USA, Canada / Americans who call themselves Polish - how do you feel about that? [112]


LOL, I can't believe your trying to deny that an American accent exists.
There is nothing wrong with having an accent by the way, everybody has one, regardless of your nationality.

Have a read off that
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American


And there you have also demonstrated a modern American dialect.
You can check all other English speaking countries, no other nation says 'homeboy'.
That is also American.


Excellent post Patrycja, nice to see a bit of reality brought to the conversation.

I'm not saying in all cases, but in some cases, the elderly prefer to be in a home in the twilight years as they realise they are too burdensome to a young family. In a home they may be surrounded with like minded people.

History / Worst Polish leader Lech Kaczynski or King Stanislaw Poniatowski? [44]


I understand where your coming from what that post, but life experience has taught me to disagree.
I remember people (here in Ireland) saying those exact same arguments when I was a boy. I haven't heard them in years now really.

People occasionally voice an opinion about some ridiculous piece of legislation, but on a wide scale, everyone has seen the incredible benefits which the EU brought to Ireland.

I imagine it will be the same in Poland except it will be considerably magnified. Poland was starting from a point further down the ladder than Ireland. There is a bigger population, more land, phenomenally well educated population, resources etc.

Ireland so far has been the EU's big success story, but I think Poland will overtake us within the next 10-15years.

I don't remember who it was, but someone on this board said "Poland is going through rehab, rehab is never pretty!"

I do however agree with your point about the German power grab. Its something that we all need to be careful of, the Germans have been trying to do this for years, in different methods.

Not so long ago they were taking about making a two tier EU.
They wanted to unite France & Germany and make a federal union, then the countries that refused to become part of the federation such as the UK could opt to become part of the EU confederation.

Either way, with the harmonization of so many laws across Europe (court ordered driving restrictions implemented in Ireland will now be enforced in the UK and vice versa) means we are inevitably moving into a stronger union.

Love / My Polish girlfriend misses home...how can I help? [17]

My GF gets it too. Its inevitable.

The first XMAS she was away from home, she was crying so much that I got pictures of all her family and got them blown up so I could frame them (including one of me and her so I could remind her of how important she is to me too!)

It gets better with time, but usually the last week before she goes to Poland and the first week after she goes home, she is unbearable.

Luckily, she gets on very well with my family (well, her future in laws) so she doesn't feel so bad anymore.

Love / The Polish girl i love has gone back to Poland . [65]

I'm only going by my experiences of Polish women in Ireland here, I cannot comment for Poland, but a lot of those words do hit home.

A lot of us like to be romantic and imagine x,y and z.
Unfortunately, there are some cold hard facts behind the romance despite our best intentions.

I think I've been blessed by God with the woman I have, friends of mine have not been so lucky (Polish or not)!

To be fair to Polish women here, I should also clearly state that I see huge numbers of Polish men abroad who have wives and children at home, cheating as though they were alone in the world.

It doesn't seem to bother them much, its sport to them.

USA, Canada / Americans who call themselves Polish - how do you feel about that? [112]

If their mother was 1/6 polish and their father was 1/6 polish, they would be 2/6 polish =1/3

:-)

USA, Canada / Americans who call themselves Polish - how do you feel about that? [112]


I'm 1/4 noxious fumes, 2/5 testosterone enanthate, 1/7 budejowicky budwar, 7/12 milona and 1/2 buffalo flavour hunky dories

Law / Law regarding Polish citizenship after marriage [10]

Excellent information methatron, Thank You.

It looks as though I cannot claim citizenship as I do not expect to be living in Poland for any substantial amount of time.

Law / Law regarding Polish citizenship after marriage [10]

Michal, thanks for your reply. Very informative. You sure have a wealth of experience.

I heard a similar story from a friend from Szczeczin, but he wasn't certain. He told me because I was Irish, I could expect to pay 20% more than the natives.

Luckily however, I will be able to invest in land through my fiancee.

I was unaware that the citizenship process stops if you leave the country. That certainly is surprising/dissapointing.
I wonder if this is to stop the country being bought up like Palestine/Israel

Love / The Polish girl i love has gone back to Poland . [65]

Some good points.

