Friday, January 28, 2011

Law suits and responsibility

We've experienced several activities that caught our attention by their distinctness from the US...Whereas Americans tend to be lawsuit happy and any harm that occurs is someone else's fault, in Poland it appears that you are responsible for the consequences of your own behavior.

At the Science Museum, they had a "spinner" (like a Merry go round that you sat inside with chest high walls) where kids could throw a beach ball and experience the coreolis effect.  Just benches, not individual seats, no seat belts, no list of rules, no safety talk.  The operator would periodically slow it down so kids could swing open the gates and step in or out.  He told kids to sit down several times, but other than that they just played as they spun around. Wild.

At the local pool, there was no lifeguard on duty.  No one to monitor our usage of the waterslide.  No one to keep young kids from belly flopping into the 3 ft deep hot tubs.  Just some signs that said what the rules of usage were.  You'd never see this in the US!  It was kind of a pleasant surprise. -Carolyn

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