Life Lessons

The water in Poznań is not exactly clean. Even the locals don't drink it. It doesn't contain pathogens or other deadly substances (as far as I know), but everyone buys bottled water. Maybe it's because the pipes are old, maybe it's because Poznań is far from any mountains, or maybe it's because it just doesn't taste good. My green sentiments were revolted by the idea of buying so much bottled water, but when in Rome, sometimes it's best to do as the Romans do.

The sanitary situation of the water was most evidenced by my electric tea kettle. After only a month of boiling the local tap water, I was repulsed by metallic pieces that started to chip away from the interior bottom of the kettle and float in the hot water. First the flat shiny metal bottom became dull, then brown, then green, then brown again with a greenish hue. I almost bought a new kettle until some friends assured me that this would happen to any hot pot boiling Poznań water and that the unknown substances that flaked off the bottom were harmless. Good thing the spout has a filter to keep them out of my tea cup when pouring. Still, I thought I might be slowly killing myself with carcinogens of some sort.

Today, that changed at last. After making a few volcanoes of baking soda and vinegar that did nothing to clean the inside, a friend suggested simply boiling the vinegar and letting it sit. And WOW. What a difference! I wish I had before and after pictures. For the first time in six months, I can see shiny metal again, and I don't feel like I'm dying by drinking tea!

So maybe the moral of this story is to always have vinegar on hand to clean things. Or to not wait six months to ask for help. Or to not drink the tap water in Poznań.

The only downside is that now my room reeks of vinegar.


As a side note, the tap water in Gdańsk is delicious, so it might only be the more central parts of the country (no mountains) that have a tap water problem.