Back in glorious Kraków. It was snowing all the way back on the train, and this morning Kraków is white once again.

We had a productive few days in Wrocław. Most of it was spent traipsing around looking at places to live, some in the aforementioned 1984 esque apartment blocks. One was underground, this elderly guy who runs a business arranging rental accomodation drove us out, assuring us that some natural light did get in. Well, it did, but from sink holes that you couldn't see out of. The place was a bunker, and summoned visions of Fritzl.

And my favourite, this unprepossessing concrete box with 5 or 6 floors of apartments, but beautifully located off to the main square. The person who'd told us about it had also warned us about these people; they could be 'difficult,' and we should be wary of giving them any bond money. Well, they weren't so much difficult as mad. We were greeted at the door by an elderly couple, a large woman wearing a violet blouse with glitter around her eyes and carefully tended wavy blond hair, and a diminutive man with rimmed glasses in plain office clothes. They showed us in, Ewa routinely mentioned I don't speak Polish. It was a small, self contained apartment which had recently been refurbished. So I went with the woman into the kitchen, and she immediately started pointing at things and speaking in Polish. Which was fine, I could sort of grasp what she was saying. Eventually we sat down, Ewa and I with our backs to the wall, the two across a low table from us. The three of them spoke in Polish, and appeared to be discussing the usual rental accomodation stuff. And, the couple immediately began to display this bewildering tendency to both speak at the same time, about apparently different things. He would be staring at the ceiling, saying something, and she'd be looking at Ewa and gesturing around the apartment, saying something else! In my ignorance I could only assume they were talking about something in common, and were thus complimenting each other in some way (I later learnt they weren't). But the effect was surreal, and kind of alarming. These two people having seperate conversations, mostly with themselves, right next to each other. Eventually, a full 10 or 15 minutes later, we managed to extricate ourselves and escape down the stairs. Later that night at a bookstore, we were talking about these people, and Ewa asked passingly what I thought their relationship was. I said I thought they were a couple. No, she said. They were mother and son! Vey weird.

Finally we found a nice sort of place, not far from the city, on the ground floor of a 5 story early 20th century town house. It's small, but has high ceilings and it's own kitchen and bathroom. After all the previous places I was absolutely taken by it. But Ewa still has her doubts. There's added complexity to all this, because we need a lease agreement for my long term residency permit, and, something else which I won't go into. We asked the guy if he'd be willing to help us, and he's going to get back to us on Sunday. If he says yes, we'll take it.