Day one in Warsaw

“All shall be done, but it may be harder than you think.” 

― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I grew up in a town with a population of eight thousand people and now I’ve come here to live in a city with 1.7 million. To most Danish people a city with 100 thousand would be described as a big city. Denmark is a small country and we are only around 5.6 million people living there, but we have so many towns and cities in Denmark compared to the population, and I think that is why a population of 100 thousand would be a lot for a Dane. I met this Polish guy once who kept saying he was living in the woods. My instant thought was that it sounded really nice. I would love to live in the woods. But it actually turned out “the woods” is apparently a city with 80 thousand people. The logic of my brain quickly thought that if 80 thousand is small all cities must be big in Poland. So here is a fun fact: Poland has a population of 38.5 million people but there are only around 915 towns in Poland (that’s what wiki says). Denmark has a population of 5.6 million but there are around 1550 towns. So suddenly I understand why 80 thousand is big in my mind and small in theirs.

I arrived in Warsaw yesterday in the morning and almost straight after my arrival I had arranged to have a look at some apartments. I’ve been in contact with a company called Lions Estate while I was in Denmark. Actually I’ve been in contact with them since before Christmas. And they’ve sent me offers on apartments every week up to my move and then we would see what was left of the ones that I liked when I would arrive in Poland. I’ve been corresponding with a guy who’ve been really helpful. He picked me up at the hotel and took me to see the apartments. He even offered to pick me up at the airport. I wouldn’t expect that kind of service in Denmark. The kindness he has shown me actually reminds me of the kindness of Irish people. We went to see five apartments, which all of them I actually liked. However, two stood out from the rest and out of those two one stood out more than the other. So in the end it was easy. I’ve decided to take that one and I can probably already move in on Friday.

Renting an apartment was the first step I had to do when I came here and I’m glad that it has gone so smoothly. I’m positive that it is because I’ve been in contact with Lions Estate. If I’d have had to call up people and find the places myself I am sure it would have been a little bit more complicated. And especially because I have this fear that no one speaks English here. And actually I keep wanting to speak German to the people. I don’t know why because I hardly speak German. But it’s probably because some of the Polish people I’ve met speaks German. I’m just not sure if they do it in Warsaw. And if I walk around saying danke or guten Tag I’m pretty sure someone would hate me for doing it. Like the French they don’t often try in English and it’s so annoying!

The hotel I’m staying in is in an area where there isn’t much interesting around and if I want to go somewhere I’d need to use public transport. So actually I haven’t really been anywhere, except from a walk in the area where I found nothing. There’s probably something somewhere, but as I still have my Danish number it means that I don’t have data when I’m outside of the hotel. So to be honest I am afraid of getting lost if I go somewhere complicated. BUT tomorrow I have four appointments at a medical centre (something required from my work place). And they are not at the same place, so I guess tomorrow will be my big exploration day. And also the day where I get a Polish number and data and maybe a card for the metro.

I’m not a person who gets scared in the dark if I’m going outside, unless I’ve just seen a scary movie, but yesterday I wanted to go for a walk and when I got out from the hotel a guy was yelling angrily. Somehow the fact that I didn’t understand the reason he was yelling made me uneasy and I almost went inside again. But I know once I get out and about and actually get to know Warsaw things like that probably won’t even seem scary. But it takes time. Hopefully I’ll just be luckier with my first weeks here than I was in Ireland, where I had my bike stolen after just two weeks.

So far there isn’t anything scaring me away from Warsaw and I am just happy to be here. 


Useful links:
www.lionsestate.pl