Hi everybody!
At the beggining I would like to ask you to forgive me my English mistakes as I am not a native English speaker and still learning it.

My name is Krzysztof (Chris in English) and I live in Cracow, Poland. It would be impolite to start using the forum without saying hello to other forum users, so that's why I made this thread. I was having a thought about using a straight razor on my brain about years or so and now, with some cash supplies, I decided to give it a try. I have already bought:
- Omega badger brush ( OMEGA, shaving brushes, badger shaving brush )
- Omega shaving soap ( http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...JL._SS400_.jpg ) <- any comments on that soap? I found nothing on forum about it.

I'm still looking for a razor, which is not easy task, because we do not have many straight razor sellers here in Poland. I'm looking for some kind of new, cheap Dovo razor and I have few questions: I have read about "shave ready" razors in the Wiki, however, do 12k grit chinese stone and a strop would be enought to make razor shave-sharp, if the razor is brand new from factory? I was thinking about buying the Norton 4k/8k combo, but I will have to import it from UK, so I would like to leave it for later, when the blade will get more dull. Do you know any good, low-price online shops in UK? It would be logical that shipping costs in UE should be lower than from US to UE, but it's not always true (e.g. in one shop I found that shipping costs from Germany to Poland was 10E and shipping from classingshaving.com is $11, note that Poland is neightbour country of Germany).

My idea was to buy a razor and make hanging hair and thumbpad tests, so I would know where I'm standing.
My post got quite long, so it's time to finish it. Once again, greeting to everybody!