I think someone posted here or perhaps it was another forum, that people in Greece think the English are all insane alcoholics, because when they are on holidays they are drunk and dancing on tables HAHAHA

I reckon the Irish would probably dance on the tables if they could but they're probably drunk passed out in some gutter somewhere :-)

History / Worst Polish leader Lech Kaczynski or King Stanislaw Poniatowski? [44]

You know your stuff Puzzler, no denying that.

You should definitely consider a career in politics.

History / Worst Polish leader Lech Kaczynski or King Stanislaw Poniatowski? [44]


I would strongly disagree with that statement

Law / Law regarding Polish citizenship after marriage [10]

Yes, your right, my future brother-in-law made a 500% profit on a certain piece of land near Poznan.
When converted back to Euro, its not gobsmacking, but it would go far in Poland.

I would also agree that the law is changing, Frank posted a very good thread which shows a lot of the difficulty/differences in the system that us island monkeys are accustomed to https://polishforums.com/archives/2005-2009/real-estate/poland-apartment-purchase-2707/4/

USA, Canada / Americans who call themselves Polish - how do you feel about that? [112]


I'm not trying to awkward here but I would still disagree.

Sometime from Texas has a noticably different accent to someone from New York or California, all are still American of course.

No different to the difference in the Irish accent between Cork/Dublin/Belfast, or the Polish accent between Warsaw/Krakow.

That doesn't take dialect into consideration of course.

News / How Poles truly feel about their situation in Poland and being in EU? [76]

I'm not here to judge you Kanazuki, but we're (Ireland) supposed to be a rich country, but I can't afford to have kids yet nor can many of my friends, so its not so different from Poland.

History / Memories of the Polish communist era [115]

Thanks guys,

Ranj, thats a fair point - what I meant to say is that in the West, we think of communisim as only bad and often ignore that it did have good points.

Jazz, I've not been to wroclaw yet, but I'll keep an eye out for it when I do get a chance to go

Krysz, any quirky memories. For example, in some of Michal's other posts he was mentioning that you had to queue for hours to buy meat, and there was only pink toilet roll abailable.

What types of clothes did ye wear?
What was school like?
Was there less crime/more crime?
etc...

A friend of mine who is lithuanian told me that the first time he saw Bruce Lee was when he was 12, some sailors had docked. They had taken a photograph of a poster of Bruce Lee using a cheap camera and were selling the snapshots for 1 ruble each.

He often says that his family had plenty of money, but there was nothing to buy with it!!

He also told me that in some apartments, people had VCRs and they would essentially operate a cinema, showing tapes on their TV to group of kids for 3rubles each.

But there would be rows of 10chairs watching a small tv, so if you were at the back you would see nothing.

News / How Poles truly feel about their situation in Poland and being in EU? [76]

Why do you think this Michal?


I believe what your saying, but I feel its important to stress that it wasn't only Poland.
Friends or people I've met from Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, even the Ukraine have similar stories.

The schizophrenic mindset of which your writing was the norm for communisim, not the exception, based on what I've heard.

I suppose modern 'capitalist/socialist' governments in the West have similar contradictions. We tax [punish] those who work hard through the balls, and the people who are too lazy to go out and get a job get social welfare [reward].

History / Memories of the Polish communist era [115]


Those are the kind of things I find fascinating.
We generally take these things for granted but in that era it was amazing.

On the other hand, a belorussian guy I know was telling me that nowadays petrol costs us a small fortune, but when he was a driver in the USSR, lots of his colleagues used to stick a hosepipe into the petrol tank and syphen the petrol down a sewerdrain, then goto sleep for a few hours. Petrol was dirt cheap.

The reasoning behind this was that there was nothing to transport but their job was driving, so they had to go out and drive regardless of wheter there was work to do.

They would fill up their tank, go out and drink/sleep etc. then go back to the base and show the petrol gauge was at the bottom (since they had dumped the petrol).

If you did that nowadays with petrol, people would think you have mental issues.

News / How Poles truly feel about their situation in Poland and being in EU? [76]

I don't think Poland will have the Euro until 2015 at the earliest, it is supposed to be the last of the A-10 countries to get it due to economic complications.

History / Memories of the Polish communist era [115]

Very good replies by everyone so far, keep them coming

History / Memories of the Polish communist era [115]

Krzysztof, that was great, what was that excerpt from?

