No sleep, no jobs
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2005
1
3
14
Trip End
Ongoing
Krakow,
Poland
Saturday, January 15, 2005
To start with, it's winter. We knew this and were prepared for it, but it does change the way a place feels. There isn't any snow though, which is a bit disappointing. The square at night is beautiful with all the Christmas lights - they dangle the lights from the trees so they look like lit up weeping willows, and it's really quite amazing. Despite all the difficulties we've been having, being in Krakow is great and we are still sure this is where we want to live. Will this be possible? Not so sure.
Another difference is that the hostel we are staying at is actually a student dormitory during the school year, so we got stuck in the ugly and very noisy part of the building. Very different from the big bright sunny room we had there in the summer. They have discos until 4 am almost every night and then construction starts down the hall at about 8am, which has made getting over jet lag almost impossible. We're pretty sure it's also a school, which is a little strange.
Looking for jobs here is obviously a completely different experience than staying here as tourists. Instead of simply enjoying the city we're focused on trying to get somewhat settled here and getting our resumes out. It's hard to do the job search thing when you don't have a phone or a printer. We finally got prepared though, and started handing out resumes yesterday. It was an experience, to say the least. We got told everything from, it will take 3 months to process a work permit (not sure how true that is) to, our certification basically doesn't count (we're learning not to listen to british people). It's a completely UK dominated ESL market here, so they aren't familiar with any non-british forms of certification and don't like having to deal with teachers who need visas. When they need a teacher, they just send home for one it seems. It's disheartening but we are determined to make the best of this, even if that means getting jobs elsewhere in Poland for this term and returning to Krakow in september with EU passports for the high hiring season.
Now that it's the weekend, we're determined to start enjoying this city. Walking around has really reminded us why we love it here and why we want to live here.
