Without anything better to discuss, I figured I’ll hit on another difference, which is the stores.  Not so much the stores themselves, but moreso the attitude of the employees.

Residual from the Communist era, most store workers do not try practice aggressive selling tactics, as they do in the states.  This makes me VERY happy, because I absolutely despise forceful selling.  I rebelled against it when I worked at subway, and I am constantly speaking out about deceptive advertising and other such tactics.

Sadly, however, as Poland grows and becomes more Westernized, you can see the trend of deceptive marketing and forceful selling beginning to creep into the current structure.  

When I’m in a store, unless I have a question or am in obvious need of assistance, I’d prefer that the workers just left me alone.  But that’s just me.

Probably a more noticeable difference is that most checkout workers sit in a chair…  At first, you never really realize that they all stand in the US, but when you get here it just kind of clicks.  I was told the reasoning is that in the US, it is perceived as doing less work, so in order to give the illusion of diligence, we gladly sacrifice health and comfort.  More US marketing bullshit that drives me nuts…  

I’m a big advocate of common sense… Call me crazy, but if someone has to be in the same spot for hours, doing nothing that requires them to stand, why shouldn’t they be allowed to sit?  I guess you could also save money by cheaping out and not buying chairs.  Ridiculous.

I mention Restaurants in my title only to point out that in Poland, as with any other European restaurant I’ve been to, you do not typically get the bill until you ask for it specifically.  There is no rush to get you out the door so they can squeeze in another customer and make more money.  It’s more about enjoying the experience than turning as much profit as possible.  Plus Europeans tend to be more laid back and less stressed than the average American.  But that’s a broad generalization.

Another point on restaurants (I guess I do have more than one) is that at most places you find a seat yourself.  There is rarely a host/hostess to greet you and take you to your table.  You just pick a spot you like, and have a seat.  They’re pretty good about noticing you and usually a waiter/waitress is at the table shortly after you sit.

One last thing about restaurants: When you pay your bill, and you want change, make sure not to say "Thank You" (or Dzienkuje – hopefully spelled correctly).  If you do, they will take that to mean that the change is their tip.  And since you’ve paid and they’re not obsessed with checking on you every 5 seconds to see if they can shove you out the door, you may not see them (or your change) again for the rest of the night.

I will conclude my "Obvious Differences" category with a brief discussion about Electricity.

Poland, along with most if not all of Europe, follows much closer to Nikola Tesla’s standard for electrical distribution at 230 Volts and 50 Hertz.  Whereas the United States follows Thomas Edison’s standard at 120 Volts and 60 Hertz. 

The result of this, is that you need to have a voltage adapter capable of handling the additional voltage.  For most modern electronics and computer equipment, this isn’t a problem.  Most desktop computers have a switch on the back to select the voltage.  

If there is no converter built in, or the power supply can’t handle the voltage, you need an external voltage converter…  These are usually good for short term usage only, and can burn out with long term use, or low-wattage equipment like computers.

Each system has it’s advantages and disadvantages.  If you’re really interested, read more about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents

http://science.howstuffworks.com/electricity.htm

The other major difference is the sockets themselves.  In the US we have a two or three prong plug where the two main prongs are flat (sometimes one is larger than the other – usually in any equipment where polarity is important).  The third prong is the ground, and is usually round (ish).  The socket has two or three corresponding holes, and both the socket and plug are typically shaped like an oval, with the long sides flattened out.

In Poland, the plug has two prongs and one hole.  The prongs are round, as is the hole.  The hole is for ground, and the prong for this is actually on the socket.  The socket has two holes, which typically have some kind of spring-loaded plastic covers which cover the holes – I’m guessing for safety reasons.  The plug and socket are both circular, which tends to make them feel a bit bulky.  Though most non-grounded plugs are small and diamond shaped, having only the two prongs and they slide in next to the round prong.

I took a picture of a socket, but oddly enough, forgot to get one of the plug.

Another difference related to, but not directly influenced by electricity is the light switches.  

This doesn’t exactly fall into the "Obvious differences" category, but I figured as long as I was on the topic…

In the US we have switches where we’re actually toggling a little bar up and down…  In Poland the switches are much bigger and work with more of a see-saw action.  See the picture:

Now, as I eat my eggs and toast, I give you the second installment of observed differences between living in the US, and in Poland (Warsaw, specifically).

