After 1 year in Poland, we’ve been able to get a pretty good idea of what life here would look like.

It means going to the grocery store 6 days out of 7 (the stores are closed on Sundays here).

It means walking to daycare.

It means maybe getting back late on Sunday after a weekend spent in the mountains with family.

It means hopping on the bikes for 10 minutes and then walking through Old Town and all of its medieval treasures on a Monday lunch hour to take a break from work.

It’s about the ease with which everything seems to happen. It’s not always the most convenient when you’re taking two trams to get to a friend’s place but the option exists and it’s still more enjoyable than half the time but spent in a car.

All of these things represent a life where you’re among people. You’re seeing people regularly at the store or as you walk to or from your next activity or errand.

It’s vibrant. It’s lively. It’s the way living in a city should be.

On the flip side, we’re living on one paycheck in Poland. The language barrier and different regulatory bodies means that Steph can’t pursue nursing here and getting any kind of job in general means a decent level of Polish fluency. The language is still a work in progress but it’ll eventually get there.

This means we’re relying on my Canadian job. One that doesn’t pay anything extraordinary but by Polish standards for income, should afford us a reasonable lifestyle. We made some decisions about housing and childcare that has us spending a bit more than we’d like, otherwise we’d probably be able to stay completely in budget instead of relying on a supplement from our savings.

Apartment living is the standard here in Krakow and it’s got its pros and cons. We have less space, but that means less to clean up. The kids have to be quieter because we have more neighbors but it’s not unreasonable to have them be quieter and do the majority of playing outside. We have several playgrounds and friends within 100 meters of our place thanks to apartment living.

In the long run, the kids would have the freedom to walk to the local grocery store and grab snacks or candy without us needing to drive them there. To meet with friends without having to see which parent can drop them off and pick them up.

In general, I would label life in Poland as being able to live, work and play without separating one from the others too much. Everything can happen in one place so things just seem less forced here.

A week in Canada

For me, there’s generally a frustration with things.

Frustrated with how large almost all of the vehicles have become. It seems like everyone needs a tank to get their kids to school or to grab milk and eggs for breakfast. Besides adding noise and taking up space on out streets, I fear the risk of one us getting run over by these tanks.

Frustrated with the need to travel through the city by car if you want to get anywhere. There’s the possibility of biking – I’ve even purchased a cargo bike instead of a car – but roads can be hostile (see above mentioned tanks) and distances far so it’s not always doable.

By the disconnectedness of the city. If you want a playground, you can find it but don’t count on being able to grab a snack when you get hungry without driving 10 minutes to a major shopping center with a giant parking lot.

All of our immediate family lives here so we are able to stay connected and have more support when things are more hectic. We haven’t had to rely on the grandparents for too much babysitting support but the option is always there. It’s nice that the kids can grow up around cousins, aunts and uncles from both sides of the family.

We have a lovely home that’s more than enough for our family. It gives us a lot of comforts, including my home gym, separate bedrooms for the kids, a backyard and a garage. Gardening for Steph is the clear benefit of the house, otherwise everything else can be seen as a con in some aspect.

If I’m being honest though, the largest benefit of Canada is that we’re able to have a dual income household where both incomes are solid. That affords us to not have to look at expenses as closely as we do in Poland. It’s hard to replace Steph’s income after 2 years of formal education and a decade of experience in nursing. It’s also a career she enjoys doing and has no intentions of stopping.

Canada is where we grew up and it’s where our roots are. It’s where we have the most stability financially and the strongest ties relationship wise. But there is a lot left to be desired in terms of livability outside of a car.

Where to from here?

Poland wins on lifestyle. Canada on financial stability.

So what’s the move?

At this point, we’re not quite ready to retire but we’re not super far off from being able to stop saving and letting our investments do the compounding and we can just make enough to live on. We’d rather be financially stable at the sacrifice of lifestyle than be living a lifestyle that we eventually might not be able to afford.

So it’s back to Canada for the year. We’ll look to build up our savings over the year, see if we have over romanticized our time here in Poland – it’d be a weird ‘grass is greener on this side’ scenario – and then make the decision to stay in Canada or make a more serious move to Poland.

We’d rather be financially stable at the sacrifice of lifestyle than be living a lifestyle that we eventually might not be able to afford.

Life is an experiment and we have no intentions on giving up one or the other until the kids are old enough that moving back and forth will be detrimental to their development.

The next 2-3 years will be a storm of questions as we decide between the options of what we’ve known for so long in Canada, the recent year and a half we’ve spent in Poland and anything else we come up with along the way.