Declaration of Love to my Temporary Home Country

Long queues; shop and railway assistants that make me regret I was born; sun set view from the 15th floor of a Plattenbau; slow trains; slow bar tenders; lack of efficiency; people who help me learn their language; long talks in which people who associate my country and me with the crusaders from Grunwald 1410; the ability to improvise; ketchup on everything; being reminded by Polish friends that the beautiful architecture in my surrounding was built by Germans, my co-nationals; ability to party until morning in the middle of an exam session; to write cribs on the hand;
Radio Maria and its anti-Semitic and anti-German boss who pretends to be a priest; girls with artificial long finger nails that hinder them using their cell phone; boys who want to carry my bag; milk bars where you definitely do not pay for any service; somebody calling homosexuals 'ill'; so many people – so few  first names; girls getting married at my age;

Poles warning me my bike might get stolen and I might get robbed on the train, at the same time Poles complaining that Germans think that Poles steal; a guy helping me to use the mechanic ticket puncher on the tram and then becoming a good friend; an older man telling me I  looked like a camel when I was moving out of the dormitory with all my stuff; a good friend not showing up anymore since he has a girl friend; another friend consulting with his girl friend before taking some of the salad I offered him on a party; old German tourists in beige-colored clothes; pierogi; a professor asking me about my stay in Wroclaw instead of taking my oral exam - and then not letting me speak; almost American consumption behaviour;

I hate people who make me bag for some permission only because they want to prove their authority; Fakt; a doctor pulling my strings without asking for my name or money or insurance documents after I had been sent away from three medical practices because one document was missing; how did you have the weird idea  to learn Polish?; to be able to communicate with the people in my neighboring country; why do Germans take the luxury standards in their surroundings for granted?; techno music in a relatively expensive touristy restaurant; a Polish railway assistant that makes efforts to sell my normal ticket on the train because I forgot to say that I get a student's reduction; things that are more complicated than in Germany; things that are much less complicated than in Germany; people that make me feel home; people that I will miss.