Life / Cost of seeing a 'professor' in his private medical practice? [8]

Avalon is right about the price, though most normal doctors are fine. LIM is worth going to if you need an English speaker, but some of the other well-known ones like Damiana and Enel-Med are at least as good. I use Izis, which has a good reputation, and costs (at their city centre clinic) between 60 and 100 depending on the doctor and length of appointment.

UK, Ireland / My friends upset at Brits.... [51]

I found something about swans in The Sun :)) from about three years ago which may have been the origin of the story. Somewhere in London (by the River Lea, wherever that is) there was a campsite used by people from 'East Europe'. At the time of the article, there was a large influx of people from Poland and the recent wave of immigration was becoming noticeable. In the campsite (I've never heard of Poles in the UK living in campsites) there were three tents. Outside one of them was a pile of swans' wings and a cooking pot. There was also a bible in Romanian. The reporter claimed that one of the tents had two Poles in, but he/she didn't actually see them.

From such humble but bizarre beginnings, mythology starts....

UK, Ireland / My friends upset at Brits.... [51]

No. Mostly about British people in general, though there was a spate of articles about a year ago making fairly wild claims about British and Irish people buying investment property in Warsaw and pricing locals out of the market. Though this wasn't true. And I remember something rather negative in the press a while ago about finding British and Americans "on every street corner".

Another, about a year ago saying that the ancient cobbles in Krakow's Maly Rynek were being destroyed by oil dripping from kebabs eaten by British tourists. That one was so ridiculous as to be funny, but intended seriously and no doubt some people believe it. It should be findable on their website still.

The online onet.pl occasionally publishes some really negative things about UK, and the comments by readers are hair raising. I stopped reading it for that reason.

UK, Ireland / My friends upset at Brits.... [51]

Have a look at GW and Nasz Dziennik. Both have printed some pretty nasty stuff recently. The comments from readers of the GW online version would be illegal in most European countries.

Real Estate / Polish palaces for sale - Is this a scam site? [9]

Indeed. There are a few large houses (palaces even) in Poland that are virtually unsaleable. Sometimes because of ownership issues, but mostly because of the cost of renovating historic buildings. One of the Warsaw real estate magazines, a couple of years ago, was advertising some amazing houses, even for as low as $5000, but the downside is that they were uninhabitable, often with half a roof, and could only be restored by architectural specialists and art restorers who are not cheap.

News / Polish man goes on trial for defaming the Polish president [7]

What the guy actually did was to manipulate search engine rankings so when someone searched the word 'chuj' one of the top entries was the Polish president's website.

Not unlike that computer virus back in the eighties which got into wordprocessors and replaced the phrase 'Margaret Thatcher with 'The B1tch'.

Hat's off to whoever wrote those programmes, annoying though they are.

So what should we be able to say about a president and what shouldn't we be able to say?

UK, Ireland / My friends upset at Brits.... [51]

I wonder if this Polish swan-eating thing has ever been proved. I've never heard of a case coming to court and the only people I know who've caught and eaten a swan in UK were actually from Canada.

The swan tasted nice, rather like goose, but leaner meat......

As for


People can say the same anywhere. His experience, sadly, isn't unique. I hate it when people say it happens in UK. It shouldn't. And many immigrants to Poland would say it mirrors theirs. The 4 things mentioned have happened to me here in the past 10 years, insults from strangers, unfair requests from bosses, companies attempting to underpay me (ALWAYS get everything in writing here) and anti-immigration (British) propaganda in the media.

The fate of the immigrant everywhere. The only thing to do is to rise above it, to avoid just becoming cynical.

News / Polish man goes on trial for defaming the Polish president [7]

Of course that's true, and some countries (inc. UK) have the concept of Criminal Libel, which can theoretically send someone to jail, though is never used, and despite it's name is a civil offence, not a criminal one.

There are however very strict criteria about libel, and the question is whether politicians should have more rights than most in the matter and are legally immune to satire.

Imagine if the creators of 'Spitting Image' in the UK or 'Saturday Night Live' in the US ended in in a criminal court for satirising their leaders!

And DCB, what have energy costs got to do with this thread?

History / Roman Dmowski- Polish Adolf Hitler? [219]

The guy was a nutcase, and a dangerous one at that. You might like to check out Jedrzej Giertych on wikipedia for more of the same.

News / I support creation of Great Poland [134]


Indeed I don't, not that most of it can be called racist.


Poland is 'only' in The EU because the Polish government asked to join and their citizens confirmed this in a referendum.

Not sure what you mean about not having 'enough children' in other countries. Poland's birthrate isn't especially high nowadays. By the way, what do you mean by 'dotation'?

Life / PAYING TO TAKE A PISS IN POLAND, it's BIZARRE [77]


In McDonalds (Warsaw anyway) they check you have a receipt before letting you into the bog.

The thing that gets me isn't paying the Babcia Klozetowa (no problem there) but is when bars keep the key behind the bar, as if it's some kind of great tragedy if the wrong person uses the loo. In a busy bar, the staff don't remember who's a customer anyway.

