And you shall know her by her left ear….

Happy New Year! (How late is that still an acceptable way to begin a communication and/or to explain away with three words one's complete lack of productivity over a period of time which encompasses, but is not limited to, the festive season?)

This mid-January day finds me in Warsaw, where it is particularly January-some in the most depressing way: unrelieved grey skies coinciding with the uninspiring sight of dirty snow melting to reveal just how many cigarette butts, tram tickets and other discarded items were dropped in it over the past month. Nasty. At least the Christmas decorations have remained up, which ameliorates things somewhat. In praise of Poland, I must admit that it's lovely to be once more in a country where people do not believe that Christmas decorations left up past January 6^th transform magically into harbingers of doom and general bad luck. I'm not sure quite how widespread this belief is – I first encountered it in the UK, but I don't know where it originated. In my family, we tend to leave the decorations up for as long as possible, in part because my mother completely redecorates the house for Christmas – after so much work and creativity, it seems churlish to tear it all down immediately. Given the shortness of the days here (it's dark before 3.30pm), I'm glad the Poles share my mother's approach and have the left the lights on a bit longer:

The festive lights are of particular comfort to me on this week of bureaucratic tasks. I'm off to Prague for research-related adventures at the weekend, so have only this week to sort out visa-related hiccups. Thus far, I've been to get a medulnek (a sort of local residency permit, a bit like a Czech ubytování, which allows you to then get a visa) and to have my picture taken for my eventual visa. The picture-taking process has given this post its title: Polish official portraits require that you show your left ear, while your body is turned slightly to the right and your head tilted to precisely the right angle to display said ear, and the rest of your facial features, simultaneously. You can also smile, slightly, like this:

To get this image, the photographer and I communicated using my new system. The longer I'm here, the more I realize that I can actually understand the gist of basic conversations, provided I keep calm and don't start mentally hyperventilating the moment someone addresses me. In fact, it works best when I imagine that they're speaking to somebody else. This strategy dovetails nicely with my approach to making up for the fact that I don't actually speak Polish. In preparation for specific encounters (like the one with the photographer, or a trip to the drycleaner after I'd lost my claim ticket) I write down exactly what I need or what has happened, in Polish. Google Translate and/or Polish friends are very helpful in this regard. Upon reaching my destination, I explain, in Polish, that I do not speak Polish, and hand over the note. Assuming the person I'm speaking to doesn't speak English, I handle anything else that comes up with a combination of Czech verbs (most basic verbs are similar) and miming (I don't trust the nouns to overlap as much as the verbs do). So far, this seems to be working. I managed to communicate with the photography shop man quite effectively – I was even able to convey the fact that I'd left my hat in the shop's coat closet and needed him to retrieve it for me. I also find people respond better to this approach. I'm not sure why – perhaps it's better not to include English and, by doing so, imply that I expect them to speak it, or perhaps they actually think I'm from another Slavic country. I don't know. But so far, so good, in any case. The photo-fetching scenario had the hallmarks of a potential Polish disaster written all over it, but went down much better than Monday's attempt to reconnect the internet, which saw myself and Mr. P spend ninety minutes running maniacally back and forth between the post office and tp, with Polish friends on speed dial, clutching stacks of bills and receipts and trying neither to cry nor swear very loudly and at great length.

Now if only I could figure out what the notice taped to my building's door says…something about personal safety and the gas meter. Oh dear…Google Translate, here I come.