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Posts by cjj  

Joined: 28 Sep 2007 / Female ♀ 		Last Post: 18 Aug 2016
Threads: -
Posts: Total: 281 / In This Archive: 129 		From: is chwasz was skintown
Speaks Polish?: iffy
Interests: chocolate

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cjj   
27 Jul 2009
UK, Ireland / What do Polish people in Ireland think of Irish food? [90]

Prods add beans and chips to the Ulster fry, Catholics leave it as it is. Anyone who used red or brown sauce to the breakfast is not right in the head.

Speaking as a Prod, we always blamed the English for adding beans :) Wouldn't've been seen dead adding them ourselves.
And chips? Never, I say.

Anyone got a good word to say about fried drop-scones? Can't remember now where I met them (in a fry)
cjj   
27 Jul 2009
Travel / Help with travel to Gdansk [30]

Langfuhr and Oliwa ?
When i google "Langfuhr I get "Wrzeszcz" - that couldn't be easier :)

Both Wrzeszcz and Oliwa are easy-to-get-to places in Gdansk. They're on the main road - and on bus/tram/train lines - going up through from the city centre.

I'm sitting in Wrzeszcz right now - it's sort of like the city centre for businesses.
cjj   
17 Jul 2009
UK, Ireland / Irish Primary schools to teach Polish [223]

In the interest of integration etc etc I could understand lessons about Polish culture - about the country in general, some basics of communication and so on. But I still can't understand why it would be useful to introduce the Polish language at primary school in such a formal manner - especially for an education system that probably doesn't have a large budget to start with.

'Twould make a cushy job though - pop over from Poland for a couple of years and learn English while prodding some unwilling youngsters through the basics of Polish.

Atleast the women will get better looking than the normal inhabitants ;)

That deserves my Quote of the Day award :)
cjj   
16 Jul 2009
UK, Ireland / Irish Primary schools to teach Polish [223]

Two tribes have been at war for generations,
I know. I grew up there. I'm one of those people who never sat in a classroom with a catholic until tertiary education. I'm from the side of the community that has zero culture because it all belongs to "the other side".

another tribe entering the fray will hardly help tensions.
The tensions will continue at a low, simmering level until something changes that -- I'm simply wondering if something like mass immigration would at least bring matters to a point where they had to be effectively dealt with. Of course the "dealing with" might be a lurch towards being ever more segregated and wierd. /sigh/

I'm still puzzled whether the "NI primary schools" is meant to mean state or RC.
cjj   
16 Jul 2009
UK, Ireland / Irish Primary schools to teach Polish [223]

Anyway, NI needs mass immigration like a hole in the head. Eventually it will reach breaking point.

is that such a bad thing? zit-like, I could imagine ...
(ok, ok, it's been a long day)
cjj   
16 Jul 2009
UK, Ireland / Irish Primary schools to teach Polish [223]

Expand their minds, RN, Cardno is right about this. Even if they don't become proficient, you are starting them at the right age and sowing seeds.

Are those seeds not falling in very stony ground? Can anything in the way of usual expanding happen when the entire school system is still split down religious lines?

guess i'm a pessimist and still waiting for the day when the society can stop pretending it's anything other than capital-W wierd.
cjj   
16 Jul 2009
UK, Ireland / Irish Primary schools to teach Polish [223]

cjj

The prods rule NI, the Shinners take the scraps they are given. The GFA was the ultimate victory for the prods and a defeat in the fullest sense for the bearded one and his followers. And it will all come crashing down in the next few years.

I for one, cannot wait.

RevokeNice

Shinners? I'm lost here I'm afraid.
I'm one of those 'prods from NI' - the madness there encouraged me to leg it years ago.

Is it likely the schools will make any better job of teaching it than French/German? Things could have improved beyond recognition in the /cough/ years since I left ... perhaps.
cjj   
16 Jul 2009
UK, Ireland / Irish Primary schools to teach Polish [223]

This should be a startling experience for children* - and I would be curious to know how they're going to manage to teach it (effectively) ...

oh, and what "enhanced earning power" it will give them in later life (presuming it's not just to let them understand what k*rrrrrrrrr** means as they hear it muttered in the playground)

*re the whole idea of declensions / conjugations / whatever

oh ... and this bit: "Northern Ireland primary schools "
... would those be Catholic primary schools or Protestant primary schools ?

overall : what a strange notion ... (but is Ms R not given to strange notions? how many grammar schools do they have by now setting their own entrance tests?)

p.s. i think the Protestant schools should be forced to teach Irish, but that's just my 2p-worth :)
cjj   
15 Jul 2009
Life / Why build a supermarket with 20 checkouts with only 3 till staff? [46]

I don't weekly shop in Tescos anymore. In my experience there will always be 4 or 5 people in front of me and I will wait at least 10-15 minutes.