I've only seen this here - there must be a reason or at least some underlying cause.

Life / Talk-sex in Poland...are Poles really prude? [44]

You'd find a big difference between people's attitudes in big cities and in the boondocks.

News / I support creation of Great Poland [134]


Yes, I read them. But only normal mainstream ones, not conspiracy/nationalistic/race hate/extremist/religious ones.

And I, for one, am happy that Poland is in the Union, so are the millions who have gone abroad to work and so are the farmers who have received subsidies that the Polish government would never even have thought about, even if they had the funds.

News / I support creation of Great Poland [134]


I'm not sure what the people who live there would think about that, but I'm sure they wouldn't like it...


'Liberated' by Russia!! :-))))))


They were very happy to join NATO and The EU.

Life / Unusual Sightings in Warsaw - millions of black crows... [22]


I saw rooks as well - beautiful birds, but the ones near my home are definitely ravens pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Rooks (and there are plenty round Warsaw) have a very distinctive sound, and also appear this time of year. The part of Warsaw I live in is very green, a lot of wild birds, hedgehogs etc. Not long ago, I saw some sort of mammal at night. Definitely larger than a rat, but nothing I recognised. It could have been a polecat or weasel but was moving too fast (my dog was chasing it) for me to get a good look. Amazing to see something like that so close to the city centre. And counting birds is a fun superstition - One for sorrow, two for joy etc...

UK, Ireland / Extradition to Poland [11]

Only if the door is made of gold or something! Six month's wages (after tax) for somebody in Warsaw would be 3 or 4 thousand pounds which would be a very nice door indeed.

Maybe the pudding was made of black truffles :-))

Life / Unusual Sightings in Warsaw - millions of black crows... [22]


I think the Warsaw ones are ravens (kruki) - quite different to crows of which there are plenty too.

Life / Polish Protestants [22]


Adam Malysz is from Wisla, which, as far as I know, is the only town in Poland to be majority protestant. There is also a plethora of protestant churches round Lodz, and quite a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses (8000 in Warsaw)

One of the more unusual homegrown protestant churches is the Mariavites (Kosciol Mariawicki) who have very specific beliefs. I think their Cathedral is in Plock, but they have a rather nice new church in Warsaw.

Life / Unusual Sightings in Warsaw - millions of black crows... [22]

This time of year, crows and ravens appear aplenty, even during the day. Always a lovely sight.

Law / Resident Permit/NIP? [8]


They have to give you a NIP - they can't refuse one. It can take up to two weeks to wait for, but usually less. Depends on the workload in the town you're at. If a private language school say they can't pay you until you've got it (the oldest trick in the book) remind them that they can submit your tax form with a passport number instead.

You shouldn't need a work permit if you're from an English-speaking country. Opinions differ on this, and Polish-owned schools don't generally know about the latest regulations. Or pretend they don't so they can pop your wages in a term deposit for a month or two. One poor American guy I knew had to wait 5 months to get paid, due to Polish staff in the language school not wanting to make a potential wrong decision.

There's a Yahoogroup called Polang, somewhat defunct now but with a search function, also the ESL Cafe, both of which have information on the work permit issue. You still need a residence permit though.

Remember that in Poland, everything is down to the decisions of capricious minor civil servants, and things vary hugely from town to town, though Warsaw is slowly getting better. I've heard Krakow isn't.

News / Rothschilds Open Banking Network in Poland: Allianz Polska [19]

Actually there are quite a few, in two main branches, and they have more than enough money, not that any of them earned a penny of it. Nor are they trying to claim any property back.

And the families who may or may not own a bank are irrelevant to that bank's functioning. Nothing wrong with the Rothschilds.

History / Where did the stereotype of Polish people being stupid come from? [131]

I come from a place in UK where (according to the 2001 census) 50,000 people are of Polish roots and I've never heard this stereotype. Is it an American thing?

Life / Pay as you go SIM - best option ? [19]


If you've previously bought lower top-ups (worth it sometimes), they can give you promotions like that to encourage spending.

Life / Pay as you go SIM - best option ? [19]

Orange is fine. You have to buy a 100zl top up every 150 days, which is hardly a problem.

History / Question related to Jews during Saturday night in II Rzeczypospolita [12]


Do you mean Saturday night or Friday night?

Life / Pro-business and post-commie lawmakers reject Epiphany public holiday [4]

There are already a lot of bank holidays in Poland and Mayday (which is a workers' holiday but not only communist) makes for a very nice long weekend with good weather due to the 3 May holiday.

Epiphany would be a strange holiday at a time when nobody really wants one.

News / POLES STILL NEED VISAS TO THE U.S.A!! [84]


This is true. The US has clearly defined laws about the visa waiver scheme. People go to the US for many reasons. One of them is that they want to be in a country where the rule of law is observed.

Real Estate / Foreigners: Please don't buy Polish Land! [823]


Maybe she's bought a house there.....