One hundred ways with cabbage

Right, well. It's been a pretty busy week with Polish lessons and visiting the Notariusz.

We have reached the wonderful stage of the past tense and unlike English, we have to decline the verbs depending on whether it's male, female or neutral! In addition there are irregular verbs and those are very difficult to remember!! It's still fun despite this and we feel much more confident in shops and at the market. I recommend making the effort with a new language as most native speakers will appreciate the fact that you are at least trying!

Last Tuesday we went to sign the pre-contract on our little apartment. We were there for 2 and a half hours! This was because the official translator was held up at her previous job and was over an hour late. The good ting was that we had time to meet the owners of the place and 'discuss' in our terrible Polish, their minimum English and their son's excellent attempts to translate a few things.

After the signing we all went to the bank together and money was transferred. We should have completed this coming Thursday, but there has to be a meeting of all owners and one is away, so this will have to be postponed. Doesn't matter.

On Wednesday after class we walked to the apartment - it took us oooh..... about 15 minutes sauntering! We met the owner and his son and we went in to measure. Wow!!! They'd installed lights, the bathroom fittings and had even contacted their friendly kitchen designer/builder! We meet him this coming Wednesday to see what he can do. No need to try to draw things for IKEA (WHEW!!!!!). They had also cleared out most of the rubble from our big cellar (we have 2!) and whitewashed the walls!

It looks like we are being helped above and beyond... The son is about to start renovating the apartment under us and he plans to live in it. I have already suggested we build a barbecue in the back garden and he looked very interested!!! We will NOT be bbcuing on Australia Day!!

The title? Well, we seem to eating a lot of cabbage - cooked, with carrots, with seeds, in salads, as a big side dish, and frankly it just seemed important enough to dedicate this instalment to the humble cabbage!

Today we took a tram out to Nova Huta -YUK! We went to the end of the line, hopped off, walked 50 meters and hopped on the one going back again. It reminded me of the early days in Brisbane, when we tried to find the centre of Ipswich!!!

The weather is changeable. Very pretty until yesterday when the snow started to melt and be mucky and 'orrible. Last weekend we had a lovely time with our friends and on Saturday evening we walked through the snow to the Rynek for dinner. It was beautiful.

and finally... we managed to miss the election by voting 10 days ago! Ah-the postal vote is a wonderful thing! Nothing like voting at your kitchen table with not a single sausage sizzle in sight! And no one annoying you as you go in. I am making a habit of this. Last time I voted at the Consulate in Brunei, and this time I sent it up to the Embassy in Warsawa!

Right. That's about it for now. Thanks for the comments-great to hear from you lot! Keep it up! We fly to Edinburgh to see family there next Friday early, so I'm not sure when I'll update - I'll try before I go! NO promises.

Property Barons!

Well - we did it! We are now the proud owners (along with our son) of a studio apartment in Krakow!! The owners accepted our offer which surprised us but we were very pleased. We celebrated with a bottle of Chilean red! The title of today's blog is courtesy of our son! I beleive in polite Mayfair Society it might be described as a 'bijou residence'....

Now the fun begins. I have to do a crash course in 'How to arrange for IKEA to come and measure and install a kitchen' - any bright ideas??? I have an idea of what we need but it's going to be a challenge and if I get it wrong we'll be sleeping in a very big sink and who gets the taps is anyone's guess!!!

Yesterday we bought a toaster, jug, iron and some cutlery and plan to build up the stuff before we move in in December. One BIG move will do us, thank you!

We are slowly improving our Polish and our two teachers are very good indeed - and very patient too. We do have some funny times both in class and in shops. The girl at the bread kiosk now knows us and is almost guessing what we'll order -[Note to self: must catch her out tomorrow by changing the order!!]

We are having fun using 24hr tickets and travelling lots of places. And this coming weekend my cousin Monika and her husband Jacek are coming to stay for the weekend so we will ask them to translate some stuff in the IKEA (again) catalogue. We are taking them out to dinner in Hawelka. Anyone reading this who knows Krakow will know it's a top restaurant in the Stary Miasto. I am REALLY looking forward to it!!!!

I promised a pic so here's one. Remember the apartment is newly renovated!!! See the roof? See the windows? Well they are our apartment!! Yes, I know it doesn't look much but it's really nice inside - clean lines, wooden beams (the roof is split new by the way) and very very bright.

