History / RUSSIAN TV ACCUSES POLAND OF BEING HITLER ALLY [30]

Considering Poland and Germany were the two countries most likely to suffer a conflict with USSR, it is not surprising such a pact was signed.

Russia now claims that the Mol/Rib pact was just a way of buying time to allow themselves to build up forces to resist the nazi onslaught... funny how they can say that but accuse Poland of doing something else.

Russia also threatens to break diplomatic ties with countries which continue to say they were "occupied" rather than "liberated".

I wonder how long they will continue to "liberate" Koenigsberg/Krolewiec.

Life / Where is a good place to find people in Poland who don't speak English? [13]

The immigration office in Olsztyn.

Villages, old people's homes etc., Police stations, railway ticket kiosks, Mazury, where they seem to speak german to you even when it is obvious you aren't.

But actually, as others have said, almost anywhere. There is that problem that as soon as some people realise you are foreign and speak English, they'll suddenly think they know some and want to practise.

I've actually trained in a few sports/martial arts clubs where nobody (or very few) folk spoke English, so I had to learn specific vocab pretty quick. Either that or speak in Korean!

Life / Deadly Roads - "Are polish roads really THAT dangerous?" [139]

I've actually pulled out to stop someone overtaking when I could see the oncoming which he couldn't.

Life / Haunted Homes in Poland [173]

Does God believe in atheists?

Life / Haunted Homes in Poland [173]


Aw, spoilsport... and I was looking forward to dying!

The guy who wrote the book goes on about how evil it is (and incorrectly desscribes it) and says how one journalist nearly broke her ankle leaving the room. He doesn't mention that the stairs are really very steep and narrow.

Life / Deadly Roads - "Are polish roads really THAT dangerous?" [139]


They are to make sure the insurance pays up if you are killed on one.

Life / Deadly Roads - "Are polish roads really THAT dangerous?" [139]


Sorry, Seanus, have to disagree mega-ly here. I could count upon the fingers of each hand (if I wasn't gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles) that the Audi driver decides that 80-90 on a narrow forest road with double white lines is too slow and decides to overtake 3 or 4 cars at a go on a rise/blind bend etc... in the face of oncoming traffic.

The other thing is the idea that when a driver sees a 5cm space they seem to think they can get their whole car into instead of waiting for the other driver to move.

If the Warsaw-Gdansk road at a weekend doesn't actually kill you it'll shorten your life in stress years. I was overtaking two articulated trucks (on a dual carriageway section) when a big VW SUV came haring up and tailgated so close that I couldn't see his headlights, just the glare through my back window. He pushed me upto 110 and I decided he could wait. He begged to differ and overtook me between the two trucks! If it isn't stuff like that it's the "My car is more expensive than yours, get out of my way when I'm driving on your side of the road!"

I have a theory that James Bond doesn't have white hair because of the actor... it's a plot line that he was sent to drive in Poland and his hair turned white.

I see the same stupid manouvers at the same well-labelled black spots. Young, old... it doesn't matter. Here in Warmia Mazury we have the added attraction of tree lined roads. People say if there were less trees there'd be less crashes. CR@P! There would be as many, if not more. The only difference is that the car would be upside down in a ditch rather than wrapped around a tree.

Life / More Polish supermarket griping...this time about customers [29]


WHAT???? S/he must have worked abroad for a while.

Usually someone queue jumps with a "Oh, I just have to ask something!" and they stop serving the rightful person to deal with the jumper.

Ask the assistant if they'd like to come and work in Olsztyn.

UK, Ireland / I married a Pole, we live in the UK - eligibility for Polish citizenship? [15]


If you are UK/EU citizen you don't need a permit to reside in Poland.

Life / More Polish supermarket griping...this time about customers [29]


Ah, maybe it's an age thing. I've had it done several times. I do it too (maybe I've been infected by Americans). Probably cos I'm from an age before the 10 items tills existed.

It might be that the supermarkets I was in were just smaller and quieter.

Life / Haunted Homes in Poland [173]


According to the discover shropshire site:

The street space, now given the single name Wyle Cop, earlier nomenclature distinguished between the top of the hill (Wyle Cop, Super Wilam), the gradient (the Wyle), and the floodplain (Under the Wyle/sub Wila). Hobbs recorded the possibility that the name derives from the Welsh hwylfa-a road leading up a hillside, and the Welsh coppa-top, or head.

