My daily trip to work

One of the people I know back in the US asked what it was like living without a car, and how far I had to travel to work.  That conversation triggered a memory of another co-worker who during a past "day in the life" presentation during a group meeting showed a presentation of their daily trip to work.  So I figured I'd do the same.  Click the "Read More.." link below to see the rest of the pictures.

First step is head out the door of my apartment.  There is an elevator on the other side of the pillar on the right, but usually I duck through the door you see on the right.

Winter Lilies of the Warta

While out and about yesterday I crossed over the Warta River and looked down to see these giant "lilies" of ice floating down the river.  Because of the speed they were moving, the freezing cold, and the fact that all I had my was little compact camera; the pictures not very artistic and the focus could be better.  But I thought they were cool, so here you go.  One more image after the break below.

Old Man Winter may be coming for a visit

I was informed yesterday that "Old Man Winter" (see my previous post) may be coming for a visit.

The warmest we are expected to get over the next 10 days is -2C (29F) with lows expected to get down to at -12C (10F) or more.  Yahoo is predicting a low of -12C, but apparently the local Polish weather team is expecting us to drop to -15C, and that it might even go as low as -20C.

Tonight we are supposed to get down to -8C, and for the first time while walking home I actually felt my cheeks and nose getting painful between the wind and cold (I remembered my tuq this morning, but forgot my scarf).  So I'm hoping tomorrow isn't too freezing as there are places I want to go.

FYI, I hope to add several posts over the weekend (although I will probably schedule them out a few days).

Have a wonderful weekend!

Important Words to Know....

(Image borrowed from Mugopom at DeviatArt.  See the original here:  http://mogupom.deviantart.com/art/mikey-way-starbucks-logo-75599218)

I've been very spoiled since I got here in the fact that all the staff at the Starbucks across the street from my work speak English.  And since I go in nearly every day they have all become familiar with me and with what I drink (since I get the same drink 97% of the time).

When they found out I was going to be here for about 2 years, and that I was slowly trying to learn Polish, they decided to do their part by forcing me to order in Polish.  Since they were nice enough to teach me how to order what I wanted in Polish first, and I would use it every day, I figured it was a very good thing to know.  Of course, by now, given how predictable my order is, they really don't need me to order at all.  But I appreciate the attempt to help me learn.  :)

For your edification, here is my daily order:

"Venti Caramel Macchiato, chude mleko, bez pianki"

"Venti Caramel Macchiato" you hopefully already know.

"chude mleko" is "lean milk".  Chude sounds sort of like "hooda".

And "bez pianki" means "no foam".

So if you are ever in Poland, at a Starbucks, and want the same drink I always get, now you know how to ask for it.  :)

An Update

Sorry it's been a few weeks since my last update.  I haven't been up to much worth mentioning.  The ankle I twisted at Edinburgh airport on my way home (the day after Christmas) has been taking forever to fully heal.  The fact that I pretty much have to walk on it every day probably hasn't helped.  Neither has the fact that most days I have a ~20-pound backpack on my back for at least part of those walks.  So needless to say, I just haven't been doing that much that you are likely to find interesting.  So here's a few bullet points:

