1. You always had to correct your name.
No matter how simple it seems to you, everyone else seems to have the most difficult time pronouncing your name. Especially your last name. You've just learned that when your name is being called for attendance you would have to correct them about five times until they either got it right or gave up.
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2. Everyone wants you to teach them.
Specifically swear words. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times people have asked me to teach them Polish swear words. I never understood why that was all they ever wanted to know, not how to say "Hello" or "My name is," it was always "How do you say s--t or f--k?" We say a lot more than just those two words, just a PSA.
3. Everyone is your aunt or uncle.
Even if you are not related at all, they are your aunt and uncle or you are theirs. People who aren't Polish don't seem to be able to understand that. I have gotten in arguments with my friends after I say my niece or my aunt and they ask how we're related, and I say we're not. They then begin to explain to me that there are not my niece, aunt, etc. However they are. That is how our families work, so let it be.
4. Every wedding/baptism/communion is the same.
The party is always in roughly the same venue with more or less all the same people, and nine times out of 10, it's exactly the same playlist. The kids will spend most of the night running around making up games to play while the adults drink and dance or make a train while singing "Jedzie pociag z daleka." It always somehow gets started, and you find yourself somehow getting sucked into it every time. Or they make a giant circle and watch people dance in the middle while they dance around them.
5. Everyone watches soccer.
Especially during FIFA World Cup or UEFA Euro that's going on now. If you're not sitting at home with your family dressed in Polish gear watching the Poland match, then what are you doing?
6. Unlimited rye bread
Polish rye bread is something I'm sure every Polish person can't go without, and you never have to. There is probably an endless supply of it in some freezer in your house. I don't think I've ever come across the problem of not having any bread, I've come across the opposite...too much.
7. You can spot any Polish person anywhere.
Like my dad just looks at a person and knows they're Polish.
8. You went to Polish school.
Honestly the worst place. I absolutely hated going there, mostly because I didn’t like the teachers, but also because it was on Friday night, and that's just such an inconvenient time. Or there were some poor souls that had to go on Saturday mornings. Either way, no one really wanted to be there, and most of the time all the students spoke to each other in English even thought the teachers would tell us we were only allowed to speak Polish.
