Old guys playing chess by the Viswa, with Wawel castle in the background. This was literally one minutes walk from our place in Krakow. Kind of a shame. Today we finally move to Wroclaw.

In Zawiercia, arrived a few days ago. A soggy day, after a few brilliantly sunny days.

Staying at Ewa's parents place. It's nice here, I feel very welcome, despite barely being able to communicate with them. Ewa's dad has found a solution: to just talk to me in Polish anyway, whether I understand or not. Sometimes it's like a bad theatre rehearsal or something, he'll ask a question, I'll forget my line, he'll give me the answer. Like jak jest? *blank expression* dobrze. dobrze, dobrze!

Heading back to Krakow to start packing for our move tomorrow. Looking forward to the next month and getting back into some routines, working again, whenever my carta pobytu finally arrives.

The church on the hill behind Zawiercie. When I got lost yesterday wondering around, it was my reference point, my beacon on the hill. There are a lot of churches in Poland, perhaps unsurprisingly. Ewa sometimes comments that despite there never being much money, especially with older people, whenever a new church is going up there's never any shortage of it.

bricks for utopia

Came across this massive pile of bricks, wondering around Zawiercie yesterday. It seems self-explanatory enough, until you realise that it's been there for over 20 years and dates to the communist era. Some guy probably bought them simply because he could, not trusting in the flippancy of a brick market controlled by the government. His reasoning might've gone, "there are bricks available, I don't know when more bricks will be available - I should buy these bricks!" this thus might be an unassuming monument to the perversity of communism.

Out n' about in Krakow. The top one is just near the Copernicus Hotel, where Bush stayed when he was in Poland a few years ago, and looming at the end of the street is Wawel castle.

On the Planty :)

This was from a ceremony we came across commemorating the victims of the Katyn massacre, which occurred in 1940 when Beria ordered the NKVD to execute approximately 22 thousand Polish prisoners of war, including 8000 military officers, and many policemen and public intellectuals. Lots of things to commemorate in Poland from the 20th century.

Polish radical nationalists

Approaching the market square today we heard this ruckus, people chanting "Polska cała zawsze biała," whole Poland always white! and lots of other stuff I couldn't understand. I looked at Ewa and she was trying to make sense of it. Rounding the corner it all became clear. They were members of the NOP, or 'National Revival of Poland,' basically skinheads, chanting about Poland staying white and Catholic and non-Jewish and robustly heterosexual. Another one was "unia europejska to banda złodziejska," the EU is a group of thieves! At one point someone confronted the guy who was leading them, the guy in gray with the loud speaker, and he spat on him.





It's not as big as it seems, those in the photos are about the extent it. So it wasn't a huge demonstration. Ewa was quick to tell me this is unusual in Krakow. In the 2005 federal elections the NOP got something like 0.05 percent of the vote, so it's not like Poland's on the brink of revolution. Maybe that's why they're so angry, they sense their own irrelevance.

On the Planty. Is it just me, or do these two look like they belong together? although the doggy seems to be protesting his fate.

Well, it's Thursday night, in Kraków. Watching chess, at the desk with the lamp on. Ewa behind me on the bed, crossed legged and comp in lap. She's watching City of God.

It looks like I'll be staying in Poland. It was beginning to seem doubtful. All these problems, constantly arising. I'm convinced there's a form of torture known as the Polish bureaucratic torture method. First you're made to think something is possible, and then an endless array of ingeniously pointless complications are put before you, until it reaches a magnificent crescendo of absurdity and you either give up in despair or die laughing. We didn't die but we despaired and laughed a lot.

It was the combination of two things which really made our situation difficult and kind of absurd. Firstly we needed a lease agreement: these are not popular in Poland. And secondly we needed to submit the application with 45 days left on my 90 day visa, of which 42 had already passed. So already we felt like fugitives, frantically trying to arrange this thing that isn't customary in Poland. But it wasn't only a lease agreement, you also need proof of ownership by the person issuing the lease. The very last place we looked at happened to be the one we liked most, and it was owned by nice people and they agreed to help us. So we were just fortunate in the end. And a final complication: when signing the official lease agreement at the public notary's office, an official translator should be present, so that I clearly understand the terms of the agreement. Sounds reasonable. Except that Ewa can speak perfect English, and I trust her implicitly anyway. Where to find an official translator at 10 in the morning when you're meeting at 3 that day? Ewa found someone, and begged him to postpone his other appointments and he mercifully agreed. So with a day and two hours to spare we'd submitted everything, my residency permit application had been started, and we trained back to Krakow in a kind of euphoric stupor.

We thought about setting up a business, helping Australian's get working papers here. And in return we'd only ask for a jar of crunchy peanut butter or some vegemite. Or a bottle of good savignon blanc for Ewa if they had room.