I think there's also the germanic term Kop for a hill (like "spion kop", the spy hill which the Liverpool stand is named after)

There are lots of black and white buildings there: (see second row of pictures)
yourlocalweb.co.uk/shropshire/frankwell/pictures

historicalhostelries.co.uk/000013.html

Life / Polish Residency - Zameldowanie to be abolished? [49]

I have had some rough experiences with id cards etc. I'm British and have my own one-man firm. However, GE Moneybank once refused me credit because my id doesn't have a PESEL on it. I have a PESEL, of course, issued by the local ratusz... it just isn't on my card. The local immigration office told me that there was no such card bt GE Money *ankers told me they wouldn't give me any credit without one. Guess who I have never used in 7 years.

A coupke of years ago my wife and I bought a new car. I wanted to buy it on the firm but the dealer said they couldn't give me 5 year credit because my card was due to expire in 3 years. I said I just needed to renew it... but they said "How do we know you won't just leave the country?" (yes, that card is what keeps you here!).

My wife commented, "Give me the credit and I'll leave tomorrow!"

Life / Haunted Homes in Poland [173]

.


The upstairs room has a cupboard built into one corner and the picture is inside the door.

The book we bought said it was a picture of either the devil or an old testament prophet but it is obviously a picture of Poseidon. Interestingly, the pub is called The Nag's Head (Nag is an old word for a horse) and Poseidon is god of horses.

Supposedly, and the landlord says it is true, any attempt to paint over the picture is useless as it just comes back through the paint.


Haha, I like it.

Now the pub doesn't use that room for guests. I asked if it was because of the curse. The landlord said partly that and just because the room has no heating and is pretty cold. He uses it as a store room now.

The pub itself is pretty old (15th C wooden framework outside) and serves some pretty decent ale.

Life / Haunted Homes in Poland [173]

This summer moy Polish colleague and I were working in a summer school in Shrewsbury, England.

My friend bought a book about local ghosts. Being a local lad, I'd heard of several of them and showed him the old pubs and parts of town where these ghosts were/are supposed to hang out.

One particular pub has a cursed picture. Allegedly, some people who stayed in the room where this picture is committed suicide, others have had bad luck. I decided to ask the landlord if I could see the picture and he allowed me to. It was strange...

No apparent effects from seeing it... yet. My buddy said there was no way he was going to see it.

Had fun taking the kids (students) around some of these places and scaring them with the stories.

Life / More Polish supermarket griping...this time about customers [29]


It's a British thing too. I have had it happen to me a few times in Poland, particularly if the shop is quiet. However, this combined with number 3, makes a nightmare.

I was standing in a queue for the 10 items-or-less when a woman walked to the front of the queue, only to be reprimanded by the cashier and the others in the queue... "But I only have ONE item!" she said.

Another thing which annoys me is the Polish inability to make a straight queue combined with female contempt for men doing the shopping.

I was in one supermarket queue with my wife when she decided to go and fetch some extra items. The old women in the queue adopted the "blob" formation, where you can't tell where the queue actually is, and then did that amazing thing where they don't appear to move but somehow end up in-front of you. Eventually one old biddy sternly commented.. "PROSZE PANA!..." about ME queue jumping. I snapped and ranted on in my bad Polish about how I had been there first with my wife BUT, if they so insisted, they could have my place and I'd go to the back.

Then they started mumbling, a little shamefacedly, to each other about "Oh yes, there was a lady there, wasn't there?" and offering me a place in the queue.

The "up-your-arse" scenario happens a lot in post-offices, especially when the biddy rests against the serving counter, huffing and sighing.


YOU CAN'T BE POLISH!

News / RUSSIA IS TO POLAND WHAT TURKEY IS TO SOUTH SLAVS [66]

Sorry, the whole quoting and editting thing went weird on me and the last post is a mess.

Have you ever come across the old book called something like "Stara Serbija i Makedonia"?

It's in Serbian, from about 1902. It's a fascinating book with lots of old pictures of people and places. I showed it to a Macedonian friend of ine, who reads Serbian (I don't). She says it is quite funny, because the author was apparently paid by the Bulgarians to do an ethnographic account and show how the region of Macedonia was Bulgarian. He went around, talked to people and thenwrote about how it was actually Serbian!

