Winter. Really?

A few nighttime snow flurries, that disappear quickly with the sun. Sidewalks and roads are clear and dry. This is completely different from last year with its subzero temperatures and hardened ice mountains of shoveled snow. I didn't even know what the pavement looked like in Sosnowiec until April. Not that I'm complaining. Today I stood in the sun in a t-shirt and was comfortable. Not warm, no, but comfortable for a few minutes. Nothing like the soul-stealing cold of last winter. I feel a great deal of sympathy for the local industries that depend on snow: the resorts, the ski and snowboard rentals, the bars, pubs and clubs of mountain towns, etc. This winter sucks for them, and it's not like this is the most prosperous place to begin with. But it's sure nice for me.
I have to go to Ukraine. My application for another year of residency won't be approved in time (long story), so I have to leave Poland and return with a new tourist stamp on my passport to buy an extra 90 days. Except that it's not just Poland I have to leave; no, I have to exit the EU and Ukraine is the closest non-EU country. At least it's cheap there, and I have the time, it being winter break now. So this weekend, off to Lwow I go. I know nothing about it, but since I must go, I'll do some sightseeing and wandering and so on. Oh, the strange paths life takes us on.
This post has no real theme, just bits and pieces of things. I know I've mentioned the Polish fetish for ink stamps before, and it's just one of those ludicrous hoops everyone has to jump through. For reasons still unexplained, it became necessary for me to have my own company. This meant opening a business bank account, a lot of paperwork, my lying to the government about where I live (officially I reside in the Katowice branch of Profi, for reasons that again were never satisfactorily explained to me; many people, I'd even venture to say, most, live in one place and work in another. Even if it was truly necessary for me to commit this fraud, why couldn't I at least live in the Sosnowiec branch? But my questions are met with garbled English cut short by the insistence that "You just have to"), various trips to government offices, and of course, getting a company stamp. Now, this fetish for the ink stamp (and every document of any kind must be stamped by somebody, somewhere, often more than once) means that there are shops all over that make them. "Pieczatki" (stamps) is written almost as often on signs as "papierosy" (cigarettes) or "alkohole" (you can guess that one). What puzzles me is why they are so important. I will have to stamp one or two things a month, and the information on my stamp could easily be written. And since these stamps are so readily available, anyone could make one in hours, so what precisely is the importance, what guarantee of authenticity does the stamp actually provide? For 40 pln (about $13) I could duplicate most any stamp I've seen so far. It's just one of the absurdities of Polish bureaucracy that I can't find a reason for.
And this brings me to the name of my company. I was told it could be anything I wanted, but it had to include my name. For the sake of convenience and because I like it, I chose the beginning of my email address, hideoijj. I didn't understand what they meant. The name, very official (as I can prove by my new company stamp), is "Hideoijj Yamagiwa Matthew Yamagiwa". I swear I'm not kidding. The last layer of sheer pointlessness came up when I was ordering the stamp. The guy who was helping me, one of the secretaries, and who is always very helpful, told me that not only did my company name have to be on the stamp, but also my name. Also my name. That's right, he thought it would be best if my stamp read "Hideoijj Yamagiwa Matthew Yamagiwa Matthew Yamagiwa". This was more than I could bear and I'm pleased to say I won the argument. It is, however, entirely possible that I'll have to get a new stamp that says that, if the documents I stamp get rejected for not having my name on them, only my company name. Ah, Poland.