Starting language course at Warsaw University

Thanks to my sister-in-law, I signed up for the Summer intensive language course at Warsaw University.  This is from the 2nd to the 31st of August, 5 days a weeks, 4 hours of classes a day and 4 hours of culture (dancing, music, films, workshops etc.).

Seems interesting.

Today they had a test to evaluate how much one knows about Polish.  It was difficult!  The participants seem to all be Erasmus students from different countries and most are Germans or Russians/Ukrainians/Belarussians.  Quite a few people with some Polish backgrounds (mother/father/grandparent from Poland) and from the US, Australia, Bolivia, Ecuador etc.)

There were a couple of Russian girls who were copying during this test -- that's kind of silly as the test is to see where to place you, so if you copy, you're going to get to a class that is way too advanced for you.

Results are on Monday

Warsaw sightseeing

The past couple of days I decided to wear out my shoes walking about Warsaw.

First I walked down through Stare Miasto and dropped in at all the Churches -- after a point they seemed alike, but I found out that the Benedictine Church near Barbakan has the last mass on Sunday at 21:30.   Very important to know!

Then I took a walk down past the old Jewish ghetto side to see the Pomnik Bohaterowi Żydenski and try and recreate events from the book Miła 18 (found out that it's not miLa but miŁa).  The ironic thing about this is that on the site of Miła 18 there is now a branch of Deutsche Bank.  Not very politically correct.

The most moving monument is of the Poles who were taken to Siberia (Monument for the Fallen and Murdered in the East). I then walked through Powązski and to Cmentarz Tatarska.

Then yesterday walked down Nowy Świat to Muzeum Narodowy and Muzeum Wojna Narodowy (the War Museum which has impressive 17th century armour), then past Łazienki, the Sejm, park Ujazdowski, the Japanese, Korean etc. embassies and up past the road by the Vistula.

Oh, and I've been going to the Gold's gym at Wilanów which is quite impressive (I have a free travel pass from my membership in Bombay).  The journey is quite long - it takes about an hour from Krakowskie Przedmieście.

A week in Warsaw

So, a week is over, we're still staying at Weronika's cousin's apartment on ul. Kredytowa.  This is a nice convenient location as it is right next to Metro Świętokrzyska and centrum.

The day after I landed, I slept 12 hours!  And it is warm over here, about 34 degrees celsius. On the 8th Weronika took me to see houses for the mieszkanie we are to buy.  Of course, she took me to the nicest one that she liked first (ul. Zgrupowania Żmija) which has a blue kitchen.  I like the house, but it seems quite far for me, however I don't really know Warsaw well enough to say that and it seems beyond our budget range, but let us see what happens.

So far I've been seeing houses, sleeping, surfing the internet, relaksuję ;-)

I like Warsaw, it is quite a green, wide open city.  Not crowded, quite small and has a strange architectural mixture.  All in all, quite nice

Moving to Warsaw

6-Lipiec-2010

So, I've sold my motorbike :( , car, quit my job and moved out of the apartment to Mum's house for two weeks , have shipped a lot of books and now I'm on my way to Warsaw to see my beautiful wife who I haven't seen in 6 weeks (I miss her!).

Not sure what to expect, but life is about changes.

When we moved to Bombay last October, it was nice for me to to have to decide, but well, I knew it wouldn't  work -- Bombay is too warm and too different for Weronika.  We talked about it and she initially thought of  Canada, being English speaking, but she's too much of a Polska patriot to be happy there, so Poland really is the only option.  And I like the country, it has a sense of history and life and it's Catholic -- so culturally not alien for me.

I'm worried about getting a job -- I've never been without work so this will be a new experience for me.  I think I'll take the time and learn Polish.  It seems like not too difficult a language, but then I've only done some amount of an online course!

First post

So, the wife and I have decided to move to Warsaw.  I'm going to chronicle this on the blog and talk about life and generally bore people ;-P