Back in our illustrious Wrocław hotel, home of the frankfurt toting Russian and the beer and sausage party. It's actually peaceful here in the kitchen. Apart from the occasional bleary eyed Russian who staggers in seeking a ciggerette in broken English, I have the place to myself. Ewa has gone to attend a job interview. Tonight we head back to Kraków for almost the last time.

Well, we have a place in Wrocław. That's above ground, not in some post-apocolyptic apartment complex, and with sane and well adjusted landlords. It's a self contained apartment in an old townhouse, replete with high ceilings and big rooms, and 15 minutes walk to the center square. Our standards had been so lowered after the last few weeks, we were almost ready to accept this shoe box of a place, that at least was in a nice building and didn't fill you with dread every time you stepped into it. But this place is decent. More than decent. I wouldn't be ashamed to invite my mother there.

They've agreed to sign a lease, and to demonstrate their ownership of the place, both required for my carta pobytu (long term residency permit). Ewa said a stone had been lifted from her heart. I feel like a cannon ball has been excavated from my chest. It's really just a relief, as that was the major obstacle in the way to my carta pobytu. Looks like I'm staying in Poland after all.

From an email a few weeks ago, about my accidental excursion to Warsaw. It's pre-blog, so I thought I'd include it here. This is a map of my detour.


. . .

3/3/2010

I'm just back in Krakow, after travelling all over the place. Went to Wroclaw on Sunday, for a trial lesson on Monday. It went really, incredibly badly. I bombed it completely. But, I got the job anyway, cos they'd already decided to give it to me. And then I went to meet Ewa at her parents in Zawiercie (Zavyercha), which involved a changeover in Katowice, a big industrial city between Wrocław (Vratswov) and Krakow. And... ended up on a non-stop train to Warsaw. Katowice trainstation was utterly bewildering, the signs with the times and platform numbers barely worked, and everything was broken, no one spoke English, everyone was vaguely hostile. Anyway, the train went through Zawiercie, not to, and this small mistake basically meant that I spent most of Monday commuting mindlessly around Poland. I made it to Zawiercie eventually, and spent a few days there, which was nice. Ewa's family basically accused her of negligence, for leaving me alone to the Polish train system. Ewa's mum mimed a noose and hung herself, and pointed at Ewa. I thought this was a bit excessive. haha. Polish people can be very expressive.

So, I have a job. I was pretty sure I had a job about 2 weeks ago, but had to go through a few formalities, including a weeks training and the trial lesson. But I think unless I did something catastrophic they were always going to hire me. And it's not all bad news with work permits etc, there's an alternative to setting up your own company. All in all things are gradually turning out.

I'm learning Polish, slowly. It no longer seems completely impenetrable. I've learnt the alphabet, and can count to ten, and have a very primitive conversation. I think if I stay here for a year I should be able to converse in a basic way. Learning Polish has given me a few kind of interesting insights into the way Ewa uses English. For example, Polish has triple negatives; you can say Nigdy (never) nic (nothing) nie (no) razumiercz (understand), which means 'you never understand anything.' And Ewa will sometimes say things like 'no no nothing' or 'no no never,' in response to something. I just thought this was quaint, but there's a reason for it. There's probably lots of stuff like this.

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.

Witamy

Sitting here in a hostel in Wroclaw with tinny Russian reggae blaring from the computers speakers and my girlfriend rattling off a frenetic succession of polish syllables on the phone next to me, I thought this might be an opportune time to start a blog.

She is speaking with people about apartments and rooms; places for us to live in Wrocław, the city where I have a job, and that we'll soon be moving to. A group of Russian workers, mending a door, smoking ciggerettes and loitering in equal measure are responsible for the reggae.

I've been here almost exactly a month and half now, half the alotted 90 days on my visa. Most of that was spent in Kraków, which I've really fallen for. It's easy to imagine living there for a lengthy period. My thoughts on Wroclaw are more ambivalent.

Wrocław is meant to be this jewel, this southern diamond of dolnoslaskie. I can't help thinking of it as the toad that was kissed by a princess, but that was somehow disturbed during the metamorphosis. It is handsome and beguiling in some ways, and positively dystopian in others. Natives speak of it with a proud, almost protective haughtiness, and I can see that. The old district has the characteristic pre-industrial splendour of cobbled streets and beautiful facades in many contrasting colours, but stray very far from this relatively miniscule and circumscribed area, and its almost post-nuclear. I exaggerate of course, but Wrocław has the feel of an industrial city, a city of workers. It is littered with apartment blocks in varying degrees of disrepair and ugliness, and is dominated by cars. A large double laned ring road penetrates into the heart of the city, bringing noise and pollution and effectively partitioning the city into sections, disrupting the flow of human traffic.

Maybe after living here a while I'll have a better opinion of it. I think just people speaking so glowingly of it, and and the constant comparisons to Krakow, which are just absurd, must have distorted my expectations a bit.

Seeing one more place tonight, then it's on a train back to Kraków.