Here's another one, this time of the inside! This is one half of our living area and you can just see the beams and the gap to the right is the kitchen area!

Anyway, as things progress I will keep the blog updated. This is one of those bizarre moments from a reality show!!!! Plumbers and electricians are now required - I believe they have all gone to the UK so may be some time!!!

Flats, lessons and more...

It's been a busy week with a fair bit to do. We've seen some flats. Hmmmm!! A couple were possibilities and a couple were, frankly, revolting. Anyway, we were just thinking of binning it when one of the other agents in the same office called me. He wanted to show us a newly renovated flat - 2 rooms but in a solid building. Okay - we thought what the hell!

It's a little gem!! It's about 54 square meters - which doesn't sound much, but it's bright, feels good and has bonuses. There's a garden - with...wait for it... a well! Plus, there are TWO cellars. It's what you might call a studio apartment with sloping roof - NEW roof. We are very taken with it and have put in an offer. And that's another story.

Here you go to the agent's office and say you want to make an oferty -an offer. You hand over PLN 5000 - in our case less. Then you make your offer. This is recorded on a contract with dates for various completions. We now know that it's not the price - but the TAXES that count! On top of the price you add the notariusz (notary), the court fees, then VAT then the agent's fee then more VAT....... We got quite faint until we realised it all came to 7% of the offer price! Then we had to sign the papers.

Next stop is that the agent takes the offer to the vendor who will of course laugh like a hyena! Then they will make the counter offer - again written formally and signed. We are at the "Please come to the office at 5pm today" No hints at all although we just know the will have refused our offer. So... we will be making a counter counter offer and it all starts again.

Watch this space - if we do get it we'll be really happy.

We have been to IKEA to measure and price kitchens - oh yes -we have to put it all in! Actually IKEA will put everything together -whew!

And on top of that we started our Polish lessons. We were delighted to have one of our teachers from last year again and we feel we are making some progress. She did a quick revision and we are now up from beginner to elementary. We can now put sentences together as well as answer people in the tram and in shops. We do our homework and today's is time. I thought I understood the 24 hour clock! Let's say no more!!

And guess what! It's been snowing!!!!! Yes - unlike last year we already have sneg! It's very cold and I bought a lovely jacket the other day - quilted, black and very cheap - PLN 190,- about GBP30 or AU$65!!!

Yesterday was Polish National Day. 11-11-1918. Pilsudski was handed control of the newly independent country. Up at Wawel there was a huge Mass, then parade - military band soldiers, policed, miners, firemen, old boys, lancers, cavalry..... etc etc. We went up to watch and had a great time. Everybody walked with the procession and stopped at the Katyn memorial of course. Then on to the Rynek. It was great. I took a few pics. This one is the honour guard at the Katyn Memorial.

Because it was a holiday no shops were open but we ate obiad in one of our favourite places. The staff know us already - we're the foreigners who speak Polish!!! The very nice waiter gave us each a cherry wodka - free!

Well, that's about it for now. Wish us luck this afternoon!!! Wonder if they'll accept our counter counter offer? I'll keep you all posted and if all goes well will post a pic of the place!

The adventure begins!

We've been in Krakow for 3 days now and have managed to reacquaint ourselves with the area. Because we are living here, as opposed to being tourists, we are more interested in real estate and IKEA than in where to buy postcards etc etc.

So we now know the trams for Tesco, the busses for IKEA and Real as well as the gym and pool. We must learn to buy more than one ticket - not to save money, but so we aren't wondering where to buy the tickets!!!

The area is improving. Many of the buildings have been painted and are looking heaps better than last year. There is a great deal of new apartment building going on and we have now decided to try to buy an established place as the 'off the plan" ones are much more expensive. Plus, the government is about to slap an addtional tax on new projects!

To this end we went to a Real estate agent today and now have appointments next week, to look at some places. They are about 60msq which should be enough. What is important is the number of rooms!! We are looking at 3 rooms - this means 2 bedrooms plus living area.

Apart from that, the weather has been mixed and we are happy our boxes arrived from Oz so we have more than just one shirt each!

More on the real estate when we have results!! Could be most interesting......