Promenady Wroclaw

The emails started a few months ago from a woman named Marta with a subject line I couldn’t pronounce. They were sent to my gmail account, the one I use for, well, nothing important. I remember to check maybe once or twice a week. Intrigued, I opened it, wondering if it would be a scam letter, a long-lost relative with a different name who died, leaving me millions but only if I would forward money to their former assistant, or a government agent first.

It became clear upon opening that the message was not written in English, but Polish. The great thing about Google is since they are already reading and index all my email, they already know it is Polish and the little translate button is in the header of the email. So translate away, Google!

“Dear Sir or Madam,

Please be advised that all parking spaces in the garage Promenady Wroclaw IV Street Works 7-7C, 9-9e are in private places and people who have not bought a parking space are absolute prohibition of parking in the garage.

Sincerely,

Marta

Property Administrator

Below her signature line was a picture of a black BMW Wagon with the license plate blurred out, clearly the offending car parked in a spot it should not in.

Okay, so Google translate might not have mastered English to Polish yet, but the only words I know in Polish  are “dupa”, and “nie wyrzucaj” which is what the stickers we use at work to let the cleaning staff know not to throw something away say. And there are plenty of people who see my last name and attempt to speak to me in Polish. Like the cleaning staff.  And the night nurses at the hospital where our children were born. But you can get the gist of it.

Hm, not as exciting as I had hoped. Clearly, this got mailed to me accidentally. So, I went on with my day.

But then, later that same day, Marta sent me two more emails. This time I knew what to do right away.  Translate away, Google!

Dear Sir or Madam,

Very please read the attached Regulations on the Order Household promenades Wroclaw IV Street. Works 7-7C, 9-9e, adopted Resolution No. 15/2017, especially with the points:

- 8: "Quiet hours valid from 22.00 to 7.00."

- No. 27: "grilling is forbidden on balconies and terraces."

Sincerely,

Marta

Property Administrator

Attached was a two-page PDF listing all 27 rules, again in Polish. I didn’t read them all because they were too long to fit in the google translate window all at once. But clearly, there had been people making noise past ten at night, enough for a neighbor to complain, and they were probably the same people who were grilling on a balcony or terrace, or the people parking in the wrong spots. Eventually, I translated all the rules. Many of them didn’t translate well and are nonsensical. Most of them would be standard for any condo or apartment building.

After reading all the rules, I was more confused. Did I buy a condo in Poland? I’ve done some weird stuff in my life I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure I would have remembered purchasing property in a foreign country, a foreign country from where my relatives emigrated but a foreign country I’ve never set foot in during my lifetime. I flipped through my passport and looked for a stamp from Poland but did not find one.

Well, clearly I hadn’t but a guy can dream, right? Although, I’m not sure how many Americans dream of owning condos in Poland. So what did happen? This time Google was helpful

Wroclaw, Poland.

The condo building was in Wroclaw, Poland. Wroclaw is a city in Western Poland, the 4^th largest city in Poland with about 680,000 inhabitants. Over the last 150 years, it has been part of Prussia, Bohemia, Germany and Poland. It became part of Poland after the end of World War II. Since then, it’s population has swelled, Pope John Paul visited twice during his papacy, the new municipal stadium hosted several matches of the UEFA Euro 2012 cup and recently they’ve had a bit of a building boom.

But I’ve never been there. I’ve never planned to go there. And my interest in it faded.

But the messages kept coming. A few weeks later I received this notice.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please be advised that in the period from 05.22.2017 to 26.06.2017 Erbud will cures entry road into the Promenades Wroclaw IV.

Will start a temporary entry,

which was marked on the map below.

And there was a map with arrows showing where to go and where NOT to go.

The next day, another picture of a different car parked in someone else’s parking space with a polite reminder not to do so. Clearly the message was not getting absorbed by it's intended target.

A few weeks later:

Dear Sir or Madam,

We turn to you with a request to turn your attention to the door to close staircases. Leaving them open can cause mechanical damage, for which the repair cost will be borne by the Community Housing.

Sincerely,

Marta

Two days after that:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Fortum, advised us that:

"On June 14, in the chair. 7.00 - 20.00 there is a break in the supply of hot water in the surrounding streets:

- Czochralski

- Słonimski

- Factory

The reason is the connection of a new customer. We apologize for the inconvenience and we make every effort to supply heat dwell time as short as possible. Of course, cold water supply will proceed smoothly.

