Hand shaking

Street view from Lodz

I already learned to shake hands in Spain but in Poland men shake hands even more often than in Spain. For example my team mates in floorball shake hands when coming to training and when leaving the training. In Spain I did not shake hands with my team mates that often. Also people who you have seen few times but not talked to them might offer you a hand if you see them in a new location.

Night life

I have been few times in night life in Lodz. I noticed that here it seems to be much more common to dance and give spins to the girl. You can see more couples dancing together holding hands than in any other country where I have been. Of course you can see here also groups dancing in a circle.

Green light street crossing

In Turkey people cross the street anywhere without hesitation. Poland is similar to Finland when in to comes to crossing street. People respect the red light for pedestrians in Poland. The secret is that the police gives you a fine if they see you crossing the street with red light. The fine is around  25 euros.

Debit/credit confusion

So far I have been using my Finnish bank card for paying but it makes shop assistants always confused. Shop assistants do not expect that with my card you can pay with credit or debit so they start to call their collagues, pull off my card or something else. I just try to advice them to choose debit option but they have difficulties to understand me. Still I have been always able to pay. I have just received Polish bank so I can start to use it soon.

Expectations for Lodz

When I mentioned to my Polish friends that I am moving to Lodz many said that I should have chosen another city. They said that Lodz is ugly and there is not much things to do. It is true that Lodz is not beautiful and here are not famous touristic attractions. You can see old buildings which or not in good condition and most of the trams are very old and slows. Lodz is still big city and I believe that in a big city you can find plenty of things to do in your free time.

Flat in Poland

View from my window

Living room

My flat in Poland is new and it is in good condition. I have two flatmates Spanish and Finnish. The flat is quite well located but not exactly in the city. Rent is cheap only 75 euros. My room is small so I will be hanging out in the living room.

Alcohol 24h

24h shop

In Finland alcohol retail is strictly controlled and you can not buy alcohol from shops during the night. There are plans to restrict alcohol even more in Finland. In Poland there is no problem to get alcohol as there are shops which have specialized to sell alcohol around the clock.

Byrocracy

My first day at work included filling a lot of documents. For example contract, residence information and opening bank account. In every form was asked name of father and mother. also mother's previous last name was asked. I found it strange because in Finland you don't have to mention anything about parents when you're 18.

Moving to Poland

The blog have not been updated very frequently in the past 9 months but in the future I have good reason to start updating more frequently because I am moving to Poland. I accepted a job in Łódź and the plan is to stay for two years. This will not be my first time in Poland as previously I attended Polish wedding and visited Gdansk and Warsaw. My objective will be to learn to speak Polish which I have now studied for 4 days. Therefore in the future I will be focusing more on writing about Polish culture.

Trip to Germany

In Darmstadt

In Marburg

After the X anniversary of Campus Europae I had a chance to visit my friends in Germany. I visited four different cities (Cologne, Frankfurt, Marburg and Darmstadt) during four days in Germany. During those days I Met with six of my Erasmus friends who could show me around. It was great to see my friends and thank you very much for your hospitality. Here you can see blog post of Chencho about my visit.

Public transportation is expensive in Germany like in Finland so I decided to use carpool website to travel between cities. Also I had chance to enjoy 200 km/h speed in non speed limit autobahn when my friend took me from Frankfurt to Marburg. In Germany there are no gates when entering to the public transportation so anybody can access them even without paying. In Spain and Turkey your ticket opened gates to enter the public transportation. Basically it seems that Germans trust more the users of public transportation will pay even there are no gates controlling who can enter.