The devil is in the details

Staying in a shitty hotel makes you appreciate the little details. For example, if the shower’s pressure is good, you tend to spend more time in it than you should, or if the breakfast’s scrambled eggs are good enough, that’s pretty much all you’ll have for breakfast. Everything to take your mind of the communist themed hotel which, I’m sure, they didn’t intend to have a “theme”…

Funny how some of the best food I’ve had in Poland is either Japanese, Indian or Mexican. At least the local beer is quite nice.

Turista culinário acidental

Quando se viaja em trabalho, muitas vezes não há tempo para se fazer turismo. No entanto, há pelo menos uma coisa que se tem obrigatoriamente que fazer: comer. Todos os países têm a sua gastronomia própria, mais ou menos saborosa, e que depende de vários factores – temporais, climáticos, culturais, etc. – e experimentar estas coisas também é turismo.

Não sei quando ou se vou continuar a saltar de país em país, mas sempre que o fizer, vou tentar mostrar aqui pelo menos uma receita tradicional do local onde estiver.

Assim, aqui fica o primeiro, “zapiekanka“, um snack fácil e rápido de fazer, da Polónia:

Link.

Ps: Existem várias páginas “sociais” (ou redes sociais, social networks, whatever) que permitem partilhas receitas. Esta que usei, Open Source Food, até nem é das mais potentes, mas é por isso mesmo que a escolhi, porque é simples e fácil de usar. Também estou inscrito em Group Recipes, RecipeThing e Snacksby. Cada uma tem as suas particularidades, mas vão todas dar ao mesmo e é, portanto, uma questão de gosto.

Portugal-Poland

Just came back from watching the match. I didn’t know any portuguese in Warsaw but, thanks to a contact list with dozens of people, I found out where the guys from Contacto meet and enjoyed a game (even more if we’d won) in their company. Nice people, by the way.

And thank you, Pedro.

Łódź X Warszawa

I haven’t seen much of Warsaw until now but, so far, I like it more than Łódź. It’s more “international” (it has more tourists), more vibrant, and the tourist zones actually look like tourist zones, not like a very long street with restaurants with names in English.

For the record

There’s no real glamour in working in another country, unless:

  • you have the time to do some sightseeing
  • you actually know what you’re doing
  • the hotel you call home doesn’t actually suck

(I actually managed to get two of those points right.)

Back to Poland…

…on Monday, the 20th. I’ll stay there for 4 weeks, does anyone want to show up? I heard that Poland’s lovely around this time of the year, not counting the thunder storms.

Maybe I should start using Dopplr

1 image == 10000 bytes

Or around that.

Anyway, I hope that on the next trip, if there is one, the photos will have more quality, as I’m hoping to get my hands on a P990i. :D

Abroad

After two weeks of work/trainning, they send me to Poland. Cool…

The not so cool part was at the Lisbon airport. At the check-in, they didn’t let me take my hand luggage to the cabin, so it had to go in the cargo hold. Of course, because the flight was delayed (bad, bad Lufthansa), and I almost missed the connecting flight to Warsaw (wich was delayed too, or I would have been stranded in Frankfurt), the luggage didn’t arrive with me. Fortunatelly, they sorted it out, and it arrived the next day (ie. yesterday).

Oh, what am I doing in Poland? Some migration configuration thingy, nothing big.

About Poland:

  • they get out of work at 16h! But they get in at 8h.
  • the average girl is prettier than in many places. Probably because they tend to be slim and to use just the right amount of makeup.
  • they still have to recover a lot of buildings…
  • otherwise, a very nice country.

Mobile phone photos can be found here.