Month 1 in Poland - August 2025

Welcome to our first update chronicling our year away in Poland. We recently completed our first full calendar month in-country so we felt it would be a good time to share how we're getting on. Our goal is to send one of these once a month, ideally with a different author each time rotating through the family (including the kids!). We'll see if it works out that way.

Our first several weeks were focused on what you would expect: getting over jetlag (especially me), getting keys to our place, trips to IKEA and building furniture, getting settled and up to speed, etc. In Krakow, our place is across the way from Monika's parents and a 15 minute walk to her brother's. It's also a 2 minute walk to Alex's school and a 15 minute walk to Adam's school. Very convenient.

Apart from that we have also been spending time in the countryside at Monika's parent's country house and at her brother's mountain cabin (which has spectacular views, a firepit, a wood-fired jacuzzi, and a wood-fired sauna). See photos attached, it's pretty special. 

We also did a week-long roadtrip to Denmark in August to see old friends there. Highlights were: driving on the autobahn in Germany, going to Lego House (different than Legoland, look it up), and eating Frellens soft ice (basically Denmark's version of soft-serve ice cream, but better). Monika is threatening to bring some back and start a Danish soft-ice franchise in the US. Link to a video of the ice cream here (file too large to attach).

We're now back in Poland and are on day 41 of our journey and feel like we are finally settling into a rhythm. On Monday, September 1st - while you were all away for a long Labor Day weekend - Adam and Alex started school (along with the rest of Poland, the entire country starts school on the same day!). Alex is going to kindergarten in a small private preschool. Despite having already completed kindergarten in the US, he will be enrolled in Kinder here because kids usually start their K-12 education a year later in Poland. Adam is going to the public elementary school and will be doing 4th grade (again, he already completed 4th grade in Davis but this is how they do it here). Both boys will be with kids their own age and will be instructed primarily in Polish language. One cool thing about Adam's school is that in 4th grade it's the first year that they have subjects and need to move from class to class throughout the day. In the US that typically doesn't start until 6th or 7th grade. It's a cool new experience for him.

Other than that, we have a car (a 2008 RAV 4) borrowed from Monika's brother. Monika continues her working contract and I'm doing a lot of networking and business development to try and land some independent clients.

All in all life is good. These last few weeks settling in were a big transition - but we like to think we're finally establishing the habits and regularity to last us the full year.

Hope you're all doing well back home in Davis or wherever you are. Drop us a line and let us know how you are doing. Our US phones still work here but email and WhatsApp are still very good ways to get a hold of us. We have started a Google Photos album of our full year here. It's A LOT of photos and videos but let us know if you want to see those and we can add you to the album.