I'm Alive
and well. Sort of - I managed to get sick already (thanks boss).
So I arrived to US without any major problems except a bomb alarm on the Warsaw airport due to some lost luggage. I managed to get an apartment, mobile, bank account, cable and internet. But my paperwork at work is still not complete and my new laptop is still on the way (I'm writing on a borrowed one).
I went through six timezones and radical climate change (about 20oC). I was magically transported from midst of one of harshes winters Poland had to something that felt like spring. Sun is higher, days are longer and it's often much warmer (although not lately).
I actually managed to get an apartment the day after I arrived although I had to wait a week before moving in. It's big. I mean it was one of the smaller I looked at but comparing to what is standard in Poland it is gigantic. I think that the apartment my family used to live in when I was a kid was smaller and it was a very big apartment by the standards of Warsaw in communist time. It feels weird to have all that space all to myself. Nice too.
Then I was reminded that I'm on another continent so a lot of things will be weird. I remembered that some things are different from the last time. It's hard to get normal bread, yellow lines are in the middle of the road and everyone insists on using outdated measurement system that makes no sense (not in the lab luckily there's everything is metric). But knowing doesn't really help when someone asks you to write a date on a document and you spent a minute thinking about how to write it (really, the dates too? Weight, distance and temperatures wasn't enough?). And it doesn't help when you go shopping for a mattress and are given sizes in inches. And I managed to learn I'm about 5 feet 8 inches tall but had no idea how much it is in inches. Neither did the girl in the shop. And this is why metric system is superior because it it was in centimeters I wouldn't even need to ask that question. changing from meters to centimeters to millimeters doesn't require much effort. I can give you my height in kilometers too if you want. Try doing this for miles. Anyway it turned out I need to buy a queen size mattress because those that are not as wide were too short. I'm used to 80x200 cm bed. I don't really need much wider but I had to buy almost twice wider to get the same length. And I knew others were too short as soon as I lied down on them. They must be kids only. But it made me wonder how my cousins who are all very tall (they go from 185 to 197 cm and 203 cm bed wouldn't be enough) would fare at finding a bed for them. They have the long 210 or 220 cm long beds back home. And then one ought to buy something called spring box which is just an extra box that as far as I managed to discern is not used for anything useful. It just places the mattress further from the floor. And if you add this to the height of the bed frame legs it gets pretty high indeed. I thought my bed home was high but here some look like one could use a ladder to get on them. So for now my mattress lies on the floor (or rather carpeting that is like fitted floor lining but more fluffy and nice to walk on barefoot and no need to buy a carpet). I will try to find a bed frame that does not need spring box so I could sit on the bed without my feet dangling in the air.
And that was just a beginning. There are much weirder things. Like the fact that in my apartment there are no ceiling lights in rooms. Really. I had to buy standing lamps. Neither the living room nor the bedroom have even the place for them. I was speechless. I would never thought that could happen. Afterwards I was told it's normal. I wonder what Americans think when they travel to Europe and get to have ceiling light in bedrooms. Right now I feel serious light deficiency. It keeps me feeling like I'm going to go blind. One does truly not appreciate simple things until one loses them.
There are much more of course. All the little things that are different. Sometimes just slightly but sum up to feeling alien. It will take me some times to get used to it all. It'll take a while and I'll will write more about it so for a while this blog will be about what I find to be strange. Sorry to those who think those are the most normal things in the world. I hope the rest will find this entertaining. And I already look forward to rereading this in few years and laughing at what I did find strange.
I just happen to be sick so this is all for today and it's getting late in my new GMT-5 timezone. And another thing that Americans can't seem to do right is tissues (2-ply? really?). I'm afraid they break before use.
So I arrived to US without any major problems except a bomb alarm on the Warsaw airport due to some lost luggage. I managed to get an apartment, mobile, bank account, cable and internet. But my paperwork at work is still not complete and my new laptop is still on the way (I'm writing on a borrowed one).
I went through six timezones and radical climate change (about 20oC). I was magically transported from midst of one of harshes winters Poland had to something that felt like spring. Sun is higher, days are longer and it's often much warmer (although not lately).
I actually managed to get an apartment the day after I arrived although I had to wait a week before moving in. It's big. I mean it was one of the smaller I looked at but comparing to what is standard in Poland it is gigantic. I think that the apartment my family used to live in when I was a kid was smaller and it was a very big apartment by the standards of Warsaw in communist time. It feels weird to have all that space all to myself. Nice too.
Then I was reminded that I'm on another continent so a lot of things will be weird. I remembered that some things are different from the last time. It's hard to get normal bread, yellow lines are in the middle of the road and everyone insists on using outdated measurement system that makes no sense (not in the lab luckily there's everything is metric). But knowing doesn't really help when someone asks you to write a date on a document and you spent a minute thinking about how to write it (really, the dates too? Weight, distance and temperatures wasn't enough?). And it doesn't help when you go shopping for a mattress and are given sizes in inches. And I managed to learn I'm about 5 feet 8 inches tall but had no idea how much it is in inches. Neither did the girl in the shop. And this is why metric system is superior because it it was in centimeters I wouldn't even need to ask that question. changing from meters to centimeters to millimeters doesn't require much effort. I can give you my height in kilometers too if you want. Try doing this for miles. Anyway it turned out I need to buy a queen size mattress because those that are not as wide were too short. I'm used to 80x200 cm bed. I don't really need much wider but I had to buy almost twice wider to get the same length. And I knew others were too short as soon as I lied down on them. They must be kids only. But it made me wonder how my cousins who are all very tall (they go from 185 to 197 cm and 203 cm bed wouldn't be enough) would fare at finding a bed for them. They have the long 210 or 220 cm long beds back home. And then one ought to buy something called spring box which is just an extra box that as far as I managed to discern is not used for anything useful. It just places the mattress further from the floor. And if you add this to the height of the bed frame legs it gets pretty high indeed. I thought my bed home was high but here some look like one could use a ladder to get on them. So for now my mattress lies on the floor (or rather carpeting that is like fitted floor lining but more fluffy and nice to walk on barefoot and no need to buy a carpet). I will try to find a bed frame that does not need spring box so I could sit on the bed without my feet dangling in the air.
And that was just a beginning. There are much weirder things. Like the fact that in my apartment there are no ceiling lights in rooms. Really. I had to buy standing lamps. Neither the living room nor the bedroom have even the place for them. I was speechless. I would never thought that could happen. Afterwards I was told it's normal. I wonder what Americans think when they travel to Europe and get to have ceiling light in bedrooms. Right now I feel serious light deficiency. It keeps me feeling like I'm going to go blind. One does truly not appreciate simple things until one loses them.
There are much more of course. All the little things that are different. Sometimes just slightly but sum up to feeling alien. It will take me some times to get used to it all. It'll take a while and I'll will write more about it so for a while this blog will be about what I find to be strange. Sorry to those who think those are the most normal things in the world. I hope the rest will find this entertaining. And I already look forward to rereading this in few years and laughing at what I did find strange.
I just happen to be sick so this is all for today and it's getting late in my new GMT-5 timezone. And another thing that Americans can't seem to do right is tissues (2-ply? really?). I'm afraid they break before use.