History / Memories of the Polish communist era [115]


Impressive mate, very well written.

what did people do for holidays?

my gf told me one time her family went on holidays when she was a child, they couldn't get a car they her parents got a bike each, she with her father and her brother with her mother and her parents cycled 50km per day for a few days to get to the holiday resort they were staying at (they were no trains to the area I presume).

What sports were popular under communisim?
I am a huge fan of weightlifting, was this popular in Poland?
Were drugs widely available?
Were steroids widely available?
Were guns widely available?

Were pubs/bars popular and were there any nightclubs?
A Russian guy I used to know absolutely hated standing in a group of people on a corner because during the communist times they would be beaten by police for doing this (different rules for Russia I assume), he didn't realise it was normal for people to have a conversation like this.

What would be the singlest biggest and most visible difference between now and then?

News / How Poles truly feel about their situation in Poland and being in EU? [76]

Amazing to see how the politics even affected the children down to such basic levels.

When i was young, it probably would have been an honour to carry the tri-colour at the St.Patrick's day parade, but I'm guessing, realistically we probably weren't too corcerned.

Then again, if I really think hard, I can remember similar things to what you described except they involved religious matters and the Catholic church in Ireland.

Life / Will Poland become like the UK ? [93]


I disagree about the EU part, if you visit Poland now you will see the changes it has brought, truly incredible in such a short space of time.

But regarding the passports and forgery of documentation, there was a very interesting Panormama documentary on BBC or CH4 (don't recall which) last year.

One reporter, a moroccan lady iirc, was able to acquire forged passports for any country in the EU in Poland.
Select passports were widely available in other countries, for example, Dutch passports in Germany, French passports in Belgium.
But Poland was the only country where you could buy any of the 25 passports, and they were supposed to be of the highest quality also.

Furthermore, acquiring the passports in other countries was a clandestine affair.
Acquiring forgeries in Poland was simply a matter of ringing a number and meet in the park.

I asked my partner if she thought it was a misportrayal of Poland etc. and she said absolutely not, its most definitely like that.
Often, if you know a Polish or Lithuanian guy, he can acquire just about anything for you including Kalashnikovs because of the favour system that operated during communist times.

Law / Law regarding Polish citizenship after marriage [10]

v.informative Rodrigo, thank you

Love / Are Polish-American women better partners, girlfriends and wives? [10]

Unless you can isolate something different in the DNA of Polish women, then I think its safe to safe its merely a sweeping statement.
Polishness is no more a tangible concept than time or love, its completely abstract.

Therefore you will find what your looking for only in an individual, not in a sociological/ enviornmental/cultural/geographical subset.
You will be severely dissapointed if you believe otherwise.

Only solution in your case is to get out there and meet lots of different women until you meet a potential partner.

History / Memories of the Polish communist era [115]

Eurola, when did the first modern style nightclubs come to Poland and what was the reaction?

Was recreational drug abuse widespread prior to the introduction of modern nightclubs?
What about hardcore drug abuse i.e. heroin addicts?

bunia, you are not the first person I have heard say that. When i was in Poland for XMAS this year, particularily the elderly were saying similar things to me.

They said that during the communist era, everybody got a 13th paycheck for Xmas.

I was amazed by some of the traditions they had in Poland such as "wren boys" - guys who come around to the house dressed up and singing for money etc.

When I told my parents about this, they were looking at me like I was stupid.
Apparently we used to have this tradition in Ireland also [I've certainly never seen it or heard of it]

bunia, one thing that confuses me is how did they separate religion and communisim?
I thought good communists are supposed to be atheists?

History / Memories of the Polish communist era [115]

Very good answers Krzysztof, thank you.

Bunia, I know what you're saying but I think there must have been some people who were pro-communist.
I can't go into too much detail but the father of a friend was head of the party in his area, that family had anything they desired.

I think there were some people who were pro-communist simply for what they could get out of it and other more naieve people who were probably pro-communist because they believed in it.

One further question - were you guys told by your parents/teachers in private that the whole thing was a farce and to not believe what you were taught in school?

USA, Canada / Americans who call themselves Polish - how do you feel about that? [112]


You obviously couldn't be bothered to read the whole thread so I couldn't really be bothered to reply/explain it to you.