Top Posts 2014

Art in Lodz

I have been even less productive in posting than last year. I have picked still my favorite posts from this year.

1. I realized that in Poland there a lot of job opportunities for people who speak different European languages.
2. Traveling is not necessarily glamorous even though everybody seems to love it
3. Early maternity leave in Poland
4. Holiday to Georgia was unforgettable
5. My point of view to beauty of Polish women

Top posts from the previous years 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

Polish Christmas Table

It is Christmas time and I will introduce what you can find in a Polish Christmas table. Now in supermarkets you can find a big fish pool. The fish pool is filled with carps. Interesting that in Poland carp is considered a good fish to a festive table as my granddad would not eat carp because he considers it trash fish. Also families like to prepare big amount of dumplings which can be eaten during Christmas days. There are many things on the table but meat is not eaten traditionally on the 24th of December.

Probably the most interesting tradition is to prepare a seat and plate for an unexpected guest. It is not common to receive an unexpected guest to the Christmas table but still the place is prepared.

Hairy Comic Strip

In the beginning of January 2013 I wrote that I had little project to create comics based on my experiences outside of Finland. Finally I will release the first strip. The idea behind the first strip is the most popular post of my blog titled Hairy.

Learning Polish

Clueless alien

Polish is known for being one of the most difficult languages to learn. That would be a good excuse to say why I have not learned to speak fluent Polish in 1.5 years. Despite the reputation of Polish being a hard language I believe that I could have learned it in this time. I can speak some Polish and I can have a conversation in Polish. I believe that I could actually fully live in Polish if I would be patient enough to speak only in Polish and also communicate with friends who would be patient to listen me speaking slowly Polish.

Before coming here I was aware that the biggest obstacle for me to learn Polish would be that I end up spending time with people who do not speak Polish. I wanted to learn Polish and I still ended up spending my free time mostly speaking other languages than Polish. It was just much easier to live and rely on the languages I already know. I have been living in this bubble of foreigners in Poland and therefore have not learned to speak fluent Polish.

Eating in Georgia

Chicken salad, gomi & sacivi with chicken and khinkali

In Georgia there is a habit to usually share the food when you eat in a restaurant. Everybody can order what ever they want but plate is not brought directly in front of the person who ordered it. Instead waitress brings an own empty plate and cutlery to everybody around the table. When the order is ready it is brought to the middle of the table and everybody can take little portion to their own plate. This way everybody can taste many different flavors.

Seemed that in Georgia Coke is not as popular beverage as in many other countries. Instead of Coke Georgians like to drink lemonades with different flavors produced by local companies. Georgian wine or beer is also commonly consumed with the food.

Kazbegi

On the top of Kazbegi, Gergetis Sameba

Today we went to Gergetis Sameba monastery on the top of Kazbegi mountain. This time traffic did not seem as crazy as in the first time even though our driver was passing constantly cars in front of us. The road was in better shape than between Kutaisi and Tblisi. In the last post I forgot to mention that cars are constantly honking the horns. Once we faced the road going up to the mountain with the monastery I experienced the most bumpy ride of my life. The car had to go really slowly because of the extremely bumpy road. Finally when we reached the top of the mountain the view was amazing.

First impressions from Georgia

Today I arrived to the airport of second biggest city of Georgia called Kutaisi. My friend Ani picked me up and we took mini bus directly to Tbilisi. The road goes through mountains with great mountain landscapes and a road with lot of curves. Though it was hard to enjoy the landscapes as driving was a bit too extreme. The driver was all the time looking opportunities to pass slower cars in front of us, often there were 3 cars side by side even though there were only 2 lines and cars did not respect much the line separating two drive lanes. Luckily we survived and I have to say that taking train next time would be safer option. In addition to our race car driver, the road was also in surprisingly bad condition. There is an ongoing construction to make better road between Kutaisi and Tbilisi. As my friend Ani says the road to success is always under construction

Despite the crazy driving culture Georgian people are pretty hospitable. In the airport friendly Georgian security officer helped us to find right bus and made sure that driver would offer us something to eat on the way to Tbilisi.

