Life / Local Poles taking advantage of foreigners living in Poland [235]


Well, now substitute Poland for UK and Warsaw for London and we might be talking. Even so, I used to hate Warsaw with a passionate hate, and actually moved out to Ełk as soon as I graduated, but after two years in London I could live in Warsaw and be blissfully happy... ;-)

Life / Local Poles taking advantage of foreigners living in Poland [235]


Have you tried London Stansted at three in the morning? ;-)

Life / Local Poles taking advantage of foreigners living in Poland [235]


How about having the same attitude towards the commuters in Warsaw?

Life / Local Poles taking advantage of foreigners living in Poland [235]


...a rude gesture? What sort of rude gesture? I have never seen one in that particular context, so I'm curious.
And lots of people don't thank others for common courtesy, because it's taken for granted. Maybe not a very nice attitude, but the logic is "I would hold the door open for you, so what's the big deal?" And then of course there are the rude people... ;-)

Life / How to obtain EHIC (European Health Insurance Card,) in Poland? [41]

nfz.gov.pl/ue/index.php?katnr=5&dzialnr=0&artnr=0

I think if your girlfriend goes through this, it might answer some questions. If she currently resides in Italy though, I would think she should turn for health care to the Italian government (she has not been paying national insurance contributions in Poland, I understand?)

Good luck!

Work / How to get Polish Electrician's license? [3]

sep.com.pl/index_en.html

I guess if you got in touch with them, they would be able to point you in the right direction :-)

Life / Looking for lyrics to "Hoo-pai Shoo-pai"... Hupaj siupaj - polka [13]

is it possibly "Pije Kuba do Jakuba"?

Life / How to obtain EHIC (European Health Insurance Card,) in Poland? [41]

With this Polish card she can probably now apply for the EHIC, as far as I remember she can do this using the website I linked to earlier. :-)

nfz.gov.pl/ue/index.php?katnr=5&dzialnr=6&artnr=1819

(There is a list of forms she can download, fill in and apply with - one of them is for the EKUZ/EHIC).

UK, Ireland / Polish people in UK travelling on holiday. [20]


And have you got ID cards issued to you by your government? The answer is NO, and neither would you want them. The Polish have both ID cards and passports, and under EU regulations can travel abroad (within the EU) on both/either. An ID card has all the personal info a passport would have, a photo, all the fittings. Have a look at one in your free time, and you might reconsider the British government's ID card scheme after all. Who knows?

Have a nicer day than yesterday.

Study / The basic requirements for a non-EU foreigner to go to a university in PL [23]

uw.edu.pl/en/page.php/admiss/bwz_info.html
(University of Warsaw)

uj.edu.pl/dispatch.jsp?item=studia/obcokrajowcy.jsp&lang=en
(Jagiellonian University in Cracow)

guide.amu.edu.pl/amu/index.htm
(Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)

umk.pl/en
(Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń)

- I think you get the idea now? ;-)

Study / The basic requirements for a non-EU foreigner to go to a university in PL [23]


I don't remember the UŚ being particularly famous for its linguistics... The most trumpeted would be Poznań (the UAM), especially in the German/English Studies, and then of course Warsaw University - regarding translation you would probably want to have a look at the Institute Lingwistyki Stosowanej - Institute of Applied Linguistics. As an English Studies student, I had lots of friends over at the ILS and "shared" some of the teachers with them, so I know the ILS was a veritable factory of good translators/interpreters. You would have to have a language pair though - English/Russian, English/German or such. At most (used to be all, but standards are falling) universities, many language studies are conducted in the language of choice, so English Studies were all done in English etc. This of course cannot be true in case of Oriental or African language studies, where you have to learn the lingo from scratch ;-) In the case of German, English, French, Russian, maybe others - the authorities assume you have *learnt* the language at secondary school and want to use it to study the culture, linguistics, history of said country(ies).

Check out the ILS. I think it's worth it.

Study / The basic requirements for a non-EU foreigner to go to a university in PL [23]

I would email them to find out. The thing is... these are state universities, and I'm not totally sure that there are any fees for day students. I have no idea how that would work out for foreigners, but again, the easiest way is to e-mail the faculties you are interested in and get going :-)

rekrutacja.uw.edu.pl/index.php?display=english/recruitment2

this is what I found regarding fees at Warsaw University.

Life / Polish Train Travel - Scary? [101]


Oh come on, what on earth is so scary about that? I've been travelling all over Poland by train ever since I turned 16, and that was ages ago, believe me. Nothing scary ever happened to me, and I took night trains, slow trains, local trains, the lot. Sometimes the train was crowded, or overheated - that was just about the extent of my misery ;-)

If you watch out for pickpockets, like you should anywhere in the world - you will be absolutely fine.

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]

It was extensively covered in the Polish media. Six years ago. When this was news.

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]

There have been trials and appeals. I now live in the UK. I do not read Polish papers daily. But if you are really interested, type "łowcy skór" into Google and check the top link - it has a recapitulation of the whole story, article by article (in Polish).

I just wanted to say that people claiming on the forum that nobody in Poland is interested in this case etc. are not right. When this first came to light, the shock and outrage were enormous. It just isn't humanly possible to keep up the same level of outrage for six years in a row, though.

Why hadn't the BBC picked up on this earlier?

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]

Apart from that, someone mentioned 50 000 dead, which would be like killing off a small town - I've only come across 5 000 victims (which is quite enough), and 20 000 people influenced by the murders, like family members and such.

