iiiiin theeee world (I have to say that very carefully otherwise I get the endings wrong)

...etc, etc, for another half-hour or so. But it all sounds a lot better after vodka.

Wszystko gra

I went to meet New Boy off the night train at Warsaw Central. We decided to spend the day in Warsaw and leave his bags at the station.
The przechowalnia was run by a rotund, middle-aged Polish man, who persisted in staring into the middle distance somewhere past my right shoulder so that I couldn't tell whether he was talking to me or to the guy behind me.

Pino: Dzień dobry proszę Pana, czy możemy zostawić bagaż tu?
Man (speaking to somewhere vaguely beyond P's shoulder): Ile sztuk?
Pino: dwa
Man (realising P is not Polish): Ah. Two!
Pino: tak, dwa.  
Man: yes! Two!
Pino: (takes out purse) Ile to będzie?
Man: No! Pay after. After!
Pino: ok, dziękuję bardzo
Man: Please! Thank you.

New Boy (casually): Wszystko gra?
Man: (with broad smile of manly recognition): Taaak, wszystko gra!

Pino: Fine. From now on you can do the talking.

One week

A week! It's been a week! And sadly my brain power is so zapped by five times four hours of Polish interpreting (not to mention language classes, tandem, cinema and plain old day-to-day survival) that I have been incapable of crafting the witty missives that I so hoped Kraków would inspire in me.

Instead, I've compiled an A-Z (well, roughly) of this week. Probably not even in alphabetical order...

Arbuz - watermelon. Essential for keeping cool in Polish heatwave. And definitely not from French* (which explains the bewildered looks at the fruit stand in Brussels when I asked for 'une arbouse s'il vous plait')

blada - look, by my standards this constitues a tan, ok?!

kabina - a hot little soundproof box where you put on a pair of headphones and try to piece together
something plausible out of the spider's web that constitutes Polish syntax.

kamieniołom - quarry, especially abandoned quarries formed into a beautiful, clear-blue lake in the middle of the city, surrounded by steep cliffs. It is absolutely forbidden to climb down the cliffs and swim and none of us would ever dream of doing such a thing...

lącz - meal eaten in the middle of the day, after classes.

Magda M - ok, ok, I gave in and bought series 4 from Empik.

piwo - something I can't drink anymore without getting migraines in the heat

upał - it's too bloody hot. When I visited in January, the thermometer on the wall showed minus 15 degrees and I had to go out and buy extra woolly socks to stop my poor toes freezing off. Now the temperature is in the 30s and I've just spent most of my Saturday languishing on the sofa with a packet of frozen spinach pressed melodramatically to my forehead. When I finally managed to stagger out to the pharmacy - swaying a little under the sheer weight of the warm air - I noticed a teenage boy loitering about on the street corner, dressed only in knee-length shorts, playing Polish rap** from his mobile phone. On my return, about twenty minutes later, he was still there, pacing about aimlessly, skipping between rap tracks, pale torso baking in the heat.
As I passed, I realised that he was probably trying to sunbathe...





*it's pasteque in French. I always forget this because I've never been in a French-speaking country in hot weather. I never, ever forget the Italian or Polish versions.
** plosive-heavy Polish consonants are perfect for spitting out angry rap lyrics: I can't believe this idea hasn't taken off more widely. The music is terrible, of course.

Graffiti

Seen on the back of a cubicle door in the ladies' loos of the Thameside Inn, near London Bridge:

'Staśka Rzondzi'

I was about to get out my correcting pen when I started to wonder. Is this really a case of dysortografia, or is it a deliberate mistake for stylistic effect: a sort of Polish 'I woz 'ere'...

... any ideas?

Blocked

I stumbled home from work at about 5.15 pm, climbed into bed, read half the Financial Times and about two pages of my Italian detective novel and fell asleep for two hours. Finally I have found a job that mops up all the excess brain activity and leaves me with no energy to write. On the one hand, I love the job, I'm thrilled to finally be doing what I've wanted to do for - ok - the last maybe only two or three years. But on the other hand, I'm aware that I'm spending all day voicing someone else's opinion, trying to concentrate on a meeting that I knew nothing about yesterday and that will mean nothing to me tomorrow.

