Nightshopping

One thing that I love about Poland – nightshopping. Actually it would be the same in Romania. The only problem was that in Bucharest for example I didn’t have night transportation, which makes it difficult if you wanted to shop a bit further.
I tried to come up with explanations and this is the best one I could find - in the struggle of an unsaturated market to attract as many consumers as possible, no matter what the costs are for now, they keep stores open almost all the time. Which for me is great, since I have such a chaotic schedule. So it didn’t happen just once that I went to Tesco at 1am after getting back from a beer meeting. And then the shopping malls. During the week they are open until 10pm. And then there is Empik – what will you do if you want to buy a book at 10pm, or a DVD – not a problem. Clothing outlets open late even in the weekends, supermarkets open till 11pm and so on. This is nightshopping and I love it. I remember Italy. It took me so long to get used to the 3 hour midday break. Recently I was chatting with a friend of mine that lives in the Netherlands. It was on a Friday afternoon and she told me that she has to flee. She was going shopping because if she didn’t do it right away she couldn’t have bought anything until Monday.
Well, obviously not a problem here…

Teatime stories

When talking about the Polish tea drinking habits, I should start with the fact that they drink a lot (of tea; of course they drink a lot of other stuff too :-)) but that’s another story). They have probably the largest consumption per capita in Europe, after UK, of course. And still growing. They drink it every day, several times a day. For breakfast (like British), if not coffee drinkers and they definitely drink it along with their usual sandwich-based dry dinner. They produce a lot as well. Most of the tea on the Romanian market comes from Poland. I was surprised to find that out, after curiosity drove me to read the packages, that Belin, Teekanne or Celmar, the most famous tea brands in a Romanian supermarket (besides Lipton) are all Polish brands. Even the no-name tea in discount supermarkets comes from Poland. Still Romanians don’t have much of tea-drinking culture. It was very funny a few months ago, while in Romania with my Polish workmate, when he ordered green tea in a restaurant on the Black Sea shore, the waitress asked “Would Lipton be OK?” “Of course” and she brings him Lipton Green Ice Tea. And then he said “I meant hot tea” “Oh! Is everything all right? Are you ill?” OK, so that’s fact. It’s not very common to order tea in a Romanian restaurant or coffeehouse, needless to mention pubs. We usually drink it at home and it’s mostly herbal tea, for pharmaceutical purposes, so we shouldn’t blame the poor waitress for getting a bit confused. It’s all about climate after all. That’s why, in a coffeehouse in Poland, if you are not a coffee drinker and you are not very fond of juices, you’d most probably order tea (not plain water with lemon like in Romania :-)), normal tea. But watch out what you’re ordering, because in Poland, normal tea means black tea (not like in UK where normal tea is every kind of tea that comes from the tea plant e.g. black, green, white, or oolong). But even if it’s black tea, don’t expect to get milk with it, I never got and I have never seen a Pole drinking it with milk. Instead it’s very probable that you get lemon. Besides “normal” tea they usually drink berry flavoured tea. Most of the Poles that I met hate mint or lime tea, which are the most popular in Romania. They don’t make it strong when they drink “normal” tea. Usually the infusion takes no more than 30sec. At home they even infuse only one teabag for the whole teapot. Maybe that’s why they don’t drink it with milk.
By far the most bizarre remark would be the word for “tea” in Polish. In most of the languages in the world and all the European languages besides Polish and Lithuanian this word is derived from the Malay “teh", from Amoy Chinese dialect “t'e”, or Mandarin “ch'a”. It has developed in the European languages based on two roots: either “te-” (in all Western languages) or “cha-” (in most Slavic languages, in Greek and Turkish or even Romanian – “ceai”). But it’s not the same story with the Polish “herbata” or the Lithuanian “arbata” (that probably came from the more influential Polish). Who knows what the story behind this word is, but one thing is sure - they have a long history in being special about it.
Nevertheless, the best tea I have ever drank was in a krakowian "kawiarnia", a place called Camera Café (very nice atmosphere and they project classic movies, mostly mute, so you can even watch while enjoying your drink or your ice-cream topped hot apple pie). The recipe is not complex at all, but the mix of flavours is simply amazing. I won’t tell you, you’ll have to come to Krakow to try “Smak lata” (“Summer savor”). Besides, they’re paying me big money for this post :-))

Well, what can I say, maybe at the beginning “herbata” wasn’t my cup of tea, but I sure enjoy it now, especially that it’s a legitimate alternative, for a change, to a non coffee drinker like me.

Zapada, omat, nea...

What could more beautiful and romantic than the first snow when it takes you by surprise and the snow flakes are huge and dense. I was thrilling at 2am when getting out of CK Browar after 5-6 hours of 'beering' it has taken me by surprise. It's been unusually cold yesterday (I had bought a scarf to ease my neck from the stinging Krakowian cold that had come too soon for me), but still I couldn't expect it. Nevertheless it didn't stop me from enjoying it like a lunatic jumping with Maria in a crazy dance in chase of these gigantic flakes like I had never seen before (at least she's not very used to snow). The others could not keep themselves from laughing at our unusual dance right in the heart of the city, a dance that to the people passing by seemed rather a busker's performance than a delighting personal experience.
At about 4am, as we were getting out of Kitsch it had already stopped and the snow was laying on the branches of the previously naked trees and on the cars. It was a good reason for a first snow fight. I must admit, I surrendered easily. We eventually retreated to a warmer place with snow melting in our collars and in our souls.
It has rashly melted right after dawn, and with it our winter mood. It was then when I realized that it is hardly past mid-October and that I should be worried at least as much as I was happy. I hope I'll survive. After all, it's Poland not Scandinavia.