Lost in Translation

Living in a country where you do not speak the language is a challenge.  Fortunately for us, enough people in Poland speak English; when English is not an option, using hand gestures to get the point across (pointing at something and indicating I want two of them) or writing numbers for the costs of a purchase works out well.  I have even used my piddly little amount of German to communicate (yes, three years of high school German almost 25 years ago still sticks with me enough to communicate... and many people said it would not be useful since I was living in California).

Where the lack of language becomes an issue is when you are outside of the major city areas.  We found some difficulty when we were visiting Szczawnica, but we managed to make everything work out okay.

A more significant issue is when you are riding the bus into town and it stops. Why?  What's happening?

This has happened to me twice so far.

- Once, the bus was in an accident (a car tried to pass the bus and had to hit the bus to avoid a head on collision).  Many stayed on for a while, then some started to leave. I did not understand what the driver was saying, but I figured everyone was leaving because they knew it would be a while to continue it's route... so I left the bus and walked much of the way home from there.

- The second time was a week ago.  We were taking the bus to Church and it stopped... everyone left the bus after the driver's announcement.  We did not understand; however, we fortunately overhear someone say in English "the road is closed ahead".  Time to walk to the next major stop with a tram that will take us to further along.  After we go to the tram stop and waited a little while, Melanie noticed a sign that we could not read, but enough information told us the Krakow Marathon was interrupting this tram, also.

Getting lost when you speak the language is not too bad... getting lost when you cannot expect to communicate with everyone is really a drag.

The Shopping Fitness Program

In the older days of Poland, there were many small shops spread all over town that sold a very specific set of items.

In our neighborhood, we have a couple of small "skleps" that have general groceries that are good for small shopping trips (think of a small house whose front rooms make up a the store).  We also have a bigger store (Jubilat) that has more variety and quantity, but this store goes back to the old Soviet era and does not focus much on a good "customer experience".

If you want meat, you can find some in the local stores, but separate meat shops are the place to go for variety and quantity.

We also find cloth shops that do not sell buttons, zippers, thread, or needles... the good news is that there is another shop for those!

If you want to buy a variety of types of items, you are likely to begin walking and stop at many shops (not necessarily close to each other).  It can be good exercise, but you have to be careful when you buy goods that need to be refrigerated.

In the last 5-10 years, shopping malls have arisen (Galeria Krakowska and Galeria Kazimierz) which are very similar to US malls, but there are many stores that are very similar to every other store (okay, much like the US :)).  Some of these do have grocery stores so you can buy a variety of goods in one big place.

In the mall grocery stores when we first arrived, the shelves looked quite full and appeared to have a large variety.  At closer look, I noticed that everything was the same product/brand/size from floor to ceiling several items wide.  Broad choice was an illusion.  Even over the last 5 months since we have lived here I have noticed the variety to increase and the different shelves now have different product.

Poland has been changing very quickly, but I still get quite a bit of exercise walking to the bus, store, etc... Exercise is good.