Sincerely,

Marta

Then it got serious. Marta’s next email had the agenda for the Wroclaw community housing meeting. This was important stuff! Included on the agenda was a vote on ”garage on the consent to use the racks and motor bicycle racks installed in the underground garage.”

Finally, something important. I couldn't miss the vote on consent to use the racks and moter bicycle racks installed in the underground garage! What if I needed to park my motor bicycle when I was in Wroclaw? Sadly, my passport had expired and there was not time to get it renewed to make it to the meeting on June 19th. Maybe someone could act as a proxy and vote for me. I was all for using those racks in the underground garage.



Sadly, I still do not know the outcome of the vote because Marta never send out the minutes from the meeting, But I did get a detailed explanation why they were delaying pouring concrete for the sidewalk because of the warm temperatures affecting the curing of the concrete, followed by a reminder to not park in the handicapped parking spots if you do not have a handicap sticker.

I felt like I should email Marta back and let her know that she was sending emails to some shlub in America who did not need to get them, and not to the intended recipient, whatever typo caused these to go to me instead of whatever combination of M and Smolarek who was possibly living there. What if the intended recipient was the one who kept parking in the wrong parking spots, or worse in the handicap spots? What if they missed the critical vote on using the motor bicycle racks? What if they don’t know that quiet hours start at 10pm and end at 7am? Was my failure to act causing someone hardship?

But I didn’t email her because I didn’t want to miss anything. If I fixed the glitch, then I would never know if the parking scofflaws continued to park in the wrong locations, or if the board was going to add to the long list of 27 rules.  Surely they posted these messages in a common area of the building for all residents to see. No one was missing out on any truly critical information.



Ebi Smolarek: Fomer Team Polska Soccer player and the most famous Smolarek

Then I started getting more messages from different senders, some in Polish, some I can’t share with you because they have that warning on the bottom of the email saying that the message is only for the intended recipient and if I get it, I should notify the sender and delete the message (which I TOTALLY did).

 And Marta must have gotten a new job, or moved on to something else because the notifications from the building were now coming from someone named Beata, and still mostly about people parking in the wrong parking spots. Maybe Marta had gotten fired because people were still parking in the wrong spots. Maybe she quit because her reminders went unheeded. Maybe the person who should have been getting these instead of me really was the one parking in the wrong spots. Still, I did not reply. I was afraid to stop getting the emails, but now I really wanted to find out who they were supposed to go to. Was there another Mike Smolarek someone in Poland? I’ve only found three others, all of whom are high school teachers and coaches in Wisconsin and Michigan (although one now hosts a radio show since his retirement). Was one of them traipsing around Poland right now?

A few days later, I finally got a break on who this mysterious person was: a confirmation email from a hotel in Zakopane, with a first name in it. At last, I had a clue to the mysterious person.

Her name is Maria. And I had an email address now, too. So I emailed her and tried to explain what happened.

And then the email I’d written showed up in my in box. No, not my sent items, my in box. Like when you accidentally write an email to yourself (or on purpose to remind yourself of something).  It turns out Google mail has some features built in to prevent others from trying to create an address similar to an existing one, like for example, SteveJohnson and Steve.Johnson. It turns out that Maria’s address, or at least the one she had shared was similar enough to mine that Google was sending me messages that weren’t directly addressed to me.  You see, dots don’t matter in gmail addresses. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150

Sadly, my lead was a dead end. So I turned to Facebook. There had to be someone with this name on Facebook, And their was. I send her a message about how I think I’ve been receiving her emails. I send a friend request hoping that the common last name with pique her interested (there are a couple Smolareks that I am not related to in other countries who have friended me on Facebook).

That was weeks ago. Weeks without a response or an answer. Reminds me of Hey Alexander. It’s also been three weeks since Promenady Wroclaw has send me an email. Maybe they found their error and corrected it. Maybe Maria moved out and the took her name off the mailing list. Right now there are no answers, just unanswered questions.

 I hope continue to get these emails about the infractions of the people living at Promenady Wroclaw. People on the other side of world will continue to park cars in spots where they don’t belong and be loud too late at night or too early in the morning. Google will still translate Polish to English poorly. And I’ll still dream the dream that every kid dreams: that I own a condo in Poland.

 

Thanks for reading.