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.

Top Posts 2013

Green Horizon

This year I have been less productive blogger than previous years but still I am going to name the top posts of the year 2013.

1. Different drinking habits in different countries
2. Some people are more friendly in Facebook than other
3. I had a chance to visit Germany and see my friends there
4. Awful Polish way to make movies understandable
5. Playing floorball in Polish ekstraliga

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

Disco polo

Disco polo is a music genre in Poland and it resembles Euro dance. You can hear disco polo especially in Polish weddings. There are clubs dedicated to only disco polo and also a music channel which plays only Disco polo. Though in a trendy/fashionable clubs disco polo is not played at all. Disco polo has a reputation of trash music so the most of the people say that they hate disco polo. Here one example song.

Match against floorball champion of Poland

Now we have played against the two best floorball teams in Poland. We lost those matches clearly but we were still able to score some goals. Previously I have been unhappy with the numerous faults and hitting stick all the time. I was happy to see that best teams of Poland actually play floorball and are not hitting the stick all the time. They also know to move in the right way on the field. Despite of the losses I enjoyed more playing against the best teams than the matches where we have gotten better results.

Floorball Ekstraliga Poland

ULKS Josefina

This year I am playing in ULKS Josefina floorball team in Polish Ekstraliga. In the team we are 6 players and a goalkeeper from Łódź and rest of the team is from Warsaw. This weekend we played two matches in Łódź against team from Krakow. We lost both of the matches (7 - 6) and (5 - 3). I am not very happy how we play as starting a slow attack is very difficult. I have tried to explain how to move to make it easier but in the match seems that nobody remembers anymore what I have explained. I feel a bit frustrated as  the team play is not working well. Here you can see the league table.

Unpainted houses

Example

In Poland you can see many houses which look unfinished because owners have not bothered to paint them. Therefore in the suburbs you can see many grey houses. For example in the picture you can see very big yard, ugly fence, grey house and garage. Probably house looks nice from the inside but money has been saved by not putting any effort to the fence neither to the looks of the house from the outside.

Nicknames in Poland

In Poland nicknames are very commonly used. To give some examples of nicknames: Katarzyna is Kasia, Alexandra is Ola, Jakub is Kuba, Joanna is Asia, Tomasz is Tomek and so on. It is much more rare to hear the official name than the nickname. Seems also that in Poland there are also much less variety in names than in Finland. For example when I look at the list of the women working in human resources in our company half of them are having the same name.

Hollywood movie in a Polish way

This weekend I had two floorball matches in Siedlec. Our team is for the first time playing in Polish league called Ekstraliga. We traveled by bus and there was a TV in the bus so we could watch a movie. On the way back we watched Hangover. The movie was not dubbed and not with subtitles. The movie was made understandable for Polish by one narrator who repeated the whole dialog of the movie. In the background you could hear a bit the original dialog. Same monotone voice repeating men and women. Already dubbed movie is worse than with original dialog but a movie with narrator is even worse. I would never want to watch a movie with Finnish narrator. Subtitles is much better. I wonder if they use narrator only in Poland or also somewhere else instead of dubbing or subtitles.