Now I only visit for specific items and walk away if I have to wait. My time my money my decision. I lived in Canada and it spoiled me -- customers are treated there like the cash cows they are. Here they seem an inconvenience to the otherwise smooth-running of the store

On the contrary I've had no problems with Real. Sure there are queues sometimes - but there are usually a dozen or so tills open and more often than not I get straight to the belt.
cjj   
20 May 2009
Food / baby food in Poland - culture differences in feeding babies. [23]

Rot in children's front teeth is very common here -- baby bottle-mouth.
Young children - 3, 4 years old - with a line of black teeth along the front.
That must say something about what the babies are being given to drink, and how.
cjj   
19 May 2009
Food / baby food in Poland - culture differences in feeding babies. [23]

He didn't get it. We addressed the anaemia with iron drops and I kept to my own ideas of what he should have and when.

Iron drops .. now there's a dilemma. The instructions said to give them half-way between meals on an empty stomach. Just the thing for a strong-willed, fast-growing baby who wants his stomach to be constantly full of formula :D
cjj   
23 Apr 2009
Life / Culture Shock Since Moving to Poland - Anybody Dealt With This Before? [52]

Does anybody here have any experience of culture shock since moving to Poland, and if so, what was it like and how did you deal with it?

I'm not sure about culture-shock, but I miss
.. speaking English at anything near native-speaker speed
.. being able to understand people around me in the street
.. being able to talk to my children's teachers
.. Irish bacon
.. people with a similar outlook on life to mine
.. working with people who had similar attitudes to their career
.. being able to make jokes and have people understand them without killing them by explanation
.. having any sense of shared history and culture with my neighbours
.. friends with whom I could just sit and chat
.. places to go in the evening like gyms ... sports complexes ...
.. shops that are open on Saturday afternoons
.. being able to read the instructions on medication
.. being able to talk to my doctors in good English
.. being able to walk into a bookstore and just browse ...
.. long Irish evenings at mid-summer ...

ok - that's me started - how about you? what culture shock are you experiencing ?

/cjj
cjj   
18 Apr 2009
Travel / Nice place to holiday in the North of Poland? [26]

wola:
Sopot is the place you need to go, very small place, extremely safe. ... and a beautiful beach for kids to play on all day.

Note that during the later part of the summer, the water is often out-of-bounds due to algae. The water is very quiet, gets very warm, and then turns red and icky.

We've given up heading for the beach there and head north instead -- either the north coast proper, or somewhere on the north side of the Hel peninsula.

Chałupy, on the Hel peninsula, gives easy access to both the Baltic and the Bay of Gdansk.
villabaltic.pl/ : never stayed there but know the people who own it and they speak fluent English.
cjj   
30 Jan 2009
Life / Does anyone compost in Poland? [3]

I compost. Badly, but I try.

Getting containers wasn't easy (memories of buying them from the city in canada) - in the end got some used large plastic drums with lids and bored holes all over. ..

We live in the country and our farming neighbours all keep a pig ...
cjj   
28 Nov 2008
Work / Any advice to help with my move to Gdansk/Gdynia in March 09? [20]

Hi,
Welcome (in advance) to Trojmiasto.
Can we ask what the job is?
Living here will be 'different' but the locals seem to have a similar sense of humour to the Irish (what part of Ireland are you coming over from?)

/cjj
cjj   
28 Nov 2008
Life / How to wire a plug in Poland? [16]

I wasn't implying laziness -- merely that consistency hasn't been considered necessary.

Another thing that surprised me was the stiffness of the cables - I presumed it was because they weren't ducted but rather buried directly in the walls (and plastered over) and therefore needed to be resilient ... However, it meant they were especially difficult to bend - it could be that "left" or "right" decisions were simply "this is the way the cable lay". :)

And don't get me started on "why should the cables go round the top of the walls rather than the bottom?" :D

/c
cjj   
26 Nov 2008
Life / How to wire a plug in Poland? [16]

>Anyway I just checked in my house and sometimes the live wire is on the left side and sometimes on the right side :)

This is what you get - from our experience those nice, neat double socket plates force the wiring to be reversed from one side to the other.

Any time we wanted to force consistency on the wiring we had to settle for 2 separate single sockets mounted side by side.
That was 5 years ago so it's possible things have changed for the better.

c
cjj   
26 Nov 2008
Life / Help Needed, Which Snow/winter tyres tires to buy in Poland? [7]

Just got this update ...

"I have asked my friendly tyre person and got the following info:

You should be able to get good winter tyres for your size at 350 zl, balancing and putting them on included in this price.

e.g. Kleber or BF Goodrich (both my Michelin) or Winterstar (by Continental)
Do NOT use the Polish Kromoran!

I have often used Kleber in the past and did not complain

They also have (still had as of this morning) used tyres of that size for 250 to 350 FOR A PAIR, so it works out125-175 each, including putting them on, balancing etc.

They are a friendly out of town shop in Osowa
Ul. Kielenska 157
phone: 58 - 552 86 65
"
cjj   
26 Nov 2008
Life / NHS/NFZ assistance for British expat [12]

I asked because there's some NFZ outfit on Grunwaldzka just up from Aleppo. Not sure if they do 'basic' doctoring, but I *do* know that the receptionist speaks English :)