Maternity leave in Poland

Yesterday I got surprised when one lady from our office announced that she is going to maternity leave. Why did I get surprised? well, because I had not noticed anybody in the office who looks like being pregnant. I found out that in Poland you can start maternity leave already after being pregnant one month. You do not get actually an official maternity leave but doctor writes you a sick leave until you give birth. In Poland it is normal that while being pregnant you get a sick leave. In Finland you have to work and you get the maternity leave just few months before giving birth.

I found out also that abortion is illegal in Poland. Though I have been told that there are some illegal clinics where you can get the job done.

Street Art

Despite the ugly grafitis you can also see well done street art in Poland. Today it was a sunny day so I rode around the city center and took pictures of visible street art.

Dressing room behaviour

In Poland I have been going to gym and playing floorball in a team. Naturally after doing sports you take a shower. I noticed that in Poland everybody likes to walk to shower in their underwear and take them off once they are in the shower. As in Finland you remove all of your clothes and put a towel around you if you want to cover yourself on the way to the shower.

5 Reasons why I do not like traveling

Camden London

I think that I have traveled a decent amount so far. As I have lived in 5 different countries you could assume that I love to travel but here I have listed 5 things why I do not like traveling so much.

1. You cannot practice sport. I like to play floorball, football, volleyball or something else but during travelling practicing sports is more challenging.

2. You have to be catching public transportation. When I decide to travel somewhere I am most worried if I arrive on time to airport, train station or bus station. Once I have caught the transportation I can relax.
3. A lot of walking. Travelling involves usually a lot of walking around from one spot to another and I am not a big fan of walking. I rather go by bicycle.
4.You just see a little scratch of the local life. When you just travel and not actually live in the place you cannot get to know the place and people very well. By staying at least few months you get to know the place, people and the culture much better.
5. Tourist spots. Traveling involves often visiting many sight seeing spots and museums. I am not very interested in museums or waiting a long time in a line to see some little object.

Graffitis

Few graffitis

In Poland you can see many ugly graffitis.You can find grafifittis on the walls of flats, on the walls or basically on any public building. Graffitis have been covered maybe few times but soon there is another one done on the covered one. Especially graffitis of Widzew and Łks are popular. Widzew and Łks are the local football clubs. So there is very little respect on the buildings in
Poland.

Beautiful Polish Women

Polish women have the reputation of being the most beautiful women of the world. One Mexican friend of mine even stated that 80 % women could be considered good looking. I think that the beauty of Polish women is exaggerated. Though I admit that style of Polish women is more feminine compared to style of Finnish women. Especially during the night all women are wearing a nice dress and high heels. Also during the day high heels are much more common in the street picture of Poland than in Finland. It is also rare to see alternative looks what you can see in Hel Looks. Having colored hair is also quite common like in Finland. All women are not skinny and you can see naturally women of all sizes.

Ekstra league finished

League phase of Polish Ekstra league is now finished. There are three teams which are superior compared to other teams. The rest of the teams are quite equal but clearly behind the top teams. Our team ULKS Jozefina finished last by collecting 5 points. In the play offs we will face league winner MUKS Zielonka. Our chances to win against Zielonka are tiny.

I started the season as a left winger and played last 6 matches as a defender. I made 3 goals and assisted 5 in 14 league matches. Playing as a defender was more enjoyable because I could have the ball much more. Probably the stick handling is not the biggest problem of the team. I see looking free space and moving without the ball much bigger problem.

Some snow

Finally some snow which seems to stay more than just one day on the ground. I saw also few snow plows taking care of the snow. At least here they seem to be taking better care of the snowy streets than in Turkey. Though I noticed that here they use a lot of salt compared to Finland. Salt makes snow melt and therefore riding a bike was much more harder on wet snow than it would be on hard snow. Bike lane and pedestrian street was not taken as good care as in Finland so I think I will be using public transportation instead of bike when there is snow on the ground.

Finnish language lessons offered in Poland

I did a little experiment by publishing a Finnish language lesson advertisement in one Polish website. I wanted to find out if there would be anyone interested in learning Finnish. I put double price compared to all the other language lessons offered in the website so I was not expecting to be contacted many times. I got contacted by three person who were interested in taking private Finnish lessons. Also two recruiting agencies approached me and offered me a job interview for a full time job where fluent Finnish was a requirement. I did not end up giving lessons to anybody as I have already full time job and I want to have also free time. Probably I could have started giving Finnish lessons if I would be ready to offer the lessons with the same price as other teachers who are offering private lessons in other languages.