An Older Post on Poland

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So I sometimes think Poland is a funny little country. The differences here are not so major that you feel like you're in a completely foreign place - as you sometimes feel in Central America or Mexico. And the people look like normal Americans, you certainly wouldn't look twice at them on the street, unlike being in Spain or Italy, where they look considerably different. But there are some things that catch ya off guard and make you chuckle.

The language. Ya know, I guess ya get used to German and Spanish and French, but Polish is a different animal. You'll hear blahblahblahblah-ski, blah-ski, ski, tak, blahblahblah. They talk really really fast. I kinda thought they talked fast, but so does everyone when they're nott talking your language. But I've learned that some people talk real fast. New Yorkers seem to have a lot to say and not the time to say it. Venezuelans seem to talk fast for no particular reason, and Poles talk fast. Maybe cuz for so long they've been lookin' over their shoulder at the next conquerer, so they say what they want quick (polish history is a soap opera of control by foreign powers broken up by brief periods of peace and self-rule - I hope this one is lasting). I decided this because two of the polish women I've chatted with talk english with a rapid-fire guntotheirhead urgency that is so fast that it almost makes you feel nervous. The first was the real nice woman who rented us a room in her house. As she told us about the room, she was understandably in Fast Salesman mode, but once we committed, it didn't slow down, and as she explained what sights to see and where t go and all that, it seemed like she had somewhere else to go, or somewhere else to be, but she continued talking even when we tried to get rid of her, and always in machinegun fashion.

And today I took a tour and this women was talking to us like a spy - super fast, almost as if she was lookin' over her shoulder and trying to finish her job. And it also seems like if they aren't talking fast they'r uncomfortable, cuz they just talk and talk and talk.

Maybe its just older women, because the young poeple seem to have a little slower pace on the whole thing.

Which reminds me of the old woman in the train station when I was looking for a hotel. She didn't speak a lick of english, but when I was asking for a hotel, boy, she spouted off something when she finally understood me, and raised her voice to where she was literally shouting at me, saying, in Polish (whcih I partically understood from hand genstures) GO STRAIGHT OUT THAT WAY UNTIL THE END OF THEHALLAND THEN TAKE A RIGHT TO THE HOTEL WHICH IS UPSTAIRS.

Whew!

So they are agressive talkers.

And then there is their driving.

Well, first, when communism broke, they somehow befriended the Italians who worked at Fiat to help them make cars. The result, a car known only as POLSKI. Try to imagine a Geo Metro on a flat piece of paper. You stick it in the copy machine and reduce it to 60%, and out comes the Polski. Then imagine someone looking at it and saying, ya know, this car isn't ugly enough. Lets add some hard edges make the back seat smaller and put an ugly but yet somehow stylish grill on the front, and I bet people buy the thing like mad.

So you see people driving this little car, and if you can hold back a laugh, well, you're a better man than me.

'specially when they're decked out with a big fat stereo system, which isn't often cuz I guess people steal stuff like mad here.

So they have these little Polski cars, and other various smal cars and your average sedan cars too, but thats ok, its how they drive.

When I first got to Warsaw, all you'd ever hear is this SCREEECH as cars went around turns and SCREEECH as cars accelerated. Its as if they learned how to drive cars from bad Police Academy movies and car chase scenes on TV. Its no joke. They start moving, and its a sCREECH. Not a drawn out, wheels spinnin' peelout, but a little eeeeRRRRT! So the first few times ya hear it, ya think its a cooincidence,