My - admittedly rather rather boring, 'let's please everyone' nice girl - personality wants to assert itself. I want to do something for ME. I sing an awful lot*, but the one activity where I really feel creative and feel proud of myself is writing - even when it's just a silly little blog post.

It's funny: I arrived in Krakow over three years ago, in April 2007, and there was almost too much to write: I couldn't cram it all in. I was grappling with an impossible language (and still am for that matter), a Slavic, Catholic culture that was largely unfamiliar and my first full-time job in a very different country. Every day I was presented with situations that could be either terrifying and discouraging or utterly hilarious. I chose the latter option. And I got there by writing about it. Had I not taken all my terrifying experiences with banks and Urzędy Skarbowe and the genitive case and Bad Obwarzanki Ladies and made them sound all cute and quirky and funny, I would have thrown myself into the Wisła after the first couple of months.

Here in Brussels, things are a little more familiar. Yes, the bureaucracy is a pain in the arse. Yes, customer service is if anything worse than in Poland. Yes, there are weird traditions (peeing statues, the Zinneke parade, a Kriek & Frites festival that resembled nothing so much as a family wedding in the country), but I tend not to get so involved in them. I find myself less inclined to take sneaky photos. I hang out with other ex-pats and have little contact with the locals. Language is not a problem: I speak fairly craptastic but at least serviceable French and have no intention - for the moment - of learning Dutch because languages are work now and do you have any idea how many Polish words I still have to learn?! One thing at a time, people!

So, for the moment my posts are cursory, summary, lacking in creative flair.

Here's a quick round up of the headlines, just in case you were wondering:

- Election: I'm so pleased that there's a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. Apart from anything else, I couldn't decide who to vote for. And DC and Clegg look so cute together...

- Ash cloud: I have a couple of flights planned over the next two months so I'm really hoping it stays away from Brussels. Besides which, I blame it for the freezing weather that Belgium is currently 'enjoying'. I swear I could see my breath condensing in front of me as I walked past the park this morning.

- Polish update: I've been branching out into detective novels and just finished Tęczowy Cocktail by Helena Sekuła (thanks Peixote). I'm at the stage where there are still a lot of words I don't know, but this doesn't prevent my following the story. This means that I carry on reading and probably miss essential details of the plot. I put this down to sheer laziness - but on the other hand, if you spend too long looking up words, you lose concentration and your understanding of the whole sentence is affected. In any case, I have a Polish dictionary on my phone and use it whenever... well, whenever I'm not too lazy.

Talking of too lazy, I think it's bedtime.

Oh - and a resolution: I will try and find just one little thing to comment on each day - even if it's only a few lines. One tiny, quirky or interesting thing about Brussels, Belgium, languages, Polish culture, and all the other the things we like to mull over here. (By we I mean me and people who comment - I'm not giving myself the royal 'we' yet, far from it...)


*http://www.brusselschamberchoir.be/agenda.php  among other things

Obligatory New Year's Resolutions Post

I seem to recall we originally learnt the future tense (niedokonany) in Polish by writing out our New Year's resolutions, for example:- w przyszłym roku będę uprawiać częściej sport, nie będę pić piwa, nie będę palić papierosów, będę się uczyć polskiego codziennie itp.

I'm not going to do it in Polish.

But I am going to do the very obvious start of the year list of resolutions post because my creativity is sapped and I'm low on imagination, at least for the next few days.

- I will start lying about my age. I'm getting fed up with the shocked looks, and with being asked what I'm studying (and referred to as 'jeune fille' or 'Mademoiselle'). If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I reckon I can get away with about twenty-four.

- I will stop complaining about terrible dates and join Meetic already. I will also find a use for the three Durex Avanti in my bathroom that are due to expire in March 2010. Even if it's just filling them with helium and releasing them from the balcony into the sunset. Or stretching them over a phonebox. Did you know you can stretch a condom over a phonebox? I think the tough part is probably making sure that the caller inside doesn't notice. Or finding a caller who still uses phoneboxes and hasn't succumbed to the now ubiquitous iPhone.

- I will concentrate more on the pretty sunshine and not worry about pension plans until I am actually in a position to start one.

- I will pay as little tax as I can reasonably get away with. If I were a British MP, I would definitely have claimed my mortgage on expenses and I bet you would've too.

- I will resist the temptation to try to learn Dutch and/or German for as long as humanly (or rather language-geekily) possible.

