American living in Poland

[throttledan]

I think it's cool that Ross is an American living in Poland! Although I'm not living there now, I was in Poland from June 2010-August 2011 on a special assignment for my job.

 

I lived in the city of Łódź (pronounced "woodch") which is right in the middle of the country. It was an amazing experience and I wish I could have stayed longer. I actually discovered Freeman's Mind while I was over there while browsing Reddit, and have been hooked on Ross's videos ever since! Ironically, I missed Ross's meetup in North Carolina in 2012 because I went back to Poland for a week to attend a friend's wedding!

 

Anyway, I don't know if this topic has already been discussed, but I just felt like opening a discussion about what it's like living/working/visiting Poland. Ross's recent videos talking about different aspects of the country bring me back. I had a good time from my experience, so here are some of my ramblings and recommendations: (I'll try to get some pictures too!)

 

One of the things people have asked me, other than if they drive on the same side or if the weather is always freezing cold, was What are the people like, and how is the culture different than the US? From my experience, the people are very friendly and work very hard, but there is a very strong 'can do' spirit of trying new things. At my job, people were changing positions all the time. A guy in Engineering would move to Operations. A girl from Customer Service would move to Quality Control, that kind of stuff.

 

The most inspiring story of this was the sushi restaurant I used to go to. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to get good sushi while I was over there, but I stumbled upon a restaurant in the center of Lodz called House of Sushi that just opened a week before. The chef was a former construction worker that ended up getting into sushi, learned how to make it, then became a master at it. He was always trying new things, then giving me samples and asking what I thought. It was SOOOOOO good! He later opened up a new sushi place called Ato Sushi http://www.atosushi.pl/ and I just read that he won 1st place in a Polish sushi competition in Warsaw and went on to represent Poland for the Global Sushi Challenge in Japan. If anybody ever goes to Lodz, you have to go to Ato Sushi!

 

Here is me at my job's company picnic. This had to be the most epic company picnic I've ever had! This ride was one of the highlights, all I can say is, it's a bicycle thing that goes around, but you have to pedal it to make it go! Imagine if you go to an amusement park and they make everyone pedal to get the roller coaster to the top of the hill! lol

8SXx9KMU2Zw

Not shown, but the other highlight of the company picnic was bungee jumping off a crane!

 

 

Grocery stores are interesting. Most of the big grocery stores are headquartered somewhere else in Europe. The brand of beans Ross gets are from a store called Carrefour, which is a French retailer. Other stores such as Tesco are HQ in UK, while Kaufland is German. Although all of these stores service Polish needs, there is a flavor of each country and sometimes you can get certain things you can't get in another. Like, I was able to get landjaegers (German smoked sausage) at Kaufland but I was able to get Reggae Reggae Sauce (British Jamaican jerk sauce) at Tesco. Like Ross said, the food tastes noticeably fresher, but spoils much faster. When I came back to the US, I almost felt ill from the American food. My body was all like, "Ahhh, Chemicals!"

[throttledan]

I've always loved hot dogs, but one of my favorite things was Polish gas station hot dogs! Not everytime, but a bunch of times when I would have to fill up my car with gas, I would get a hot dog. They would come in these roles, then put the role in a panini press, then squirt your favorite condiment inside, then insert the dog! I learned how to say "keczup i musztarda", after of course I learned my numbers in order to tell the fuel attendant what pump I filled my car at!

 

There was a small outdoor stage on the cobblestone street I lived near where there were performers rapping in Polish. I later found out it was for a local election and they were handing out these energy drinks with the politician's name on it!

 

This one really cool bar I went to (has since closed down ) called Jazzga painted a giant Mario in their tiles. That day they had a bunch of old computers and game consoles set up as a celebration for retro gaming.

Another time they had kind of a sell your own food event where you made food and got to sell it. I wish I knew about it ahead of time because I would have made home made mini corn dogs, which went over rediculously well with my friends over there.

 

I got to see Roger Waters perform The Wall at a smaller than normal venue, meaning I was only about 30 feet away from the stage for not a lot of money!

Amazing show!

 

The Polish mountains in the south of the country are one of my favorite places! So beautiful! I took a trip to Morski Oko, near Zakopane.

 

Rented these little scooter things and rode down a hill!

 

Going back to cool innovations, it was the summer time on a ski slope, and they had these big inflatable bags to put around the poles sitting around doing nothing, so someone decided to blow it up and charge people the equivlent of a couple bucks for a few jumps off the chair lift platform about 15-20 feet onto this bag! Because, why not? I held my nose out of instinct even though I knew I wasn't jumping in water!

[AP_Pastor]

My cousin went to Poland en route to Germany for a job assignment a few months ago. While in Poland, he was staying in Gdansk for two days (if he was a fan of Freeman's Mind, i'd tell him about Ross living in Gdansk) Even he said the he was surprised the food seemed fresher compared to food here in the Philippines. He's starting to love the place, and he's planning to go there again on his free time.

 

I really like your pictures of Poland, especially the mountains, very picturesque. As for The Wall... oh God you lucky guy!

 

Thanks for sharing your experience in Poland! I would love to go there someday, among other European countries.

[ScottD.Betson]

I know I am now officially Jealous you got to see Roger Waters

 

 

I know I wouldnt mind visiting Poland, I heard it has quite nice, especially in Warsaw

[Selfsurprise]

Whilst I've never visited Poland, I know the country has produced some absolutely brilliant artists, both traditional and modern and across loads of mediums (please note there may be some mild nudity or bodily weirdness in the following images, nothing too explicit but maybe slightly NSFW)

 

Paweł Althamer

 

MODEDIT: NSFW - nudity. Picture removed.

 

Mirosław Bałka

 

 

Zdzisław Beksiński

 

 

Marian Boshusz-Szyszko

 

 

Kasia Domanska

 

 

Stanisław Frenkiel

 

 

Władysław Fusek-Forosiewicz

 

 

Tamara de Lempicka

 

 

Roman Opałka

 

 

Joanna Rajkowska

 

 

Zdzisław Ruszowski

 

 

Wilhelm Sasnal

 

 

Konrad Smoleński

 

 

Jakub Julian Ziolkowski

 

 

Apologies for various image sizes/qualities.

[Binky The Rabbit]

Konrad Smoleński

 

 

Oh god the cables. THE CABLES.

[BTGBullseye]

Konrad Smoleński

 

 

Oh god the cables. THE CABLES.

My thoughts EXACTLY!

[Selfsurprise]

Konrad Smoleński

 

 

Oh god the cables. THE CABLES.

Is this hitherto undocumented phobia I'm picking up on? :3

 

"I shall have to invent a new classification of a lunatic for you." - Doctor Jack Seward, Dracula

 

[BTGBullseye]

Is this hitherto undocumented phobia I'm picking up on? :3

You obviously haven't dealt with a professional style sound system, or you wouldn't be asking this.

[Selfsurprise]

Is this hitherto undocumented phobia I'm picking up on? :3

You obviously haven't dealt with a professional style sound system, or you wouldn't be asking this.

True. I just like to believe that everyone I meet is in possession of a novel psychological malady unseen in medical circles.

[Jeb_CC]

I sympathize with Binky. XD So many cables, oh my God. I've had messy cable situations in my musician life, but not like this. ._.

[BTGBullseye]

I have, nearly... 24 mics, two pianos, 3 guitars, an electric fiddle, and a drum set. Took 2 hours to untangle, and they were organized.