• I got a taste of how fast weather can change here on Friday.  In the morning it was cold, clear, and so bright I probably should have worn by sunglasses.  Around 1pm we had a front move through the city from West to East that brought strong winds blowing so much snow it was like someone was drawing white lines across the sky.  After about an hour, that stopped and it went back to being fairly clear.  Then around 2:30 another front with another load of snow and wind blew through, and it was gone again after an hour or so.  None of the snow stuck, reinforcing what I've been told is the warmest winter on record since the 1800's.  But we have had a near-constant "sprinkle" of occasional snow-flakes coming down since Friday.  And even a bit of small hail.  So there is definitely still some cold air up over the city.  Yahoo (who have not been generally a good source of weather predictions) is predicting snow and/or rain Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this coming week, so who knows, we might have a bit of a snowy winter after all.
• I managed to the find a CD of a Polish post-rock band I had heard on a podcast and liked.  I'm listening to it now.  I had hoped CD's would be cheaper here, but they are not.  It seems the music labels want to get their money no matter what.  Unfortunately, the band is not on iTunes or Amazon as a digital download, so I have a physical CD to carry around.  On the plus side, at least I'm not paying the cost of an "Import" CD on Amazon, so the album was cheaper.  I may post some more info on them in another post.
• I'm hoping to take a short trip somewhere in Europe sometime in February, as I'll need to use up at least a few more vacation days by then.  Berlin is close, but if anyone has any other suggestions, let me know.
• If anyone has anything they want me to blog about, let me know.  I have some more ideas, but some of them are going to have to wait until Summer probably as they are things that might work best with some pictures.

I've got a few other things I may post about later in the week.  And I'll see about a few more "New Foods" as well.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.

Stuff That's Different #5 - Fireworks

Coming from arid California, where just about any type of interesting fireworks are banned, it was a massive shock to see the fireworks displays that went on here in Poznań on New Year's Eve.  Bottle-rockets are illegal in California, and the ones I remember as a kid were quite small.  The launch stick was less than a foot in length and the propellant + explosive part was smaller in diameter than a pencil and maybe an inch in length or so.  For the bottle-rockets sold here, the launch stick is about 3-4 feet long and the propellant + explosive is about the size of a Subway 6-inch sandwich.  They go about 70-100 feet in the air and explode with quite a bit of noise and light.  Needless to say, the fire departments in California would have collective apoplexy if they were available there.

Then there seemed to be some near-commercial-grade fireworks.  I saw someone carrying what looked like a couple of coffee cans packaged together and have to assume that these were what were creating fireworks that weren't quite the size of the commercial displays in the U.S., but were pretty close.  Take what we are used to seeing in the U.S. for commercial fireworks and reduce them in size by about a half, and that's what I was seeing in nearly any direction I looked.  So they weren't commercial items that were put on by the government I don't think.

What this means is that the fireworks display on New Year's Eve seems to take place everywhere you look, and goes on for 30-45 minutes.  I went out on my balcony and looked out towards the big apartment blocks on the other side of the river, and was able to watch a near-constant show of the bottle-rockets flying up, a large number of the bigger items, and what looked like a fair number of commercial-grade fireworks that were launched all over.  My balcony doesn't look towards the city center, so I couldn't say if there was a specific fireworks display by the city, but it appeared that nearly every large (and not so large) apartment block bought at least a few large-scale fireworks of their own and launched them.

Between the younger folks who live in my complex using the park behind us to launch their bottle-rockets, plus all the other fireworks going off, it seemed that no matter which direction I looked that there were fireworks going off.  It actually went on so long that after about 20 minutes I decided to stop watching and just go inside.

Who would have thought that I could be bored with fireworks?  Is that a symptom that the little boy in me has grown up a bit too much?  =)

Have a wonderful New Year's everyone.  I hope your New Year's Eve was filled with joy and that you aren't paying too dearly today for any celebrating you did last night.

Stuff That's Different #4 - Sylwester

In the U.S., "Silvester" is the name of a cat (and a few people).  :)

In Poland, "Sylwester", which is pronounced the same, is the word for New Year's Eve.

So have a Happy Sylwester everyone!  Don't over-indulge.  And be safe.

5 more pictures from Edinburgh (night time)

Since it gets so dark so early in Edinburgh in the winter (just like Poznań) and since I brought my Nikon D300 with me this time, I took a few opportunities to try some night photos from up and down the Royal Mile, which is the street my hotel is on.

I didn't bring a tripod with me, so all the shots were hand-held.  I knew this would result in high failure rate, but I got a few pictures that I think are OK after a bit of tweaking.  At least I have confidence that the lens I took and my camera give the option for some decent night shots if take more time, a tripod, and probably some neutral density and polarizing filters with me.

