UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


I'm happy for them. I know plenty of people from diverse backgrounds who 'fit in' with the society around them, so I don't really care where they or one or other of their parents were from. Aside from people who are here only temporarily, there is a hope for people to become part of the community and not to just have their own communities. Sometimes this happens and sometimes it doesn't, usually based on the culture concerned. Some cultures are more insular than others. Some are positively inbred!

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


No it's not. A cousin of mine is married to a British-born man of Indian origin. He doesn't even like curry! (As if that makes any difference). Where does he belong. If they have children, where will they belong?

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


I would have been lucky to have spend two hours there. I'd like to have seen more of Białystok ('Enemy of £omża!' someone said). I caught a few glimpses of some interesting looking buildings, but I haven't found out more about them yet. I do know it was the birthplace of Dr. Zamenhof, inventor of Esperanto (does anyone still bother learning it? It's too easy!)

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


I'll probably remember more stuff and put it here over the next couple of days.

It was my last trip to the same place at the end of June last year that was the real eye-opener for me, and it was actually a more exciting holiday. But that's to be expected with the benefits of more daylight hours, nice weather and no cold virus to get in the way of the fun.

Osioł's Previous Adventure Part 1
Not in chronological order

We finally crossed the border into Poland having queued up for three quarters of an hour or so. I had pointed out of the car window. 'What is that?' I asked, anticipating hearing the name of the river that forms that part of the German border.

'It's a river.'
Thank you very much, guys.

Anyway, we'd driven a long way across Europe, pretty much trouble-free. We enter Poland - we enter a traffic jam. So Grzegorz the driver decided to take a short cut, straight into a smaller traffic jam. But within half an hour or so we were in a village with cobbled streets. The buildings - they looked so... Polish! One of those things it's hard to explain to those who don't know. We stopped and asked for directions.

The lady had a way of gesticulating to almost paint a picture for her description of how to get to... I understood a few words, but enjoyed the intonation of her voice and the fact that I was not expected to understand a word of it. All I had to do was sit on the back seat and guard (ie. not drink all of) the vodka.

We waited at a railway crossing - one that actually had barriers and a little buzzer to inform drivers that a train really was going to pass. By now the sun was beginning to go down and the hue of the sunlight catching the trees and the fence by the road made me feel warm. Or was that the vodka. You need vodka to cope with being a passenger in a car driving all the way across Germany.

Later that evening, I woke up to the sound of the engine juddering to a halt. We were stopping for beer and sausages. That should really be piwo i kiełbase. Three blonde waitresses, almost identical triplets served up the delicious food. I had been warned to expect something to do with pretty women and nice women, but life is always so much more interesting in the doing rather than in the telling.

I slept most of the night, and the drive continued through most of the night. I woke up to the bright early morning summer sun ahead of us and fields, farmhouses and orchards passing with still miles and miles yet to go, but I was happy just to stare out the window, watch the scenery and laugh quietly to myself at the words both my companions, particularly Darek, repeated to me many times:

You go to Poland. Maybe you no come back!

to be copntinued

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


Either I'm lucky or I just find losts of very plain things more interesting than most people.
Jenny is the word for the female donkey (oślica).


I am considering taking up some correspondence. I need something to spur me on to learn some Polish for a change, but some things I ought to work on on my own.


Unaware of what <g> means, I shall assume that you are a bit nosey, but just very polite about it!

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


More of a shame if I just made up the idea that some really exciting stuff happened that would be too much for all to read about. But luckily, I don't need to make anything up. Interesting things in life just seem to appear before me.

Actually, I was probably referring to one or two of the ladies I have met over there.

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


Culture will always change - some more rapidly than others. Take these as being some of the more important aspects of culture: food, language, religion, music, clothes.

British food lost something over the years and desperately needed new additions, hence Indian, Italian and so on. We still drink lots of tea with milk in it though.

We still speak the same language, although as with any language, it changes over time. The English language tends to have quite a good attitude to new things and change.