News / RUSSIA IS TO POLAND WHAT TURKEY IS TO SOUTH SLAVS [66]

No, indeed! I actually agree with you about Macedonian self-definition and determination. I was just commenting from a linguistic viewpoint, as someone previously had brought it up.

Life / Redheads in Poland - How many? [95]


My wife is. Also, there are sveral cats in our neighbourhood which are.

Life / Why Poles don't use Facebook? [43]

Strange, I have a number of Polish friends on Facebook and they also have large amounts of Polish facebook friends.

A lot of the people I know have travelled abroad and so use it to stay in touch with international friends.

News / RUSSIA IS TO POLAND WHAT TURKEY IS TO SOUTH SLAVS [66]


I'm curious how Serbs felt when Macedonia allowed NATO forces to reside there during the Kosovo crisis.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it a joint effort between Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians? Didn't Serbia and Greece then free a large portion of Macedonia from Bulgarian "occupation"?


You could use the same argument with Prussia, which was neither Slavic, Polish or German

Linguistically, I believe Macedonian is nearer to Bulgarian (Bulgarian sources say it is about 80% Bulgarian), especially as it has no cases (unlike Serbian).

Life / Top 3 Most Important Things about which polish dentists will LIE to you bigtime [46]


It's because our dentists weren't earning the same as US dentists for doing fancy cosmetic work.


I had some serious work done last year. Upside down in a chair for about 2 hours, twice in a week. Cost nigh on 2000.

Life / What should be done to make life in Poland better and more enjoyable? [94]


Personally, I think they should place huge iron spikes on the roadside trees and see if the idiot drivers slow up a little bit

Life / "Why bother!" - Experiences of life in Poland... [47]

I once tried to get credit with GE Moneybank. They wanted all my documents for ZUS and my firm, tax etc. Everything was fine until they asked for my PESEL. I handed the guy my ID. He said there was no PESEL on it (I have it on an official letter from the Ratusz). I was then told I couldn't have any credit because i didn't have a PESEL on my ID.

I went to the immigration office, who looked at me like I was from Mars... "The card you want doesn't exist! Anyway, you're from EU, you don't need a card to live here!" Well, they said it in Polish (cos nobody in the immigration office in Olsztyn speaks English).

GE replied to my letter by saying, "We don't have to tell you why you were refused". No, you don't... but you did and it was ludicrous.

Likewise, trying to buy my car 'on the firm' I was told I couldn't do that with 5 year credit because my ID had less than 5 years and i might run away to UK. My Polish wife said, "Give me 5 years credit then and I'll run away tomorrow."

Don't start me on when I first tried to register as a one-man firm...

Life / What should be done to make life in Poland better and more enjoyable? [94]


The way they're chopping down trees along the roads around Olsztyn, I don't think there's a worry. By the way... I know a complete, newly covered (old) village road with NO potholes. It is so smooth and like a real road.

I drove along it with my wife (a car might have been better) just for the novelty.

News / Does Poland count in Europe or is it ignored? [428]

Not sure about now, but I read that under the Kaczynski government Poland was just being ignored because they were expected to veto anything, so agreements were being made amongst other countries to vote around Poland.

I think it annoyed people so much that when Poland did have a legitimate grievance it was just ignored because of all the previous whinging.

Life / Polish man finds wife working at brothel [43]


Well... that'll be their excuse now!


Do those type cost more than ordinary ones?

News / FRENCH SNUB POLISH WAR EFFORT [50]

I thought so, but was too chicken to state it. I suppose the Pope could also count.

History / Russia: Poland responsible for WW II [300]

Because Russia believes 90% of Poland belongs to her.

Russia has its own ideas about post-war Europe too...

News / Searching for keys in Polish-Russian relations [75]

According to this article, the Russians seem to be enforcing their own idea of history. Although the article mentions eastern europe, it could easily apply to Poland. The mention of

The new law could also be used to bar Western historians who accuse the Red Army of carrying out atrocities during its advance on Berlin or point out that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were once allies under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

could prove problematic for Katyn research.

It is laughable to compare this law with the German holocaust denial law. The German law is an acceptance of responsibility. This law sounds like a denial of responsibility.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/5350777/Russia-threatens-to-bar-Europeans-who-deny-Red-Army-liberated-them.html

News / FRENCH SNUB POLISH WAR EFFORT [50]

Maybe it's just as well... he'd have had to have flown Air France.

For me, the big irony about not inviting the Queen is that she is probably the only current European head of state who was involved in WW2.