A Brief Look into Bielsko-Biala

So I've been in Bielsko just shy of a month now so it's probably about time I get some pictures up here eh? To be fair though, there's a lot here in Bielsko to note, photograph, and lump into coherent blogposts.

Bielsko-Biala is a town of about 300,000 people located in South Central Poland near the Czech and Slovak borders. The town was formally two separate towns, separated by the River Biala but they were merged in 1951. Before the Polish Revolution in 1918, the towns were part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The towns lay upon an important trade route and many Viennese had manors here. The street that I love on was the main trade road and was called "Wienerstrasse" at the time. This is my apartment building. On the left is Schehowa Street, which is the towns center for night clubs etc. On the right is the trade road, now called 11th of November Street. This street was recently voted as the 4th favorite shopping street in all of Poland.

The town was one of the most cosmopolitan in Poland as it was roughly a third Polish, a third German, and a third Jewish. This changed with WW2 as all the Jews were either expelled or sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which is about a 20 minute drive away from here. After the War, the Germans were expelled and their residences given to Poles expelled from other parts of Europe. The town is now by far the most homogeneous place I have ever been. In the almost month I have been here I have seen a grand total of 1 Chinese person, 2 Africans, and and the handful of us at the English school. Every other single person I have seen has been Polish. It's really mind-blowing actually.

This is my entire kitchen in my apartment. Standard issue for Poland is= a sink, a mini-fridge, and a 2 burner hotplate. You have no idea how limiting it is trying to cook when you have access to only 2 burners. No oven. No pizza. So annoying. I share the apartment with my Australian roommate Mike. I'll put up more about him later. The rest of the Apartment is decent enough. Our toilet is in a closet in an entry hall that we share with 1 other family. Also annoying. The bathtub (sans shower curtain), sink, and washing machine are in a room by themselves inside our apartment. Why thy couldn't stick the laundry machine outside and put the toilet in, I don't know....my room is a decent enough size, but doesn't have any sort of shelves or wardrobe so it's a bit too messy in there for me to take a picture of. It is a recently remodeled place though, and its nice and warm, and its smack-dab in the middle of town so I really don't mind it too much. I'll be moving to a host family soon, so I'll get pictures of that place up soon too.

I think that'll be all for today, but stay tuned for the posts I have planned coming up:

.The School that I teach At
.All Saints-Day
.Communism in Bielsko
.Shopping in Bielsko
.Day-to-Day life in Poland
.Auschwitz (going there tomorrow I think)
.My new host family (I"m moving in on Sunday!!!)