Official “party”

This evening we were invited by the Erasmus office of WSHE to a restaurant and a pub.

Let’s see if the restaurant beats Ramzes =)

Ramzes so far has proved marvelous, except for their pizzas. I don’t know where they learned that pizza should have bitter cheese, but this is how they do it. Plus the vegetables are quite raw, not cooked.

Other than that, you can have my favorite – chicken breast in horse radish sauce, with salad and grilled potatoes. And 1L of Tyskie ;) All in all 25 PLN

Unfortunately, beer is not as cheap as in Czech Republic :( But we can manage :p Debowę is also quite good. We haven’t tried the other ones so far, but there’s a lot of time to it.

And, the trick to all this official party restaurant -will the waiter speak English?! :D

Lodz in all its glory

Legend:

• the purple street on the right is the road that we use to go in the center by foot, from our Dormitory (not shown on the map)
• the purple street on the left is Piotrkowska – the longest shopping street in Europe (nice, but not “wow”)
• the baby blue circle marks Manufaktura – a mall with bowling, cinema, shops, some pubs and restaurants, and also a skating ring that we will try soon :)
• the two circles in the middle mark the Lodz Gallery (another Mall) and Silver Screen (a cinema-plex)
• the orange streets are Rewolucji and Sterlinga – the streets where we have the courses

But remember: “Uge” is huge! (sigh: really?)

I still want to rent a bike, but I don’t think I’ll be able to. And if I leave in 3 months, I don’t know if there’s any point in buying a Second Hand one. To give you a slight overview over the distances, the purple street on the left, from top to bottom is 3km.

Ruins

Yesterday, it was the best moment so far. At Corporate Finance Management, the teacher was genuinely interested in giving us informal details about Lodz, and also he knew some stuff about Romania.

But the strangest thing to hear was the reason why Lodz looks sometimes as ruins. Whether it is like this or not, I don’t know but his reason was that many buildings are without a known owner. Thus the state doesn’t have any property over it in order to sell it or demolish it, nor do they have an owner in order to press charges in order to bring it to a good status.

But I tell you that it is not a fine first impression, and it does continue – feels like living in a much more poorly managed country than Romania, to tell you the truth.

I’m thinking that maybe this lack of criticism that should come from the Polish people has to do with the fact that after their communist regime came down, they were more honest and caring with themselves. Whilst in Romania, some people just go richer and richer, therefore the social middle class was and still is quite small, having lots of those who should be in the middle class in the lower class, asking for their righteous place.

Almost in the center of the town, this is how it looks. Can you believe it? I cannot believe my eyes sometimes.

Polish Course – Dlaczego do kurwy nędzy??

Yesterday’s Polish class was a bit unexpected. I found myself learning some phrases and repeating their pronunciation in chorus.

I immediately connected to learning a new language by ear, or just by using a computer-aided programme.

Why shouldn’t there be any grammar knowledge involved in the course? Why should we just learn some phrases because we will find them useful?

Why should we learn a new language to get through our day-to-day needs in Lodz, a town where only at Ramzes (our favorite and mostly – unique – restaurant) you can talk clearly in English? (Not a joke. Like for instance… there’s another restaurant with an American taste, called Rooster, with girls that were butt-tight short pants and breasty shirts, but guess what – no English)

Why shouldn’t we learn very basic Polish by means of logic, so that maybe sometime we can use this knowledge in another way? And also be able to get around – in a strictly basic way – in a widely-spread language in the city? If I haven’t posted this yet, well be aware that only once did I find a person who asked “Sprachen Sie Deutsch?” so I gather that they don’t speak that much German either…

* dlaczego do kurwy nędzy = why the hell

Are Polish people that crippled?!

I can’t help but notice that in a week of staying in Lodz, I have seen an average of 2 people EVERY DAY walking with a stick (I can’t remember the medical word) to help them walk.

Either they keep hurting their feet on the trashy streets of Lodz (believe me that from now on I’ll love the Romanian pedestrian side and roads), either they just had a lot of them and they gave them for free. Who knows?

For all I know, it is scary to see so many “crippled people” of all ages.

* Post Scriptum

At the photography course today, we were told that because of the communism regime here, Polish people are not that fond of seeing people with photo cameras. They see it as a mean of spying, though if you have a professional camera, meaning big camera, they come and ask you “When is it going to be on TV?”.

I find that strange to say the least, and I doubt it’s truthfulness. Though again, who knows the real truth? In a city where you can only talk to other new-comers (the other Erasmus students), Marta, who is mostly busy at the dormitory’s reception, then Agata, who is busy at the Erasmus Office at WSHE, and Gosia, my friend in Krakow who is always mesmerized by some things that I find in Lodz, you can’t actually distinguish the truth, can you? It is probably this lack of communication that put my high spirits down about learning about Polish day-to-day life and learning a bit of Polish :(