Because I still have to work with folks in the US (in addition to here in Europe and in India) my working hours are usually from sometime around Noon to between 7:30 and 9:00pm. Some days more, some days less. Now as anyone who knows me well can attest, this is NOT a bad thing. I'm not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, so the ability to sleep in every day until around 10am is WONDERFUL. I think I'm consistently getting more sleep during the week now than I have gotten in at least a decade, if not longer.
When I get off work I may head to the mall across the street if I need anything from the grocery store, or if I feel like I need to walk around for a while, I will head home to drop off my laptop and stuff from work and then head over to one of the malls or somewhere to look around. Given that it's winter and it gets dark around 3:30pm I'm usually not wandering around outside too much.
After that it's home to make dinner. I'll usually check Discovery (3 channels in English) or BBC (also 3 channels in English) to see if there is anything on that I want to watch while making and eating dinner. If not, I'll do some reading (either on my iPad or on the internet). And depending on how energetic I still feel, I may put some time in with my Rosetta Stone software trying to learn Polish (I seem to retaining more of the words I pick up just wandering around town and seeing on signs, but I am making slow progress).
Then it's off to bed between Midnight and 2am (usually right around 1am).
Saturday is my "wander around" / errand / shopping day.
Sunday is my laundry / clean the apartment / study Polish day (I try to make sure I do an hour or two every Sunday so that I am making some progress).
So why is it boring by design? Partly because I wanted to make sure I put regular effort into learning the language. I figured Winter would be a time when I was not that inclined to wander around outside and explore, so if I spent it focusing on the language and learning the basics of what I needed to know about life in Poland, then when the Spring and Summer roll around I will hopefully be that much more prepared to get more out of travelling and wandering around town.
I haven't done a ton of socializing yet. I've gone out to a few meals with co-workers, including earlier this week (thanks to Daria, Kasia, Karolina, Monika, Krzystoff, Waldemar, and Pawel for coming along). And I know about a "language exchange" meeting that happens everything Thursday. Unfortunately my schedule and distractions haven't let me make it to that one yet, but it's on the schedule for the new year.
So there it is. An overview of my boring new life so far. Hopefully once spring and summer roll around I will have more interesting posts for you all as I hope to a lot more travelling. I'm off to Edinburgh this Friday for Christmas. And possibly another trip (somewhere) after that for New Years. I just saw a reason to try and go to Berlin around the end of January (if I can arrange it) and then it's off to Stockholm, Helsinki, Turku, and elsewhere come the spring.
Have a wonderful day.
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