Anyway, here are the pictures.  Enjoy and feel free to provide comments if you like.  As always, click on the image to see it in the size I uploaded it.  Thanks

This was the most difficult image to take.  The hill and building were lit from below and required very long exposures.

One quick picture from Edinburgh (day time)

Because it was winter in Edinburgh, the sun goes down at about 3:30pm.  And on Saturday it was sprinkling for most of the afternoon, so I only took one picture during the day.  I'll post a few of the pictures I took at night in the next entry.

I was inspired to try this shot because there was a photo on the wall of my hotel room that is similar to this, although much better of course.  :)

I converted this to a Sepia tone because I liked the effect.  Also, the stone of the monument is a brown and sepia color in general, so it picked up the tones very well without washing out as much as it would with a grey-scale conversion.  Unfortunately, the (very) grey sky was overblown as I tried to take several quick shot up into the mist during a minor break in the sprinkles.  Still, out of the three pictures I tried, this one turned out pretty good I think.  Enjoy!

As always, you can click on the images to see them in the full size I upload them in.

My trip to Edinburgh for Christmas

I went to Edinburgh for Christmas this year to visit with my friend Justin Ross and his wife Shannon.  I hadn't seen Justin since he and Shannon moved to Edinburgh from Sacramento over a year ago, so this was a nice chance to catch up and spend the holidays with friends.

I arrived early Friday afternoon and met up with Justin later that day.  Shannon was tied up cooking.  Justin and I grabbed some coffee and chatted for a while, catching up.  Unfortunately for the dinner plans, I was pretty wiped out for some reason (HINT: A bit of foreshadowing here) and ended up skipping dinner to crash early at my hotel.

Saturday, all three of us met up at the German Market.  Besides wandering through the market, we also toured one of the art museum's that the Market is right next to (I think it was the National Gallery), and Justin and Shannon went on some rides.  We all then grabbed some coffee, went to Justin and Shannon's flat to chat for several hours, and then went out for very nice French dinner.  Feeling a bit tired still, we split up after that.  After resting up at my hotel for a bit, I decided that since the sprinkles of rain seemed to have stopped that I would go out and try some night photography.  After a bit of that I went back to the hotel and crashed, looking forward to a nice Christmas day with Justin and Shannon and our planned Thai food for dinner.

Unfortunately, Christmas day did not get off to a good start.  I woke a bit after 6am feeling VERY ill and nauseous.  This continued through the day getting worse and worse.  I cancelled all plans with Justin and Shannon and spent Christmas day holed up in my hotel room with a raging fever, constant severe nausea (that on occasions led to what you expect nausea to lead to), and the sorts of aches and pains you also expect in that type of situation.  It was a thoroughly miserable day in which I hardly ever got out of bed.  I tried to eat some food and quickly realized that was a VERY bad idea.  And I was really worried that I would still be so sick the next day that I would not be able to make my flight back to Poznań.

Luckily, despite a 3am wake-up call from my body that was similar to the 6am call the day before, by around 8am I was up, packed, and feeling like if things went just right, I could make it home.  I lucked out at the Edinburgh airport and was checked in and through security almost directly (honestly, I think it was the fastest time checking in and through security I've ever had).  After a couple hours of waiting I got to boarded onto my flight and took off.  A longer wait through passport control on returning to Poland and eventually I got back to my apartment, rapidly feeling worse.

I managed to eat some semi-solid food (yay yogurt) and keep it down, and promptly crashed for 14 hours of fitful sleep, still with a fever going.  After getting up today and feeling much better, I was shocked to find I had lost 11 pounds in 2 days.  So lots of water and mild food today, and hopefully I'll be better soon.  Now I just hope my New Years turns out much better than my Christmas day went.

Have a wonderful New Year's everyone!