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]

For several guys working in two ambulance teams this seems quite an achievement. If they really managed to kill off 50 000 - as the BBC claims - the funeral parlours would not be able to cope with the turnover! Remember that as a rule, people are buried rather than cremated in Poland. Cemetery space is restricted, so £ódź would soon run out of land and would have to plan for a huge graveyard area increase (we are talking a small town dead and buried within 10 years).

Somehow I think this bit is a poor translation of the statement that approx. 20 000 were influenced by the murders - this is what I read somewhere in one of the reports.

5 000 dead sounds shocking. 50 000 dead sounds like "shock-value" reporting.

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]

The whole tragedy of this story is that in reality it's a free market enterprise gone horrid.
Firstly, the Polish government does not pay undertakers for burials. The money (zasiłek pogrzebowy) is paid to the family of the deceased to ease the financial strain of the burial.

Nevertheless, this money has nothing to do with the ensuing murders, because people would bury their dead even if they never received government aid to do it.

There are several undertakers on the market. Each one would like to know where the next dead body is coming from - and when. Quite natural, eh? It's their line of business, after all... So they get in touch with the ambulance people and pay them for tips about who died recently. Then, they pay the ambulance people to recommend their particular services to the grieving family. Not very nice, in fact a bit nasty, but still somewhat above board. Nobody gets killed - yet. And then the final brainwave - the ambulance people don't have to wait to get paid until someone actually dies: they can fabricate their own dead. Ay, and there's the rub. That's when things took a decidedly unpleasant turn. :-(

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]


The problem is that the money would be there anyway! People would simply pay undertakers out of their own pockets. Do you think they would just bury grandpa in the back yard? I know, I'm being flippant but I want to make a point here. There is no necessary correlation between the murders and the burial "benefit" or whatever you wish to call it. There is, however, a direct correlation between undertakers wanting more business = more customers, and being willing to pay for that - and paramedics wanting the "head-hunter" money, so to speak. It was the undertakers who would pay up 1800 PLN to the ambulance team for a body, a healthy cut of their profit, one might say. :-(

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]

I see you do not understand the Poles. As in case of weddings, christenings, and first communions - funerals are a very special (though mournful) moment in the life of the family and I have never heard of anyone who would try to be cheap at this time. People don't get "wedding benefits" from the government, yet they are capable of spending incredible sums of money on a reception. If a family member dies, more often than not special savings had already been made, if it's an elderly person they might even have paid for the monument and plot at the cemetery beforehand... And if the money were not readily available, the whole family would pay towards the funeral. The funeral aid is/was about 4000 PLN, I can assure you that most families would pay out a lot more for their dear departed. I bet a nice oak coffin costs about 2000 PLN. A funeral in Warsaw with all the trimmings would cost around 6000 - 7000 PLN (just googled it).

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]

I meant the families - they would pay through the nose for their dead, and this is what the murderers knew and took advantage of.

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]


So according to you, the Polish government purposefully pumps money into the undertaking sector so more people can get murdered? I like how you artfully place a gesture of decency and goodwill on part of the State on its head.

What I think is that there is a direct correlation between someone paying ZUS all their lives, and then receiving a tiny bit of that back to help get a decent funeral. I think the state could hardly do less for their pensioners and/or terminally ill.

The money is not paid to the undertaker, it is paid to the family or institution who forked out for the funeral. And do you seriously think that if the family did not get this cash, they would settle for a discount funeral with second-hand coffin and wilted flowers? Or maybe, as I suggested earlier, just bury grandpa in the back yard to cut costs?

Also, someone earlier said that this was "pumping money into state services" - sorry about that, but 90% of undertakers in Poland are, and were private enterprises.

Travel / Eastern Part of Poland - Bialystok [5]

Białystok is not an area, it is a city. I do know Białystok a bit, but unless you ask more specifically I will be unable to help ;-)

News / Storyville: The Polish Ambulance Murders (BBC4) [43]


Yeah, this would be the exact analogy to my hypothetical choice of second-hand coffin and wilted flowers funeral. And no, I would not consider this type of funeral even if I did not get the government grant. Don't you see that you cannot compare - in any respect - the last rites of your loved one to a car purchase? Your analogy is thoughtless at best, I am afraid.


lol - you're sooo non-Polish
(whatever that means, but obviously you like stereotyping, so I'll play along) ;-p

Language / Difference between Polish Ł and English W [23]


...except some Czech/Moravian dialects actually have the [ł] sound as well, so there! ;-p

Language / "sorry" instead of "przepraszam" [76]


Unfortunately (?) there is no such thing as a "pure" language.
Polish-sounding words such as "dach", "fartuch", "ratusz", "kajzerka" are actually German.
Polish-sounding words such as "kościół", "cmentarz", "pacierz" are actually Latin.
Polish-sounding words such as "dyliżans", "romans", "pomarańcza" are actually French.

Same in English, same in German, same everywhere. Languages interbreed like crazy.

Language / "sorry" instead of "przepraszam" [76]


I would venture the statement that, well, yes...

Language / "sorry" instead of "przepraszam" [76]

Off the top of my head I'd say it's related to "proszę". But if you're really interested, let me have a closer look at this and come back in a minute :-)

(10 minutes later)

Terribly sorry (sic!) but I am unable to find the etymology on the internet. I would still go with my gut feeling that it has to do with prze-prosiny, something along the lines of "repeatedly asking or begging" (for mercy, forgiveness, whatever).

Of course, there is the possibility that I am spectacularly wrong ;-)

Life / Why is Poland so slow; it takes a lot of time to arrange anything here [53]


I would respond to that, but I'm too apathetic.

Language / "sorry" instead of "przepraszam" [76]


I always thought that English and Swedish were both Germanic languages?