Settling In

I have been away from New York for a month and a half now (how the hell did that happen?) so I figure it's time to get this started. I'll start this off by answering the questions I keep getting from people, the same questions often enough to justify having this blog. Then onto some of my initial observations.

Question 1: How is the adjustment moving to Warsaw? The answer so far has been "pretty easy". I visited Warsaw for a few days on my way home from the Peace Corps and, while visiting is very different from living somewhere, I was somewhat familiar with the city when I arrived at the end of March. My Peace Corps experience also got me used to living outside New York and Poland is far easier to get used to than Armenia was. There are several reasons for this:

• Language has not been much of a problem. English is the official language where I work. All of my coworkers and most other people I have met here speak English well. Most restaurants have English menus available. When I go into a store or restaurant, I am greeted in Polish and, while I know a few phrases, inevitably I am asked a question I can't comprehend. The look of panic in my eyes is enough to elicit a follow up in English. When I encounter situations where the other party does not speak English, the Google Translate app on my phone is an excellent resource. The alphabet is not much different from English and there are a lot of words that are easy to understand ("komputer" and "makaron" are good examples). I know some useful phrases ("Do you speak English?", "thank you", "please", "large beer") and have started trying to learn the basics of the grammar. Lessons will start soon, but it has been too easy so far to get by not speaking the language.  
• I am living in a capital city. In Armenia, I visited the capital periodically but I lived first in a village of 2,800 people and then in an earthquake ravaged city of about 125,000 - 150,000. Warsaw is not New York, but it's not Gyumri either. 
• I get to pick where I live. While I had great host families in Armenia, I have lived alone three-fifths of my life. It is nice having that freedom (and more on the apartment below).
• I am earning money. In Armenia, I was given a subsistence stipend to live on and sometimes drew on my savings, but not too often and the first couple of weeks I didn't even have access to an ATM. Here, I am earning a salary which is more than enough to live on. It's less than I earned in New York, but Warsaw is a lot more affordable (more on that in a future post). 

Adjusting to living here was also pretty easy because my office has taken care of most administrative matters one normally has to deal with (as an example, I got my residence card without having to go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), they put me in touch with a real estate broker and are helping me with an issue with the Customs department. It would be tougher to manage my way through on my own and I am lucky that I haven't had to.

The settling in period also benefited from me having a pretty easy first month. After four days in the office, I was sent to Vienna for ten days (two training courses with a free weekend in between). I came back to a four day weekend for Easter. Two weeks later was another four day weekend for another national holiday. A schedule like that makes easing back into the workforce a bit easier.

Lastly, I know some people here. A couple of Polish volunteers who lived in Gyumri the same time I did live in Warsaw and I looked them up not long after I arrived. Familiar faces are good.

Question 2: How is it having a job again? I recently completed a hiatus from work (how long it lasted depends on your view of my volunteering with the Peace Corps) but it wasn't my first. Each time I return to work I find it is pretty easy to adapt back into a work routine. There is a learning curve, of course, as I am working in a new area and things have changed a bit in the last few years (such as the current version of Microsoft Excel that I had never worked with before). But my suits still fit, my brain is still working and I habitually get up early in the morning whether I am working or not.

As to what I am doing here, the answer is something old and something new. I was hired as a Finance Officer with the OSCE in their ODIHR institution. The long names are the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (look here for information about what the organization does - it's pretty interesting stuff). If you have been reading the news about Ukraine at all lately, you likely have seen OSCE mentioned due to involvement in the diplomatic efforts undertaken there (people from my office are also there to observe and monitor the upcoming elections). The old part of my job is that it is finance related - doing and overseeing accounting as I did for many years in New York. The new part is that I am working in the public sector for an intergovernmental agency instead of a publicly-traded corporation. There is a lot for me to learn in this new arena and so far it's pretty interesting.

Question 3: What is Warsaw like? In my opinion, it's a very nice city. As mentioned above, I visited in 2012 and liked it then - I found it interesting with a lot to see and a very-tourist friendly infrastructure (having visited right after the World Cup tournament explains part of that last point - people from here that I've met said that things were a lot different before then). Still, I find the city easy to navigate, there are a lot of museums and art venues, tons of restaurants, a lot of parks and interesting architecture.

