Saturday, January 31, 2009

Things in Poland That I've Yet to See in the US

Here's another roundup of products and things, which are readily available in Poland but I've yet to actually see in the US, albeit they undoubtedly exist somewhere.

Flyers for strippers/hookers:
Small cards touting naked women are stuck under the windshield wipers of cars. Not the cars parked in seedy neighborhoods either! Cars parked right near Rondo DeGaull'a are always covered with these things.
Polish stripper ad
Pretty risqué.

Polish Stripper Ads
They come in all shapes and sizes.

Twenty-four-hour video gambling spots:
A couple of video gambling machines in some small nook in an underground passageway? How perfectly Eastern European. Gambling doesn't have to be in controlled places like casinos (which they do have) but one can easily waste his money almost anywhere with these gambling spots.

Kinder Surprises:
Of all the chocolate products we have in the States, we've yet to receive Kinder Surprises. Kinder Surprises are chocolate eggs with a plastic egg within. In the plastic eggs are usually some sort of toy or collectable. The chocolate itself is actually quite good (it's milk chocolate.)
A foil-wrapped niespodzianka
A foil-wrapped niespodzianka.

Sweetie Oranges:
Now, I am SURE we have these in the US. They're a crossbreed from Israel, and they're quite delicious and quite green.
Sweetie Oranges

Kwas Chlebowy:
Literally: Bread Acid. It's a soft drink that apparently comes from bread. I tried it on a whim at Smak Ukrainski, and it's actually quite good!!! I can compare it to Kinnie (which is also awesome!) but not really directly. It's got a unique taste that's rather hard to describe. It's kind of like Moxie. Can you describe the taste of Moxie without references to things like motor oil and cough syrup?
Kwas Chlebowy

Horrible Translations and Typos:
I'm just making stuff up now. Of course we have these! Ever read a directly-translated instruction manual for a Chinese product? It's laughable. I've sold worthless products, which had these types of instructions, to people just because they wanted to show people how poorly translated the instructions were. It's actually a small hobby of mine to go to museums in Poland and see how many typos/mistakes I can find in the translations (about half as many as you can find here.)
bad translation
I'd love a vannilia yogurth coctail.

SiPahh Straws:
Quite interesting, actually. These straws are coated in some sort of flavoring (chocolate, strawberry, banana) and used to drink milk. The outcome is a flavored milk, such as chocolate milk with the chocolate straw.
sipah straw
Chocolate straw.

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