- I will eat chocolate and drink beer and find a place to go rollerblading in Brussels.

- I will go away for weekends more (credit card and Easyjet allowing), and visit friends who live in exciting places.

- I will learn to improvise on the piano, for the purposes of Career Plan B (move to Paris, become jazz pianist, live in garret).

- I will stop being shy. It's just inconvenient. I will also talk to strangers more and not look at the ground all the time.

- I will accept that my life will probably always be more of the hippy studenty vagrant variety rather than the get a proper job, get married, buy a house variety and I will stop feeling bad and admit that secretly I prefer it that way.

Ok, your turn now...

w kawiarnii

Outside Tribeca, Rynek Główny, Sunday, 6.30pm:

Waitress: Czy mogę zapytać co Pani robi?

- Robię korektę.

Waitress: ???

- W angielskiej wersji menu są błędy. Normalnie płacą mnie za to. Jestem tłumaczką, to mój zawód.

Waitress: ...

Polish Word of the Day #: Sesja

'Sesja' is Polish for 'lots of exams all at the same time'. Yes, it is related to 'session', full marks for observation, have a biscuit.

Sesja started last week with The Easiest Polish History Exam Ever (sample questions included 'Who was Karol Wotyła?' and 'Name Poland's neighbouring countries' - there was a map on the classroom wall), in which - with impressive lack of attention to detail - I managed to get the lowest mark in the class.

Then there was the literature exam: basically a short interview about a certain topic in Polish literature last century. I chose Wisława Szymborska over Gombrowicz, but it was a close call. And that was ok too, really: Ironic Literature Lecturer turned out to be on our side after all and was kind in his questions.

This morning, all the other subjects (except speaking) were examined in one fell swoop. From słuchanie, via gramatyka, through słownictwo, to a little czytanie z rozumieniem and ending up with the dreaded pisanie. Nothing to do with peas.

That means it's the end of the course (apart from the small matter of an oral exam tomorrow).

I'm sort of pleased. I mean - in some ways it's good to be a student again, but not when you don't get the fun bits of being a student (like not working). Besides which, there are two things my compulsive competitive little inner straight-A student hates: being wrong and losing. In Polish I'm always wrong, and I'm losing all the time. It's very disheartening.

Now the course is over, I can concentrate on the bits of Polish I like: reading, listening to Trójka (which I can almost, almost understand without trying, except the news, which is always read like an express train in any language anyway), going to salsa classes, going for piwko or coffee, doing tandem (much less pressure if you've already agreed you're both going to make mistakes) and just being here and enjoying the lovely city of Kraków. No pressure, no losing, no frustration. OK, slightly less frustration.

Now there's just that little oral exam tomorrow. Think happy thoughts. No frustration, no losing, winning all the way...

Kryzys tożsamości

One field trip to the eastern depths of Malopolska* and some new acquaintances later and I've decided to take a more philosophical attitude to the whole Polish learning process. After all, what does being good at something mean? It means being useful to other people. And life's too short to be useful. Somebody pass me a cold beer.

Talking of not being useful, I have been attending a literature course.

I started attending the extra classes because translators and interpreters should always be aware of the intricate cultural references underlying any text and/or speech as well as reading the news in four different languages Every Day even the bits that aren't really interesting... oh all right, I needed extra credits to get my diploma, and I quite like reading.

The course is called 'Historia literatury polskiej XX wieku', and the entire thing is in Polish. Our lecturer is small and voluble and given to twisting out direct, challenging questions with an ironic smile. I suspect he despises us for hurling ourselves against the unforgiving edifice of the Polish literary opus. Or he pities us for our naive belief that we will ever penetrate Polish culture.

On the other hand, there are a lot of pretty Hungarian girls in the class so maybe he's just in it for the banter.

In any case, this semester has been a traumatic struggle through the twentieth century, starting with war poetry, the Warsaw Uprising, moving on through the Holocaust via Tadeusz Borowski's Proszę państwa do gazu before finally tripping up on the hermetic prose of Witold Gombrowicz's Trans-Atlantyk.

This particular volume is only 120 pages long. I am on page 28. This is after three weeks. I couldn't explain exactly why I didn't understand it: most of the words themselves seemed clear enough. But the paragraph-long sentences, the stream-of-conciousness style dialogue, and a disproportionate proliferation of words ending in -ż made it harder than usual to decipher.

