Second time moving abroad

After I had graduated from my upper secondary school, I yet again graved for new adventures. I had always had a thing for Poland and since my boyfriend had just moved back there, I wanted to go there too.

Luckily for me a Finnish company was hiring people to work in a town called Katowice. I had been to Poland many times before, but I had never been to the Silesian region. The day to move came rather quickly and I never really realized the fact that I'd be moving to Poland.

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I flew to Berlin, because my boyfriend lived next to the border of Germany. From his place we travelled through Poland for 6 hours or so and arrived to Katowice, the city where I'd be spending the next 7 months. The reason why I always had a thing for Poland is it's history and the bittersweetness of the country. If you haven't been outside the main tourist attractions, you can't really tell how Poland is really like.

All of the cities have a lot of old and beautiful architecture that is very poorly maintained. In a lot of cases, instead of reconstuctioning the old building into it's former glory, they demolish them. In the place where there once was a lot of history, will probably be a very modern shopping centre or an office building. This saddens me a lot about Poland and I think, or rather hope, that their late upburst in economy would let them into realizing the value of the old buildings.

About people speaking English, they don't really. The younger people can somewhat understand you and you can find some people who can speak English, but when a person should at least know the basics in Poland. I had a private health care and at the health care centre, there was only one doctor who spoke English. Although, when I once went to a hospital that was run by a monastry, it was different. The doctors and nurses were mostly young and all of them spoke English.

The company I worked for had arranged me an apartment, that was in a good condition, but in a Soviet era building. It was the 17th floor and I don't think the elevetor was that well maintained. The one minute I had to spend in that elevator everyday was always stressful. I later on moved to a bigger flat that was just renovated and almost in the city centre. It was a beautiful apartment and so very cheap. It costed only 2400 zlotys, which at that time was about 600 euros. It was ridiculous. I also had the salary of a banker, even it was under the minimum wage of Finland.

So for me coming from Finland, Poland was an extremely cheap country. A person at my age, which was 20 at that time, could only dream of such salary. But even food and the over all cost of living is cheaper, clothes were still pretty much the same price as in Finland.

All in all, I experienced a lot during my time in Poland of which I will tell more of later on.

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