I’ve been here for about a little over a week now, but haven’t been blogging because I do not have internet in my apartment. However, we can now leech an unsecured wireless network if we position the computer just so on the window ledge, and, given that I spent an hour on gchat crouched by the heater today, I guess its time to start blogging.
I absolutely love this city. Our “culture shock” orientation described this early part of the trip as the “honeymoon period” and told us we could expect to dip down into discontent towards the middle (there was a graph!), but I really can’t imagine it. The city is beautiful. Public transportation works like a dream. Everyone has cool haircuts. People stride across all parts of the streets as if they belong there, and why not – traffic barely exists. A meal that costs the equivalent of 10 US dollars is considered really splurging. And there are dogs everywhere, and rarely on leashes – in trams, in pubs, tied up outside of supermarkets. I have never wanted a dog as much as I do here, just so I could take him on the subway, or walk around Old Town Square, the animal bounding ahead with his ears flapping.
Yes, the lightswitches are different – here they are flat panels that you press the top or bottom of to switch. And our building’s staircase has a light that works on a timer, so you can be walking down and suddenly in pitch black until you find the next glowing switch. And yet, shockingly, I’ve been able to adjust, so far. Culture shock? What culture shock?