In desperation, we decided to go and watch the play, conveniently showing at Stary Teatr last week. The goal: to understand as much as possible, bearing in mind that the actual content of the dialogue probably isn't all that important.

This is what happened:
Act I: Gombrowicz (the main character, not the man himself) on stage with suitcases. Deckchairs. We understand that he has moved to Argentina. We also understand that war has broken out in Poland. So far so good. Although maybe not so good on the war front.
Gombrowicz asks for money from three confusing old men who toast each other a lot, plus one diplomat.
Gombrowicz has to get in with famous and decadent Argentinian writer with a penchant for attractive young boys.
Some other things happen. A lot of people are on stage, talking fast in Polish.
Mild nudity.

Curtain down

Act II:
We lose the plot completely, but there is a sparkly curtain plus lots of topless boys in white trousers, so it doesn't seem to matter so much.

I gave up and asked a Polish friend to explain it to me.

- Actually, that's an interesting question: there isn't really a plot as such, the main point is Gombrowicz playing with language. Why on earth do they want you to read that?!

I showed up at literature class on Tuesday afternoon spoiling for a fight.

The lecture consisted of a snap survey on who had read the book, who had been to the theatre and what did we understand. Having established that the answer to this was 'very little', our lecturer went on to explain the plot and its relation to the concept of Polish national identity. He then turned to one of the Hungarian girls.

- What does it mean to be Hungarian?
She answered, and the question went round the class, while I did some very quick thinking. Not quick enough though.

- So... what does it mean to be British?
- No, wlasnie, nie wiem.
- fife o-clock?
- no... nobody drinks tea at five.
- the Queen?
- ...
- well, why didn't you just fill in the Channel, instead of going to all the trouble of building a tunnel?
- That's easy: we need something to keep the French out!
- So being British means not being French?
- Yes! That's it.
- And Princess Diana?
I tried to explain that this was simply a trick caused by the tabloid press, but my powers of Polish expression failed me.

The discussion went on a bit longer.

The lecturer indicated me to the other students.

- So here we have it: it's sad isn't it? Empire, post-colonialism and now the British can't even express their own identity.

I tried to protest:
- But we've learnt from that! In Britain we're really tolerant!

laughter

- well... uh ...ok. We're tolerant to everyone except the French. But it's a joke, ok?!

I am not yet well acquainted with Witold Gombrowicz, but I suspect that the concept of a British person failing to express their cultural identity in Polish is very appropriate here.





* The Polish characters on my keyboard for some reason aren't working with Firefox.

Zrezygnuję

I have had enough of this język polski.

I have had enough of never being right and failing on a daily basis.

I am frustrated with studying intensively for five months only to find that - instead of moving up to the next level - I am simply moving up 'a bit higher in the same level'.

I am tired of feeling inferior and trying to suppress my complexes (does that word even mean what I think it means any more?) about my pronunciation and my inability to express myself, because there are More Important Things Than That.

There are things I am good at! There are! There are! Really! I have a value as a person!

Why am I still swimming against the tide/running up the down escalator/banging my head against the same brick wall over and over again?

(and don't even get me started on interpreting. Don't go there. I mean it.)

Exercises in vocabulary

This is a 'vocabulary-building' exercise from one of the textbooks we use in school. It caused some hilarity, and I'm short on materials. The title means 'what do we do in the bathroom?' Answers (with justification) in the comments box please).

Ćwiczenie 137: **

Co robimy w łazience? Niepotrzebne wyrazy skreśl.

kąpać się
jeść ......................raczej 'pić'... mmm cold Tyskie, hot shower, bliss.

brać prysznic..... take your life in your hands and play the 'try to squirt out the flame on the boiler' game.

kupić ...................or indeed barter. Normally for toilet paper, in student dorms
rysować..............why not?! See 'czekać' below.
czesać się ...........not to be confused with 'cieszyć się', which is when you are happy about it.
kleić ....................for example, peeling the label off the soap & sticking it on the wall of the cubicle.
zakręcać włosy
czekać ................that's what they put the magazines in there for.
prać ....................only when the washing machine isn't working
gotować ............yes! Marshmallows, on the pilot light of the boiler.
golić się
strzyc .................unfortunately yes. With pitiable results.
wygłupiać się ...and how!
śpiewać .............altogether now: Ohhhhhh what a beautiful mooooorrrning! Ohhh what a beautiful daayyyyyy.....