The architecture part can lead to lively debate (see here for an interesting article). Some of the buildings are reconstructions of historic buildings that the Germans destroyed during World War II, some are classic Socialist-Realist structures from the early Communist period, some are later Communist period eyesores and others are gleaming towers from the post Communist era. Some point out that the reconstructed buildings make the old town like Epcot. Some call the gothic Palace of Culture (a gift from Stalin) hideous or say it looks like it was taken from Tim Burton's "Batman". I happen to like the reconstructions, the early Communist structures and the overall mixture - to me it speaks to an interesting history. Here are a few pictures (from my 2012 visit) to illustrate the variety:

"Stalin's Wedding Cake"

Workers of the World, Unite

The Old City from above

One of many museums

One of the palaces

One of the parks

There are lots of conveniences (movie are shown in their original language!) and I also find the people here very friendly. They tend to be self-deprecating, surprised to hear that I like Warsaw as much as I liked Krakow. Everyone has been very welcoming so far, giving me another reason to like it.

So, what else has been going on?

While I said that adjusting to living here has been easy so far, there has been some learning to be done. Firstly, Sunday's can be pretty quiet as the Polish seem to take their free time seriously. And when it comes to holidays, quiet doesn't really describe it. When I first arrived in Warsaw, I lined up an apartment through AirBnB for a couple of weeks while I looked for a permanent rental. I found one pretty easily and signed the lease on April 18 (that would be Good Friday) and moved in the following day. Poland is a very Catholic country, and I knew in advance that I had off on Good Friday and Easter Monday. I was unaware, however, that everything closes early on Holy Saturday and things kinda stayed shut until Tuesday.

The street where I live - Easter Monday

Not having had enough time to stock up on groceries before the early Saturday closings, I found myself out foraging for meals the rest of the weekend (echoes of my first New Year in Gyumri). Eventually I found my way back to the area near the Old Town (where I had been staying before) where a lot of restaurants were open, presumably to cater to tourists.

In addition to Sunday and holiday closings, many stores close at 7PM, so you need to plan. My work hours aren't too long, so that is manageable and a lot of the supermarkets are open later so I can cope if I need anything. In a pinch, there is always the ubiquitous "Alkohole."

Don't fall in

Despite the evocative name, these places sell lots of things (snacks, sundries, groceries) in addition to alcohol. But it's mostly alcohol And they are everywhere.

Another thing I find interesting is that people really seem to love flowers here. There are flower stores, flower kiosks and streetside flower vendors. On the holidays when everything else was closed (even the Alkoholes), the flower sellers were open.

I am also learning to be patient again. People here wait for stoplights, even when there is no traffic anywhere in sight. You also need to learn that, unlike in New York, when there is a button to push for the walk signal it actually does something. I have been at an intersection waiting with a group of people and it becomes obvious that none of the 20 people there pushed the button - the lights changed in every direction and the cars got moving, but the walk signal did not turn green....and everyone waited. Occasionally I do see people walk against the light, and on rare occasion I see people cross mid-block, but that is unusual enough to take note of.

One of the biggest surprises was how easy it was to find an apartment. There are a lot of apartments available, most of them furnished, and the cost does not eat away a huge chunk of your salary as it does in New York. I worked with a broker and set a limit on what I was willing to pay, thinking that I would have to compromise and pay more. Surprisingly, he showed me eight places within my price range within a week. The range of quality was varied, but I found a place that has a lot of room and outdoor space, is only a 20 minute walk from the office, has a lot of transportation right outside and is a short walk from the largest mall in Poland. It is on a major street but in the back of the building, so it is quiet. It is on a high enough floor for the terrace to have open air and a city view. And there is a pierogi restaurant downstairs. What's not to like?

The walls need some decor, but there is time for that. It is comfortable, which is most important.

Overall, I am finding Warsaw an easy place to live. As I often do, I have been walking around a lot, exploring and revisiting places I remember from my first visit. During one of my walks, I came across this gem and realized that here is yet another export for America to be proud of. It looks like I have a lot of work to do.

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A side trip to Vienna

I don't expect to be doing too much traveling for this job, but so far the travel I have done was pretty nice (I used to travel for work to Worcester and Dallas - Vienna is a bit better). Herewith a few pictorial highlights.

The aptly named "Choco-bomb"

Where the training was

A night at the Opera

I love a city where you can wear a dirndl in public

As terrifying as it looks

Vintage or Creepy?

Sisi!

Schonbrunn Palace