Cultural: Differences between Florida and Poland part 1

Guest post written by Rachael Woodard

Have you ever played the game, “Spot the 15 differences in the top and bottom picture?” We used to find them in the Highlights magazines when I was growing up. In fact, I used one recently in a Sunday School class. I recalled how much fun it was to study a sample picture and see how many differences there were, yet they still looked normal within the setting of the second picture.

They weren’t wrong. They were just different.

When I was in Poland recently, I found a few things that caught my eye and intrigued me as “different.” These were probably so normal that those who lived there found them to be incredibly common and possibly were amused by my intrigue.

1)      The wearing of skirts by so many women. I saw denim skirts, short skirts, long skirts, tattered skirts, professional skirts, plaid skirts, plain skirts, and every kind of female you can imagine wearing them, including the young, smart, hip dresser, the mom pushing a baby stroller, or the older matron donning a babushka. Practically every block had ladies walking around outside and sometimes there were more skirts than pants or shorts. I found that fascinating, coming from the land of “shorts and a t-shirt” as standard attire here. You could probably go all day, or at least 3 or 4 hours in my town without seeing a single female in a skirt.

(Note from Becky - a local company that designs women's fashions is here - you can see the kinds of things they produce.)

2)      People walking. Everywhere. Walking. In the villages. In the town of Warsaw. Everywhere.

3)      Bus stops with people waiting at them. Lots and lots of people waiting at them. Here in our town, yes, we have bus stops, but we have 1 or 2 people waiting. Most of the busses in our town run empty or nearly so.

Because we were going so fast, we had a hard time getting bus stops that were crowded with people - they were blurry - so here's one where just a few people are waiting.

4)      Windows that tip out at the top, not open from the bottom or through the middle as you imagine Rapunzel as she was going to let down her hair. The windows that were newer were large and beautiful, but they all seemed to tip out at the top. I’ve never seen one like that here, despite my constant trips into Lowe’s. I must say that I don’t usually study windows, either, and because I live in Florida, most of us keep our windows shut and our air conditioning on.

image from google images

5)      Roundabouts. I realize that they are very normal in Europe, and the whole of England doesn’t know what a red light look likes. But here in Florida, when a traffic circle is put in, it’s big news. “There’s a roundabout going in at xxx” and everyone drives there to try it out! It’s kind of funny. I’ve seen two in all of Central Florida. Not saying there aren’t more, but that’s what I’ve seen.

end of part 1

To be continued.

Be sure to check out what my sis in FL has for you!