“Forget-ings”

In the past week

1. I’ve seen two painting exhibitions. And noticed “the lovers’ corner” in Łódź (there isn’t one, but I just thought it was very intimate, yet open, and gave it this name).

2. I went to the Filarmonica. Musically Conditioned - Laureates of The International Piano Competition in Budapest. Soloists: Dobrochna Krówka - piano Marcin Koziak - piano Music by: F. Chopin, L. van Beethoven, K. Szymanowski, R. Schumann, F. Liszt. I say it was really nice. Also funny to see Dobrochna keeping the tempo so vividly =) But it seemed like they both had a special meaning to each song. (PS: no, I didn’t fall asleep :D )

3. I’ve been seriously thinking that I cannot resist 3 months without driving! =) (I wonder if that somebody gets the hint… )

4. The guys found out the quickest way to get to the university by foot.

5. “Subliminal messages“
niech mnie ktoś przytuli
i wszystko jasne
it was you
perfect match

LATER EDIT

6. Going with the bus no. 96 all the way to the West of Łódź. We wanted to go home, but when we realised that it’s not a good bus, we just said: Ok, let’s keep using this bus until the 30 minutes ticket expires :p

Blackout

We had a power blackout yesterday night! It was funny. We interacted a bit with Barbara, the Dutch Belgian girl :)

She got a bit scared. She was watching The Terminal. I got a bit nostalgic or something, because Tom Hank’s situation has a personal meaning for me…

It wasn’t that bad actually. With the light I mean… or without the light! The emergency lights were all on, on the hallway, and the Internet was still working… I wish that we would have had a total blackout. Like total darkness! I’m not kidding!.. Just as a social experiment! =)

Recharge!

Do you know how you recharge your mobile phone when you have a prepay card?

You just buy a package that has a tick paper card (similar to a credit card) on which you have the code to recharge your phone! Or you can also recharge it electronically… Just go to a mobile shop, you tell them the number, pay, and it’s done!

Here, in any shop (whether it is a mobile shop or just a small grocery that sell “prepay cards”, they have the code bars for every amount of recharging categories, you pay… and the receipt looks like this one. More than 0.5 meters long! :)

On it, you have the recharging code and instructions for doing it. I wonder how this is done… I mean… where do they get the codes?! Is there any connection to an Orange/Plus/Era servers?!

Well, past the practicalities… It was weird to get the receipt! And nothing else! =)

Later edit

George told me that actually we have the same way of recharging! :-??

Upper locker = freedom!

This is the 4th discussion that we have like this :)

Our Finnish mate also has a funny “obsesssion” about the upper locker… A couple of times we locked the upper one (has a handle from inside), but we didn’t figure out that there’s no key to open it from outside. Just a “key-holder”.

So… after we didn’t lock her out any longer, she was coming back home, and left us notes on the door: “Upper locker = freedom” because she was locking the door from inside! =)

She’s somewhat shy… and ill :( She is caughing most of the times… we think we should do something about her and act as “gentlemen”. Not that fun to have sick people around you, so we should take action ;)

We really liked her when she was a bit drunk and more talkative! :) Pssttt…Shhh… don’t tell anyone, but we have her “on tape”. For privacy reasons, I won’t put it online!

Anyway… GET WELL, SINI!!!!

Later Edit

She’s not that ill… she locked herself indoors because she wanted to catch up with Lost! :p

Bukovina

Reference: Non-Corporate Finance Management

Today we asked Michał (Conflicts and International Negociations) what was Piotr talking about.

He was talking about Bukovina!

Mulţumesc

Concerning bright sides, let’s try to see the bright side of Romania!

I’m emailing this to all my teachers ;)

Quicky

I know that I’ve said that I will look on the bright side from now on, BUT:

I need to state that it is weird to go to travel agencies and have nobody that can speak English to you when their native language is not that widely spread.

Yes. True! Went to 4 travel agencies on Piotrkowska, the main street, 2 agencies were unable to provide any info in English.

But if you are willing to take it easy - just smile, ask for a sheet of paper and write down the basic things you need to know, like destination, period and mean of transport :)

“Priveşte părţile pozitive”

* “Look on the bright side”

I was talking to a friend of mine from Romania today, while having a window between two courses.

I started to tell him that somehow I’m done seeing the worst in Łódź. We’ve been picking on the Polish people for everything. Somehow with a bit of truth in it, because I think that the bottom line is that Poland is marketing it’s country “too well”, at least in comparison with Romania.

Maybe in fact they are doing the normal thing, while it is us, the Romanians, who give little importance to the things we have to offer to the other nations!

But… I’m sick of F words, of asking Why, of saying Shitty.  Ja jestem chore strasznego!

I have calmed down my enthusiasm and I think I’m now ready to see things as they are!

Watch out, Poles! Here I come =)

Telekomunikacja Polska

Today I found out from Izabela (my Human Resources Management teacher) about the neat situation in fixed telecommunication in Poland. Some years ago, we had a monopoly on the fixed-line telecommunication in Romania. On the 1st of January 2003 that monopoly dissolved.

The result is needless to be commented. That’s why according to the OTE Group 2006 1st Quarter Results Press Release, Romtelecom has 3,835,647 fixed telephony lines, down from 4,279,038 at the end of 1st quarter 2005.

Romtelecom is owned by OTE (the Greek national telecommunication company).
Telekomunikacja Polska is owned by France Telecom and Kulczyk Holding.

Difference? Well you could as well say that the Polish state has only around 5% shares, while the Romanian state has 45%, but I guess that a drop in 500 thousand users does mean something.

And watch out for this: Telekomunikacja Polska has around 11 millions of users, while Romtelecom has 3.8 millions and dropping.

I can’t help but to wonder - of course the number of users has to be related with the telecommunication development, costs, services’ prices. But why aren’t the Polish users going to other companies? I don’t know if they have better prices, but I think not.

So… maybe in a way it was somewhat nice to have a monopoly. When it dissolved, we were a bit more courageous into diving in new services like cable telecommunications, or even VoIP.

Still… tell me Polish people - why do you like Telekomunikacja Polska? Is it that Tele2 AB (Swedish operator) is so bad?