well, the time is near. i've almost been here a month. and i've seen quite a lot so far (at least i think so). i pretty much have a good idea of the city layout already, and i can find my way home from almost all locations.
i've decided to take a different strategy towards finding work. it turns out that poland is looking for more programmers than engineers. this coupled with the fact the engineers are generally paid less than programmers has influenced me to look for programming work as well. i wasn't keen on the idea initially but programming is not that bad and if i can make more money then i see nothing wrong with it. and so, i've sent my cv to about 13 companies today (some engineering and some software development) so we'll see who bites.
we finally got our gas turned on today. we've been using an electric cooker in the mean time, but that's not the same. gas is king when it comes to cooking. the ventilation still has not been fixed, but they have sealed off all the gas water boilers in the building (which seem to be the devices that don't burn all the gas thus causing the problem to begin with).
i quite like the apartments here. despite the fact that i have neighbours on about five sides (in three dimensions) no one has come to complain about the loud music i play sometimes (like your neighbours might, dave). in fact i don't hear anything from their sides either (unless they are doing something extreme like drilling holes in their walls). i suspect it has got to do with the fact that the walls are about metre thick here (to combat the cold). it really gives you a feeling of living in a house in the suburbs despite the fact that you have people living not 15 metres away.
time for a bit of a polish lesson. although these words are not that "interesting", i find it strange that they are used in the way that they are:
- north - północ
- south - południe
- midday - północ (also directly translated into half night)
- midnight - południe (also directly translated into half day)
in the mean time, i've been sight seeing again. this time i went for a walk down the wisła river and used the warsaw metro system for the first (and second) time. i must say, the metro is awesome. the trains are amazing, and they travel at such a fast pace that most of the people on the train are actually sitting at an angle. the underground stations are all very modern (seeing as they were built post 1995). the trains arrive just about every two minutes and most of the stations have lcd displays indicating the exact time (to the second) when the next train is going to arrive. i'll try and take some better photos the next time i use the metro.
i also went to the stadium today in an effort to find plastic pool slippers. unfortunately it happened to be raining today so most of the people that sell wares at the stadium had already gone home. but that allowed me to take some rather interesting pictures of how the stadium looks when there are no people about. it's actually quite a dodgy place when you take the people away. but if you want cheap things, that's the place to be.
i've taking a lot more photos. you will find them in the usual spot.
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1 comment:
You lucky bastard. We can hear our neighbor's phone ringing. A friend's neighbors will call the police if her radio is on past 22:30. Hooray for thick walls.
Also, the Warsaw metro looks a lot like the Taipei one - except the seats appear to actually be comfortable, rather than hard plastic.
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