This continues the "Obvious Differences" category with: The Metric System.

Currently only 3 countries in the world do not use the Metric System.  They are, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Liberia, and us Yanks back in the ol’ US of A.

Actually, it’s interesting because some measurements in the US are in metric.  Soda comes in 2 liter bottles.  We measure sodium and fat and other food constituents in grams.  And I’m sure there are many scientists and engineers who use metric.  So some things aren’t so shocking.  Getting drinks measured by the milliliter takes some getting used to.  As does the fact that 50 kilometers per hour is SLOW.  Temperature is another one that messes you up, though we changed our thermometer over a few months before we left the states, so we’ve had some time to figure out roughly where everything is (20 is room temperature, 30 is shorts, 15 is pants, 10 is jacket…  pretty simple).  Though this is pretty easy when deciding what to wear, it makes cooking a bit more challenging!  Luckily we brought some of our own measuring cups and spoons, since all of our recipes are measured in cups and spoons, rather than liters and grams.

It’s still really hard for me to judge distance, though part of the bike trail is spray-painted in 100m increments up to 1km, so that helps.  Weights is another story, though…  When I ordered a half kilo of cold cuts, I didn’t expect to get so much!  But it was a manageable size.  Though next time, I’m going for a quarter!!

Makes you wonder when and if the US will burst from our little bubble and join the rest of the world on the Metric system.  Don’t get me wrong, that kind of change takes a LONG time and a lot of work, so I don’t see it happening any time soon (not like the US is a small place!).  But it makes me wonder if we could start transitioning the little things…  give the weather in Celcius and Farenheit for a while…  Heck, we’ve already got that on most thermometers.  And our cars tell us both kmph and mph, so maybe someone’s already started this…

So I’ve decided to do a comparitive section to highlight the differences we’ve noticed as Americans living in Poland. 

These differences are just our observations, and are only as good as that.

That being said, let’s get on with the first, and most obvious difference: Language

It’s definitely disconcerting to live in a place where you don’t speak the language.  It gives you a newfound respect for people in the US who dont’ speak English.  It also prevents you from ever saying "Why don’t you learn our language" in a spiteful manner ever again.  It’s easy to end up somewhere before you’re completely fluent, or even passable, with a language.  After studying for a few months, Jess and I only have a very basic grasp on the language.  We know some words and phrases – mostly where food is concerned, but I wasn’t able to carry on a conversation with a 5-year old.  Very sobering experience.

The Polish language is at first very intimidating.  The words look alien to a native English speaker.  However, once you learn the rules of pronunciation and wrap your tongue around some of the tougher sounds (there are a few sounds and letter combinations that just don’t exist in English), you can at least read and pronounce just about anything.  There’s not a lot of strange rules.  And after you get used to hearing it, it’s actually a very beautiful language.

The other difficult thing about Polish is that, with most other languages I’ve touched, the verb is the only part that conjugates.  In Polish, the subject and object can change depending on the verb, pluralization, and gender.  It can make the language very daunting.  For example.  Rower is bicycle (Row-vair).  Jedzie na rowerze (Yejay na rovairzheh… zh sounds like the g in garaGe) is "riding a bicycle" (or something close to that).  Make it tough.  Lots to remember, anyways. 

But Polish isn’t the only linguistic difference. 

Unlike the United States – where we are a united, contiguous landmass of country-sized states that all speak the same language, Poland is in the center of Europe.  Europe is a conglomerate of countries different cultures and languages.  These countries are roughly the size of a US state.  Try to imagine if each state spoke a different language and had a different culture.  We may joke about it, but the differences between states are nothing compared to differences between countries in Europe.

The reason I mention this, is that Poland is roughly the size of Ohio…  They import a lot of what they need.  It is not uncommon to find products in other languages with no translation.  Most have multiple languages on the packaging, others have a Polish translation stuck on them. 

To give you an example, in our apartment our washer is all in German.  We’ve seen products in the grocery store entirely in German, Italian, English, Greek, and I think Swedish, or something similar.  And we’ve seen clothing labeled in French, among other languages.  And I don’t doubt that we’ll come across even more.

So it’s very easy to see why someone from Europe would think Americans are ignorant and stupid for only knowing English.  But we’re not really exposed to much else.  There is a fair amount of Spanish, and in some places French, but that’s about it.