2015-01-03: Admin Day...

Today is Admin day. I get to do timesheets and invoicing and bank account reconciliation.

I hate this aspect of my job so today I automated another bit of it. That was good thinking.

However it got me stuck in a "numbers" frame of mind and unfortunately for the Polish Princes once I get all boring like this it can take days to shake unless I do a full on burst.

So we went shopping where I could get prices of items in Carrefour (roughly the same as Woolworths) for comparison with Australian prices. Then I used woolworths.com.au to find the same items (or as close as possible) and xe.com for price comparison.

This is not sad at all, it shows an inquisitive mind

So roughly speaking Polish prices are 40% of the Australian equivalent. To really get good value it looks like I should live on some kind of Cabbage, brussel sprouts and chicken breasts dish with mars bars for dessert. I can save the leftovers in NZ made sistema containers.

There was no "chocolate tetanus needle" though

Later I will add big purchase items and wages for better comparisons. It would appear that a Australian weightlifter would be happy here though (they love chicken breasts and veges).

We were told that the plan for dinner is Raclette and we don't have that much cheese so we are safe having a lunch in town. Planning for food is a requirement, we are used to eating once a day and this causes distress to our Polish hosts. We are training ourselves to eat small meals constantly but it is a work in progress.

Food And Beverage Review: Klimaty Południa (the climate of the South)

http://klimatypoludnia.pl/en/

Looks classier than our usual haunts

Quite wine focussed. Which makes our review a little daft, in this weather cold or room temperature wine is not high on our list. Heated wine is. They do make a heated wine but I think they use good quality wine and it just doesn't work as well. Sometimes you have to have the cheapest nastiest version of a product.

Antique porn in the toilet. A sure fire sign of classy.

Pierogi for two was good. Not fried (which is my favourite) but a nice selection. Their mushroom ones were especially good I thought.

It's just a guessing game!

I always find pierogi a bit of a problem when they are mixed. It is like those stupid boxes of mixed chocolates which don't have a key to what flavour each one is. Fortunately I have yet to hear of a pierogi flavour which would be the equivalent of the coconut chocolate.

Bad focus as I shouldn't be in the Ladies taking photos I don't think.

Rating: 6/10 (far enough from the old market that the walk builds a bit of an appetite)

It may appear that we spend every day in the Market Square. This is true. Today we got to see it in daylight with sunny skies. I think getting the variety of observations shows we are experiencing the culture properly.

The horsies have tar on their hooves.

Today it was warm enough for some break dancers to be out. I am not sure they have thought it through though as they had no hat for money. Also they didn't ring a slidey pad and so were doing themselves reasonable amounts of damage. Headspins, cobbles and woollen hats are a debatable combo.

Enthusiasm and elbow pads.

Cultural Observations: Krakow Real Estate

While walking I noticed that there were areas of apartment blocks which had reasonably nice looking facades but were in pretty bad shape. Ewa says that after war a lot of people were given these apartments with basically lifetime leases at low prices. Hence the owners don't make any profit and do the bare minimum of upkeep.

Beige Opportunity?

Keeping in mind that these places are all of 500m from the old square and the lifetime leases must all be expiring over the next few years I wonder if it would be a worthwhile investment buying some now and gambling on the tenants dying and the city growing.

Puerile humour gets me out of Numbers moods as well.

Rating 4/10 (probably too much like planning for me)

This evening we made a cultural faux par I believe. Agnieska asked if there was anything we hadn't seen in Krakow. We mentioned that we had done most of the tourist things last time and only Auschwitz was left on the Tourist Checklist. Auschwitz is something to be in the correct frame of mind for and we are not really in that currently.

This foolishness on our behalf meant that there was nothing our hosts could do.

Plans:

• Go to Agnieska's family farm in the village she is from. 
• Experience village living and food.
• Walk in the forest

Concerns:
The phone calls back and forward seemed to be of the form:

"Do they want dinner when they get here?"
"No thanks, they said they had a big lunch and we just had dinner"
"okay"
... 5 minutes ...
"So I should just make a soup and maybe a few potatoes with some meat"
"I think they are looking scared"
"okay, just a couple of cakes then"

Maybe if we ran alongside the car we would be able to eat when we arrive. Except we are too full to run at the moment.