Google today came up with a nice promo for Czesłse Miłosz's birthday today, a big-name Polish poet/writer. I've never read him, I don't think. At first I thought it was a moment of charming syncronicity, but AFAICT it's only local Polish google showing it. www.google.pl
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June 2011
06/29/2011
06/28/2011
in Poznań, how the Poles are ahead of the Americans in technology
After an endless eight-hour train ride from Kraków, now we're here in Poznań. Most of the time the train seemed like it was doing about fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Plus there was a totally unexplained wait at some podunk town in the middle of the ride for an hour. That part of their infrastructure could use some help.
But then yesterday we're at Citibank setting up an account. They don't use checks here. At all. The (youngish) account services rep working with us had never used a check. They use electronic transfer, via internet or via cellphone, for things like rent or paying money to friends. And their banks use two-factor authentication done properly. They SMS the confirmation code to your cellphone and you need that to complete the transaction. So it requires something you know and something you have (your cellphone).
Plus all the data here is 4G. Everywhere. On Solano Ave. at home, you can barely get data at all. And SMS is, afaict, just expected to be free.
06/25/2011
breakfast is meat
Typical breakfast here is high-protein, lots of meat. It's not a breakfast culture--the only options we've found are in the hotels, but the Hotel Polonia does put out a really nice spread. +1 for ham and sausage.
06/24/2011
We are here
We made it to Krakow.
