Mom, will you come do my laundry?

I never thought I'd miss my washing machine and dryer in SF so much (the one that takes two complete drying cycles to dry anything).  When I was looking at apartments in Warsaw, everywhere boasted about having a washing machine, so I never worried about it. If you've used one washing machine, you've used them all, right? 

Wrong.

Here's a little story about me doing (or trying to do) laundry for the first time in Poland. 

I was staying in a hotel for the first 12 days in Poland, and luckily had enough clothes to last me those 12 days.  However, once I moved into my apartment, I knew that I'd need to do laundry.  So one of my first goals was to get some detergent so I could do a couple loads.  That should be easy, right?

Wrong.

I really still don't know if I bought detergent or fabric softener (or possibly neither).  I stared at the labels on every bottle of what might have been liquid detergent in the store for about 20 minutes.  I got so tired from doing this that I actually sat on the ground in the middle of the aisle with bottles surrounding me.  I just couldn't figure it out!  They all had pictures of clothes, flowers, and moms happily cuddling up with a shirt or towel to their face.  They also all had some pictures on the back with some measurements and numbers.  But none of them had any English.  So, which one is which?  There was also powder, which I am pretty sure was detergent, but the instructional pictures on the back were so confusing, that I probably would have done it wrong and flooded the apartment.  The pictures were saying something like adding 85 ml of LIQUID something to 10 L of something else at 40 degrees.  What???  Isn't this powder??  And what about 10 L?  Ugh. So I'm sticking with liquid.  Anyway, I finally got something, and I think it's detergent, but who really knows. 

Ok, so back to using the machine.  First of all, it's in my kitchen, which is weird.  There are no words on the machine, just pictures, so you'd think it'd be easy to figure out.  Nothing can get lost in translation, right???  WRONG.  Look at these pictures!  What does all of that mean?!?!?!  The landlord didn't have the instruction manual, so he tried explaining it to me. But he doesn't speak English, so that didn't work out too well.  I had someone translate and even the translator was confused and said "just do something like this (waved his finger around, at nothing in particular) and then it should work".  Gee thanks. 

I finally guess where the alleged detergent should go (there are 3 different compartments, none of them labelled), and after about 5 seconds of a false sense of accomplishment (I literally had a smile on my face), soap starts appearing on the floor, leaking from somewhere (smile leaves face).  Yea...that wasn't the right compartment. 

I finally get the soap figured out, and go to put my clothes in.  The machine is smaller than the machines I am used to, so I was trying to figure out how much it can handle.  I notice a sign that says 4-5 kg.  I think that might mean the weight limit on the clothes.  So I get out the bathroom scale (no joke).  I have no idea what I'm doing, so I don't want to take any chances!  It's hard to only put clothes on the scale because they keep spilling off, so I weigh myself, then pick up all the clothes and see what I weigh then.  Then I get out a calculator to do the math.  Easy. 

So finally it's working, and working, and working.  And 3 hours later, it's still working.  When will the stupid thing be over???  3.5 total hours of just washing! Apparently there is a speed wash button, but can someone please tell me which one it is??!!!!

Oh by the way, there is no dryer!!!  Who has a washer with no dryer?  Apparently everyone in Poland, that's who.  When I asked around, people said "what do you need a dryer for?  just hang the clothes up".  Oh how I miss the soft, warm, fresh feeling of clothes just out of the dryer...I will not have that for at least 2 more years. Someone please bottle that smell up and send it to me. 

I'm not used to air drying things, and afterwards they are all wrinkled and crunchy.  I don't like that feeling at all.  Especially underwear.  Crunchy underwear is no good.  Someone suggested that I get some fabric softener to help with that.  Is that a joke?  I told them YOU go get me some fabric softener (if you can tell which one it is), YOU figure out how much to put in, and YOU figure out where it's supposed to go.

Mom, will you come help me???

(You will be happy to know that my landlord recently found and sent me some English instructions for the machine...whew!)