The answer to all of the above is 'jak najbardziej!'. Except for no 1, to which the answer is 'częste mycie skraca zycie'. Or 'what on earth do you think they invented underarm deodorant for?!'





** I don't know what the stars are for. It was like that in the textbook.

More translator-babble

While proofreading a legal document translated into English by a Polish translator, I found myself confronted with the puzzling phrase 'under pain of nullity'*. Now, I'm not a legal expert (shh - don't tell anyone I translate for), and the legislative world has a way of coming up with phrases that sound downright weird in plain English, so I googled it to check. The results were an entertaining wake-up call on not trusting what you read in the dictionary:

Item 1: a google search reveals confusion over the pain of nullity:



Item 2:
Polish translator no 1 asks for English version of phrase on forum. Polish translator no 2 offers
solution. Everybody happy.


Item no 3:
Confused English contractor, in receipt of a Polish-translated contract, goes online to check what it all means...



Does anyone else find this funny? Or have I just retreated into my own little translator world...





* (In Dalek voice: 'You will be deleted... you will be deleted...)

Lesson in comparative adjectives

For some time now, I have suspected that our grammar teacher (Bad Cop) is hiding a heady youth filled with Polish rock music.
Every week or so, we revise (and occasionally just 'vise') a section of Polish grammar, and every other week, more or less, we receive the lyrics of a new rock song or two.

It began innocently enough, with the past (imperfect) and Marek Grechuta (and the Myslovitz cover) of Kraków...

... another taste of Marek Grechuta for a bit of locative case practice
'Zgubieni w krzyku megafonów
W ogromnym światów wielkim'...
(Znajdziemy sobie)

... then things got serious, with a little dopelniacz (genitive) my friend:

'Ile razem dróg przebytych?
Ile ścieżek przedeptanych?
Ile deszczów, ile śniegów
wiszżcych nad latarniami?'

(ps, still Marek Grechuta - lyrics by Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński - if this seems a little too detailed it's cause I used to write essays a lot and I'm afraid of copyright law)

...

A little change brought us back to the future (tense) with Edward Stachura...


...but today's offering on comparative forms topped them all:



Altogether now:

Wierniejsza od marzenia
Weselsza niż wspomnienia
Cenniejsza od zaszczytów
Piękniejsza od zachwytów
Wierniejsza od marzenia
Otwarta na spojrzenia
Silniejsza niż nadzieja
Pogodna jak niedziela

It's helping with the PIT rage, really it is...

Safety in numbers

Or not, as the case may be.

There's currently a debate going on at the obwarzanki stand outside the school (the one up, rather than down, the road). It regards a matter of some importance to the health and well-being of the students, namely how to order the famous Kraków pretzels.

You'd have thought I'd have had enough experience at this already, but it seems I may have been getting it wrong all along (this may explain the hostility of the Bad Obwarzanki Lady).

During a break between classes today we stood anxiously by the pretzel-stand, waiting for the Good Obwarzanki Lady to come back from her coffee break, or from the loo, or from getting change, or from wherever it was she had absconded to.

- You know what, said my fellow-student, I think the numbers change when you're asking for something...
- What?! Again?
- Well you see, my friend is in level B2, and he said that there's this special rule for when you're asking for one thing... you have to decline it in biernik... or is it genitive...

I was horrified. I really thought that buying food was the one area I'd got totally under control.

-Why is that? Is it the numbers? Or is it because you're asking for it?

See, I know that when you ask for something, like 'proszę o gazetę', you use the accusative, but since 'obwarzanek' and 'precle' are masculine and neutral respectively (aren't they??) the ending shouldn't change.

- I think it's to do with single objects. If it's a quantity, like 'chleb', that's different.
- So... every time I ask for 'jabłko', I should actually be asking for 'jabłka'?
- I'm not sure... maybe.

We fell silent, contemplating the elevated mysteries of level B2.


Can any helpful Polish readers clarify things for us?

Language post

*Attention* Language geek post follows.