Religion has become less important, but this again has varied over time - there were times in the past when Christianity was waned or people have changed to other branches of Christianity or taken on different ideas.

Music - British music is, and for some time, has been, amongst the best, most forward-thinking in the world. Of course American music has and will continue to be very popular and feed into our own music, but so has Jamaican, Latin American, music from other parts of Europe even. Again, it is something that is dynamic.

Some people think that culture is about waving a flag, but if the culture behind that flag is something you don't really subscribe to, ie. traditional British food as opposed to pasta, pizza, curry or Chinese; the music you listen to is American; then there is less and less left behind than a distrust of people who are different in some way.


There are, unfortunately, people who generalise any dislike of aspects of other cultures as being racist. There are also people who are racist and are just upset that the predominant view is that racism is not a good thing.

There are things I really don't like about Spanish culture (such as bullfighting), there are things I do not like about Islam (suppression of women as one example), and I really cannot stand that bloody disco-polo. That doesn't lead me to say the Spanish, Muslims or Polish people are all inferior, as would be the case with some people (who are racist).

No. I just know what I like, do the things that come naturally to me and that is my culture.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


I didn't think any individuals lived that long.
Hang about - Methuselah managed 969 years, so it may be possible. You know what it's like when you mean to do something, but just keep putting it off and putting it off. "I'll start learning Polish soon - I've just got to finish reading this book and cook a bit of dinner first." I know the feeling.

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


Is that what an excess of vodka can do to a donkey?


Even ones that fit a dog. Wallis & Gromit come to mind.


But I'm sure I've missed out some of the interesting bits that I might have mentioned in one or two PMs to people. Then again, some of those things are not really for the general public.

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


Particularly late on a balmy summer evening when they glow-worms are out.


I recommend spray-on starch. My upper lip hasn't moved since 1994. Good luck to you, Magdalena. It may just depend on what it is you do, but some people (irritatingly) seem to just land on their feet whilst others have a hill to climb.

Life / Legally changing my Polish name to English one? [55]


How about Bert then?

edit: I was given a Polish equivalent to my name by some when I was on holiday.
That looks sort of wrong when my name looks like it's Osioł.

Travel / I'm off to Gdansk at the end of January [24]

Try this site:

metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/europe_forecast_48hrs.asp?locationID=2690

edit: If this page doesn't work, go to the main page and look for Europe somewhere on the left hand side.

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


There were a couple of other guests there for the evening. They forced me into a suit, including tie and waistcoat (my psychedelic shirts are obviously too psychedelic). We ate load and loads of good food (I can't remember what it all was, but I do remember bigos, eel, herring, spare ribs, and these sort of pastry things tied up in bags). There was vodka, vodka and more vodka, then (fatefully) champagne at midnight.

I had bought a couple of fireworks which we set off outside. It wann't me who bought the bangers, and it certainly wasn't me who threw one into the road moments before one of those lovely police cars passed.


Keep at arm's length. Apparently it doesn't like to smell alcohol on the breath. That's why it bit my face!


Best haircut I've had in years. But then, I usually get my hair cut by work colleagues or even by myself, so it was bound to be an imrovement. She was the best looking person to have cut my hair... ever, probably.

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]

Mane.

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]

I didn't mention that I had my hair cut while I was there. I should have asked someone to take a couple of pictures of me shrugging my shoulders in answer to the questions the lady with the scissors was giving me. I don't know enough Polish, not even enough to know how to ask for my not particularly idiosyncratic haircut.

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


I went last summer for a week, then this time again for a week, so I've seen two sides of the place. I'll need to see it in spring and autumn next. Actually next time I'd like to visit another part of Poland. I've never been to the south, only Warsaw and Lomza (and very briefly, Białystok, that looked like it had some interesting buildings).


Big dog liked donkey.
Little dog bit donkey.

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


I like to think it helped. I started to feel better quite quickly.

