Life / Where to live in Wroclaw? [30]

Thank you Wroclaw! That is more than Ok :)

And greetings from rainy Finland

To get back to this...

Currently we have been looking for appartments in Krytzi and Fabryczna areas. Are we even close to the areas we should be looking from :-)

Thanks

Life / Where to live in Wroclaw? [30]

Thanks Frenchexpat for you message! :-)

My daughter is 5 and son is 2. I would like to go for english kindergarden, since staring next fall (2008) my daughter will going to international school. She should learn engish by then. Idea of Polish kindergarden would actually be quite interesting, but since we may be relocating after few years to another country, I think I need to go for English.

I will be coming over in beginning of July to see more appartments/houses. I think we will be going for some kind of appartment (much easier). But I have not found that many appartments from Krzyki (looking from online agencies) that would be over 100m2 (min. 3 bedrooms) and in good condition.

But, let's continue looking. :-)

Life / Where to live in Wroclaw? [30]

Terve Finnish expatriate! :-)

I'll share my experiences after my trip to Wroclaw. I'm leaving this Wednesday and will be back in Finland beginning of next week. Looking forward to the trip - "talk to you later".

Cheers,
Selina

Hi there, just got back to Finland from my Wroclaw visit. City is really beautiful, of course parts of it are not that nice, but Rynek is really something. Really love the athmosphere around the place.

When it comes to finding appartment, that is the tricky part. I went around with couple of real estate agencys and the appartments/houses are really something. Some are nice and some are really horrible, even though they are in good neighbourhood/area. So, my recommendation is to keep on looking. To name the places I liked the best, Biskupin and Kryzki.

But, the cost of rentals is really high. At least the places I went to see, they were asking a lot for them. I would compare the prices to Finnish prices, they are that high.

About kindergardens, don't know yet whether to go for english or for Polish one. English would be nicer for us, but... this issue still remains open. Need to look into that once the housing issues is solved.

Life / Where to live in Wroclaw? [30]

:-)

Thanks for a good advice, but as you said - it may be a bit difficult. Let's see what will happen. At least 2 or the appartments I saw were owned by foreginers, and the price tag was according to that.

Let's continue the journey!

Life / Where to live in Wroclaw? [30]

I'll keep you posted... from my part. And the idea of Finnish/Scandinavian "moms-club" sounds really nice, even though it would be just two of us :-)

I heard that there is an international club in Wroclaw, founded just for foreigners (expats wifes mainly) and they have some activities on-going. Don't know the details yet, but will know more as soon as we will move to Wroclaw. I will definately join them, looking forward to having social life... :-)

About the international school. I am not the most trustworthy source, but I think that there is one english school close to the old town (somewhere close to Arkadum shopping mall). That is for bigger kids, I think from from 5th grade up. And the school for younger kids is located 3-4km southwest from the downtown. If you are looking from the map (google is a good one), it would be in the west end of Hallera street (on south side).

And one more thing about the shopping facilities (groceries etc.). In south (road E40) there is a major shopping area. You can find pretty much everything from there (groceries, furniture, clothes, shoes). There are similar areas at least in east side... these are the ones I presonally saw/visited. For example groceries, Tesco and other markets beats finnish Prisma / Citimarket 10-0. This was one of my personal concerns when we started discussing about move to Poland. Wasn't sure that we could find "our food" from there, specially when I will be running the daily routines at home. This is definately not an issue, there is so much more than you can even think about.

I know how difficult it is to try to find for answers when being in Finland. Hope to see you around Rynek someday! :-) And good luck to you all! Let's keep in touch.

Cheers,
Selina

Life / How to get Sky/other english channels visible from Poland? [15]

:-)

I would like to see the american shows, like Lost, 24, Prison Break, Ugly Betty, ER etc. I wish Germans would get rid of the dubbing and go for subtitles. But, I assume that won't happen in any near future.

And I'm really beginner with the satellite channels. :-)

Cheers,
Selina

Life / English schools and daycares in Wroclaw? [7]

Yes, if you want to have some kind of english language teaching, the only alternative is to go for the international schools. I have been asking the same questions here in Wroclaw.

According what I heard, there are some Polish kindergarden in the southern part of town where are many foreign kids. However, these are in Polish only.

In case you want to ask some questions from me in Finnish, please send first email to puolassa@luukku.com. Don't want to share my private email to such a big crowd. :-)

Cheers,
Selina

Life / How to get Sky/other english channels visible from Poland? [15]

Thanks for good tips and tricks with Internet. :-) I will save these links to my favorites... they work great.

Cheers,
Selina

Life / Internet connection with MAC computer in Poland [11]

Thanks, I think they are the same as they have been for my PC - so let's take some coke and order a pizza and be a computer nerd for a moment. Heh! :-)

Study / Kindergarten/preschool in Wrocław? [5]

Hejssan,

About the school/kindergarden. Unfortunately there are not that many english speakng places to choose from. There is BISC (brittish) and WIS. The prices in both of these places are high. I have heard that there are some Polish-English places are well, but if your kids don't speak any english or polish as starting point, I wouldn't consider them. Have heard of German speaking kinderkarden, but I assume that is also Polish-German... If you decide to go to British school, your 6-year old would actually be going to real school, depending her birthdate to year 1 or 2. We are in Brittish school and happy with our decision, my kids are 3 and 6.

There are going to be quite many Finnish families (and some Swedish as well) in town next fall, so you will sure find company.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions...

Selina

USA, Canada / Finding flights to States (from Wroclaw) [6]

Going to Denver... :-)