Every so often there are a spate of articles in the British press about how bad we are at learning foreign languages. These are usually in opinion columns and usually take the form of a sort of nagging warning: 'uh... look, guys... we might be missing something'.
I've noticed a couple in the past few days (ok, people have sent me links. although naturally I read ALL the papers in four languages every day like a good little linguist. Including the finance sections. it's true, honest it is).

Article 1: Foreigners translating into English because we're not clever enough to do it ourselves; the Times, Feb 16:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article5741122.ece

Article 2: Not enough native English interpreters in the EU; BBC News, Feb 19:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7900276.stm

This leads me to the conclusion that I might be in the only profession in the current world climate in which there is actually a real demand*.

Saints preserve us, I may actually have made a good career choice!

I would write my own article, but I have a plane to catch. I anticipate No Problems At All getting to Balice airport in the snow thank you.

Oh yes and the fun stuff?

Tłusty Cwartek**: Four at last count (although cheated by eating leftover two for breakfast the next morning). I scored one free doughnut in 'Pisanie/Słuchanie' class at school; my flatmate scored two from her workplace and one at salsa class (I really have to sign up to salsa dancing).

The police protest: A police protest against the removal of their right to retire after 15 years. Lots of big bangs which the other dog would not have liked. Also, they were in my way on the way home. Last time I protested about anything was as a student in Paris. I think that's the only way to do it really.

NATO summit: lots of helicopters over the town centre and security guards on the Rynek. Very exciting... in any case, anything loud enough to interrupt classes is naturally a plus.

School: Six hours so far, including gramatyka, mowienie, słownictwo... I'm discovering I may have been hasty in my judgements of my fellow students: not everyone is of Polish origin and not everyone is engaged to a Polish girl. And did you know there is an excellent Polonistyka department at the University of Tokyo?

We have just spent the morning learning how to apologise and to forgive people in Polish (przepraszanie and wybaczenie). This will be extremely useful given my propensity to pharmacy and tram rage. Particular emphasis was placed on the right expression and accent.
Notably, our repertoire now includes przepraszanie:

z lekceważeniem
ze złością
niegrzecznie
arogancko
z drwiną

And now I really must go and put these into practice in the queue for check-in...






*apart from useful things like teachers, doctors, reality tv show stars, etc.
** Polish pancake day but the Thursday before - start of the last week of carnival, only with doughnuts instead of pancakes. Just a light snack then.

First day of school

Yesterday we had a Big Exam and today the results were up on the noticeboard at the school, just like in those American College Movies.
We all peered hard at the lists and I was very relieved to be in the intermediate and not the beginner stream. You may laugh but it is quite plausible to study Polish for nearly two years and still be a beginner. On Sunday we hit the slopes thanks to a kind colleague of my flatmate with a big car, and at the Karczma, the Poles explained to our lady with the ladle that they were helping me out because 'bardzo słabo mówi Pani po polsku'. I protested of course: 'słabo', yes, but not 'bardzo słabo'!

We had our first meeting with the designated tutor for our class (I have a feeling that it doesn't work quite this way with real Polish students) and each person had to introduce themselves in Polish. I am slightly odd in that I have neither Polish family nor a Polish girlfriend.*

- Aren't there any people like us, who just like to learn languages? said my flatmate.

And there are some university students from other countries, but they are in the middle of their studies. Normal people don't just drop out of work for five months to learn a language.

Nor do I actually, which is why I am juggling twenty thousand-odd words of French EU law around twenty hours a week of polska gramatyka and trying to resist the urge to drop out altogether and get a job as a ski bum. I wish I hadn't complained about having too little work two weeks ago.

I'll keep you posted. You can still get GPRS in the mountains so I'll be able to blog from the basement of my chalet...


*although with regard to the latter I suspect more people would read my blog if I did.

Rozmowy

School doesn't start until Monday, so this week I've been quietly translating away at home, at my own tranquil pace and in the - sometimes demanding - company of my flatmate's cat.

However, I've already had the opportunity to get to know some of my neighbours.

Wednesday, about 1pm

Waiting for the tram at Stradom, I realised I was hungry and headed for the nearby blue obwarzanek cart.
Incidentally, obwarzanki are now 1.30PLN in Kraków, a whole 10 groszy more than last time I was here: that's inflation for you.
- Zssssezamem, I said, and handed over a 5PLN coin.

The elderly stallholder sucked hard on where his teeth should have been.

- Nie ma Pani drobne?