Okay, so they live in a house that's very nice, has a kitchen I am supremely envious of, and a lovely log fire.
There are Darek who I got to know from work, his father, his wife, their two sons, two dogs, and quite often the girlfriend of one of the sons. Despite how many of them there are, there's a lot of space, even when one of the dogs is quite big.


The kind of tea you get in Poland is best with lemon. I prefer it unsweetened, but honey does work much better. I drank more coffee than tea. Black, no sugar, but with a pinch of salt and a thick layer of sediment at the bottom.

I'm just trying to work out how I can get the clips I took by pointing my camera out of the window of a moving car onto youtube. A blurred bit of Polish countryside zooming past somehow works better than blurred stills of drunk people eating a big dinner.

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


No. One is a former work colleague who abducted me last year after he discover my soft spot for Polish food and, more importantly, Polish drink. They liked me enough (or they're mad enough) to invite me back.

• 
  View from car park, Bialystok
  
• 
  A stretch of residential street, Lomza
  

Travel / Donkey visits Poland [76]


I had been drinking heavily the night before departure. I thought it was just a really massive hangover mixed with the horror of Heathrow and so on that was making me feel awful. By the time I arrived in £omża, it was obvious I had a cold, so they sat me next to the fire, gave me extra clothes and tissues. Thankfully they still let me drink a bit.

Actually there was a kind of battle going on. One party was trying to look after me by only giving me tea, the other trying to look after me by sneaking me glasses of vodka when the other wasn't looking.


I gave them a bottle of whisky as a gift. It didn't last long, but I think vodka would have disappeared much more quickly. The extra gift of a pair of garden secateurs will last longer.

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


You've not thought about blaming the people who make the decisions about immigration, so instead you blame those who make the most of the opportunities available to them.

Typical thread. We've had the usual shite throwing and no Poles saying they were inspired to move here by the classic British rock music of the 1970s, a love of rain or the lure of bagpipe music floating across a windswept glen.

Life / Polish Birthday Traditions [42]


No birthday's celebrated while I was there, so I can't stay on topic.
Correction: 2007 celebrated its first birthday, then promptly died. Years are like that.
I'll start an 'Osioł's holiday thread' eventually.


Surely I didn't put that apostrophe in there!

Food / What is your favourite Polish meal?! [64]


One of the many inclusions in my Sylwester dinner. There was no beer - just vodka with fruit juice. Never mind then. But alas! No soup. The soups are fantastic.

I quite liked the flaki I had recently (I think that's what it's called). Some people seemed to turn their noses up at it. Some of them even thought I couldn't tell what it was.

edit: I was typing this message before I saw this:

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


So what happens when you go anywhere else?


We? You've moved out. There's no you about it.

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


Like the minimum wage?


It's more dynamic than simple equilibrium. But look - you typed it yourself - immigrants. You could have put the word immigration or something, but use of the word immigrants suggests that it is them you are blaming.

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]

What's so great about the UK? No child labour (other than a few paper rounds I suppose), minimum wage...

I was just having a matey chat with me ol' pal WB. It's all as relevant as...

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


I have never claimed to have spent more than a few holidays there.


Ah yes! The EU minimum wage.
So when were the glory days? Had we just about got there when suddenly the door from Poland opened and that ruined it? Or were there people like you blaming every other immigrant group since the 1950s and before? Err, yes.

And what did you personally do to eradicate child labour, increase efficiency and install the minimum wage?

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


I've not seen this in Poland. I have in the Netherlands and Germany.

They are illegal to install in the UK.


Would you care to explain that last post.

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


I'm not getting into a discussion about that.

Do you remember the 1980s with strikes and Thatcher?
The 1970s and more strikes, a sick economy and the power being switched off and all that?
The 1950s when there was rationing and so on.
The 1930s saw huge amounts of unemployment, rioting and stuff.
Do children work down mines, up chimneys or in sweatshops here these days? Bring back Victorian values.

Let's go back to the mediaeval shall we?

UK, Ireland / What's So Great About The UK? [416]


It's seen much worse times.