** Check back in a day or so, and I'll start posting some of the pictures from Edinburgh after I have processed them.

Some more pictures from today's snow

Here are some more pictures from today's snow.  I would guess we got about 1.5 to 2 inches of snow over the whole day.  Unfortunately, it won't be sticking around.  It supposed to be cloudy by warmer tomorrow, and then rain for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  And apparently Edinburgh is supposed to be the same, so I won't escape the rain there.  Anyway, here are some more pictures:

This is the view out my kitchen window just before I headed to work.

This is behind the cathedral that is on my way to work.  Snow still isn't too bad.

View from the 16th floor later in the day.  Snow is starting to get worse.

From the 16th floor at the height of the snow.  Visibility got pretty restricted.

A bit later in the day.  It's starting to get darker and most of the snow has fallen.

First snow

We finally got our first snow here in Poznań that is sticking to the ground.  I saw snow one other time a couple of weeks ago as it went by my desk on the 16th floor, but nothing stuck.  Now I get to see what walking to work and back will be like.  :)

Unfortunately, I don't think it will stay around long as it will supposedly be warming back up a bit tomorrow.

My pants were lying to me

So I encountered a minor conundrum recently as my weight loss since I arrived has forced me to buy some new pants.  When I left the US I was in a hybrid phase where I had lost enough weight that some of my 38" waist pants were becoming nearly too loose, but I could only fit in a few certain pairs of 36" pants.  And since virtually no one makes 37" pants, I didn't have much in between.  So I ended up shipping over a large amount of 36" pants from my slimmer days that I figured I would eventually start fitting into.

But as I lost more weight and even the 36" pants started feeling loose, I decided to go out and buy some new pants for work.  Figuring I would start with 90 cm (the same as 36") and see if how much I have to go down with whatever brand I found (I know there is always some variability) I was shocked to find that the 36" pants I eventually found fit just fine.  And that this was true across all 4 of the brands I tried.  And that even those brands I tried but didn't buy (apparently skinny leg pants aren't just an option here, they are nearly the default, and those aren't comfortable for me) fit around my waist fine.

So out of curiousity I pulled out some of the pants that didn't really fit any more that I had brought over.  This included pants marked as both 38" and 36".  And in general, I found that they were all nearly at an inch bigger around the waistline (measured from where the flap over the zipper would lay to the end, which skipped the part that overlays the zipper area).  Most were actually over an inch bigger, which one pair of supposedly 38" pants actually having a waistline slightly over 40".  And nearly all of my supposedly 36" pants were 37" or bigger, with most being between 37" and 37.5".

So I have to wonder, are your pants lying to you too?  And why is that seemingly every pair of pants I brought from the US was significantly larger than advertised while that doesn't seem to be the case with the European brands I have bought here?  Have American's gotten so fat that our clothes retailers deliberately sell us clothes with incorrect labels in order to make us feel better about ourselves (and buy more of their brand)?

A day (or week) in the new life

I figured I'd give you all an idea of what my new life here in Poland is like so far.  It will probably come across as fairly boring, but that's at least somewhat by design.

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.

A faint hope dashed......

When I left the U.S. to come to Poland I had the faintest of hopes that somehow the pollens, molds, and other things I'm allergic to would be just different enough that they would not trigger my allergies.  It was a faint hope, but alas it has been dashed.

Given that the only places I can remember my allergies not bothering me (in my entire life) have been in the middle of the sea while in the Navy, and in Oman and Dubai (where at the time there was virtually no living plant life to generate pollen and not enough moisture to support mold), I'm not really surprised.

Poznań has had a fair amount of rain this last week.  And one evening (Wednesday or Thursday) we even saw snow falling outside our window on the 16th floor at work.  None of it appeared to reach the ground, but it was the first snow fall anyone had seen.  But when the rain largely stopped yesterday and the sky started clearing, the sun came out, it warmed up a bit, and the mold spores lept into the air with joy so that they could be carried along to my sinuses via the wind.

Oh well, I can still hold out some faint hope for the Spring, can't I??  Have a great day everyone.