I blustered that sorry, no, I hadn't.

He appeared to look at me properly for the first time.

- But... I haven't seen Pani around here before, have I?
- Um...
- Eeengleesh?

- Um... troche... czyli... też po polsku... yes, I speak English.

- Ahh... dobrze. Dobrze!
He nodded in satisfaction and beamed at me gummily.

I thanked him and made a dash for the safety of the tram shelter.



Saturday morning

Sheltering at the bus stop outside Ikea, with a huge blue holdall filled with spare pillowcases and cat-proof storage solutions under my arm, I was trying unsuccessfully to keep the driving snow from blowing in under the hood of my ski jacket.

A small Polish woman of around my mother's age was inspecting the bus timetables.

- Ale osiemnastka w sobotę nie jeździ?
she asked me.
- Maybe not... I answered, peering at the schedules. - I don't know: I'm not from round here, I don't really know how it works...
She made 'ok, never mind', noises and turned away to ask someone else.

About five minutes later, she turned back to me.
- Skąd Pani jest?
- Z Anglii.
- Oh! Dobrze mówi Pani po polsku!
I looked embarassed and hid my face in the hood of my jacket and made denial-type noises. Luckily her bus arrived and I was spared revealing the full extent of my kłopot z polskim.

Saturday afternoon

Wet, powdery snow has been falling for a full 48 hours. At least. On Friday morning my flatmate left for work in normal shoes and came back in the evening cursing slush puddles and damp socks.

After coming back from Ikea, I unpacked the big blue bag, picked up my notebook and set off out again. On the landing was a fragile-looking elderly lady leaning on two walking sticks. Nothing unusual here: the whole block - apart from our flat - seems to be exclusively populated by the babcia demographic*.
- Dzien dobry! I nodded like a good girl. I'm trying to make a good impression.
- But... are you going out? said the old woman. 'Don't you have a hat?!' Her eyes took on a feverish gleam as she launched into a diatribe - stick-waving included - on the dangers of leaving the house in winter. Halfway through she acknowledged that, oh yes, I was wearing a hat (underneath my hood, again). This was not however enough to slow her down.
I nodded and smiled at respectful intervals.
- Never have I seen such snow! Stay indoors! Children mustn't be allowed out!
I could hear her voice still going, albeit fainter and fainter, as I escaped down the four flights of stairs to the front door.

I did wonder whether she was urging me to keep my own children indoors, or classifying me in the 'child' demographic...


*although this afternoon in the porch I made a rare sighting of an actual dziadek!

One Week

I've been in Kraków for a week now, and as far as I can see very little has changed (surprising I suppose if you consider the speed of change in the mid-2000s - what do we call this decade anyway? I hate 'the noughties', plus Noel Coward got there first).

I'm living in an apartment block, very similar to my old place on Starowiślna. I think it's slightly newer: at least the flat seems newer inside (no window panels on the doors). I'm still on a main road, even more main than Starowiślna, but slightly further back, so the noise isn't so much of a problem. Plus I'm on the other side of the river now, so fewer drunk revellers!

What have I discovered in a week?

- I'm sorry to have missed the snow in England. I love snow, and the dog loves it too: it makes her turn into a puppy again. There was a little bit here when I arrived, but it's since melted.
- Cats are not as obliging or affectionate as dogs. I miss the dog.
- Running on old snow is a slippery experience.
- Teabags are not the same here: they're designed to be taken without milk, so the blend is less strong.
- Polish beer kicks my arse. So does wiśniówka, tatanka, and anything else like that. I am seriously thinking of renouncing them altogether.
- Cherry Powerade works magic on a dehydrated body (see above point on Polish beer).
- I have been to two aerobics classes ('w fitnesie') in four days. Polish aerobics kicks my arse. My knees look very wobbly in the mirror and my hands as though they might snap off.
- It is probably very unhealthy to check facebook on a long train journey. Whatever happened to reading (ok, I do that too) and I-Spy?
- I never thought I would willingly eat smalec* more than once (see above point on Polish beer).
- It is hard to speak Polish with Polish people if you are a native English speaker, and I have to make more of an effort, before my Big Test on Monday...



*basically spreadable lard with pork scratchings in

Polish word of the day: 0022009

Today's Polish word of the day is 'śnieg'.

Here is an illustration of the meaning of this word.



And here are some examples of its use:

- Lotnisko zamknięte z powodu opadów śniegu
- Z powodu padającego śniegu, dzisiejszy lot do Krakowa jest odwołany

It's actually quite hard to find this sort of example on google, seeing as how, in Poland, things are not often cancelled z powodu śniegu. In Poland, they put on winter tyres and drink tea with raspberry syrup and get on with it.

In England, nothing works when it snows.

trzymajcie kciucki.

Polish word of the day: 0012009

I've decided to resurrect 'Polish Word of the Day' - ostensibly to get some culture into an otherwise flagging blog and give Anna a run for her money but basically because it's still by far and away the biggest search hit* and I Want Stats.

Today's Polish Word of the Day is 'pakiet internetowy'. Or even 'pakiet transmiji danych'. (I know that's actually several words. But one single concept).

This is a magic bean that you can bolt on to your sim card or phone contract (if you were the kind of person who stayed in one place long enough to have a phone contract), which allows you to have internet wherever you go. Hurrah, and finally, freedom from sitting in front of the screen! Not only can one check/receive emails on the move (thus avoiding that annoying situation where you have No Work for 48 hours, yet the minute you go outside for a walk/shopping/just to remember what daylight looks like, four million requests arrive, all of which are answered by ... 'never mind, I found another translator' by the time you come back).
Also it would allow me to update my facebook status and get a little mobile phone sign next to it, just to confuse all my friends who work in the city...

Having decided that mobile internet was going to be essential to my professional survival over the next five months, I set out for Carphone Warehouse.

- Sure, said the first guy. You can buy a Blackberry handset (costs a fortune but it'll be worth it), add a SIM-only contract and then cancel it and slip in your Polish SIM once you get over there. No problems!

I spent an evening calculating how many pages of EU regulatory notifications I would have to translate before earning back the £250+ a Blackberry handset would cost me, and whether it would in fact be better to spend this money on minor essentials such as my first month's rent and deposit (I probably lose almost this amount per month in missed jobs when I'm away from my email for whatever reason).
I then passed many happy hours trying to decipher the various websites of Simplus, Era and Blackberry Polska. All excellent vocabulary practice.

The next day I went to the Sevenoaks Mobile Phone Centre. A very smug salesman was very busy with a middle-aged customer. I checked the queue at Phones 4 U and came back about twenty minutes later.

Blackberry? No, you can't do that. It's got to be configured you see - all of ours are locked to Vodafone. If you put a new sim in the email won't work.
You could try the new Nokia...

great!

... but it'll cost you 300quid.

Oh.

Back to the drawing board.

I tried Carphone Warehouse again and talked to a different salesperson.

- You know what? she said; I think maybe for your purposes an email phone isn't the best way forward. Why not get a netbook (greedily I took in the row of tiny 7" Asus laptops, all heavily discounted - hurrah for credit-crunch Britain) and use a PAYG dongle for mobile internet? Then all you have to do is put in your Polish sim when you go abroad!

Wow! A new toy! And wouldn't it look bad-ass in the booth?! (not that I'm in the booth all that often, but who knows, maybe a magic netbook would give me special professional powers)

I wanted one.

I went home and rang the 3G sales line to ask about their mobile broadband roaming rates.

- Um... I'm not actually going to buy anything today but I'd like to... can I still ask you some questions?
I could feel the guy's heart sink at the lost commission, but he gamely agreed to chat to me.

- No... no it doesn't work like that. All our dongles are locked to 3G. You'd have to have it re-configured for a Polish sim. You're basically in a Catch-22 situation** really: if you get an English contract you have to pay massive roaming fees, and if you get a Polish one... well, you're stuck with it for eighteen months.

Oh crap.

Back to the drawing board. Worse still, no new toy for me.

I decided to leave it until I actually got to Poland and then go and talk to the nice guy in the Plus GSM store. And then possibly to the dodgy guy down the road just off Starowiślna, under the sign saying 'Odblokowanie komórki'.

Anyone got a better idea?


*with the exception of anything about Polish men. You'd be surprised. Actually, maybe I should tag all my posts with 'Polish men' and gain a whole new reader demographic.
**I've heard that the French equivalent to this phrase is 'une situation Corneillienne': can anyone give me an Italian or Polish version?