Law / Trying to do business with Polish businessmen... but it's not easy. [41]

^
There are at least two ways to do it.
If you have "numbers" give them to your polish partner and be as direct as posible, talk money and skip any typical friendlines and sugestions tha you are an honest partner with good intentions etc.. It will be measured up in practice only - they think and is not needed. In very first contact propose to pay, give real numbers or brackets for this kind of service or product you want and ask if they would be interested. Focus just on what you do want from your partner and make an offer.

Sometimes you are not ready with numbers so your aproach should be informal and by this I mean that you should include in your letter. Good pointers are compliments about Poland, polish girls, football, travels, anything general really. You may ask irrelevant to your bussines questions because in fact you are building a relationship. In your aproach include then the paragraph about business. You may give it a title: Now About Business, I was wondering...

Life / Serving in the Polish Army - required? [16]

The service in the army is NOT mandatory. For those not willing to do it alternative service is offered in form of community work. Also nowadays not that many boys are taken to the army so in fact only those willing to go are drafted and thera are enough of them so others are not bothered and let go loose for diferent reasons.

Law / Trying to do business with Polish businessmen... but it's not easy. [41]

I'm polish, born and grew up in Poland but I have also spend time working and doing my own business in other countries. For me also it's been a shock to observe the way business is done here. As a hint I may tell you that typical polish business person would like to know first who is his partner not what are the principles of particular business. The funy and frustraiting part is constant change of agreements or conditions. Something decided yesterday would surely be debated again the next day or forgoten until something else would transpire. My way out of this was to be in total control of my enterprise and not to allocate any decision making to those I cooperate with but rather demand some action. Also I did stop discusing and persuing things with people who show me their very first signals of inadequate conduct.

Travel / Poznań or Wrocław? [12]

Wroclaw. Poznan without students that went home for summer turns into nobody to stair at zone.

News / EURO Currency : Should Poland join?? [9]

^
They don't have a choice. Their contract to join EU included part saying adoption of Euro currency was obligatory. Our finance minster has reflected on possible referendum on the issue but it would be about WHEN not IF.

I'm in type of busienss were receiving payments in Euro and making payments in PLN it is a headache since the exchange rate fluctuate and there is some extra calculations required and checking of current rates. It's annoying at least.

Life / To all of you who are Polish - where did you learn English? [64]

hahaha
You are right! My bad.

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/4525105.stm

Travel / what can anyone tell me about these hotels/location-wise etc? [9]

I can racommend this one for Krakow:
peregrinus.krakow.pl/content/view/13/37/lang,en/

It has no real lobby and lucks the hotel feel, nor restaurant, too but rooms are very fine and inexpensive. You would have great room for the price of bunk bed in Krakow hostel, 5 minutes from the Krakow Rynek Glowny makes it my prefered Krakow hotel-motel. They opend last summer so everything still should be relatively new and the stuff is family run (probably) so they would make that extra effort to make your stay fine.

If I were you I wouldn't stay in any of those two Poznan hotels. They are both huge and overpriced and the only way out of them would be by cab or walking in trafic toward old town where you probably want to end up anyway. I can't recomend you anything in Poznan since I have close friends there so I always stay with them when there but those two are.... huge, chained and IMHO expensive (not woth that kind of money they ask)

Life / To all of you who are Polish - where did you learn English? [64]

I learned while listening to BBC radio. I was making bets on Enlish football games back then and would tune into BBC to get my scores. All I could understand was the team names and numbers, Liverpool ONE Aston Villa TWO, Leeds United O Tottenham 4 while I was listening to BBC sport news first. Later I found out that I could follow some games on radio live and during games they would also report scores from other stadiums. With time I would leave my radio on and discovered some English courses presented over the radio. From there I went on to have American girlfriend and having her was my best ever lessone of English. Today I watch movies to keep up and just read a lot.

Life / Polish denial of reality - is it a national trade? [117]

^
You all guys and gals need to think in colors instead of this black or white duality scheme. Hell or Heaven, is it good in Poland or bad, better or worse, winner or looser. Remember: there is more colors then 2 and you would get better understandig.

There is a well know polish in fact, long time dead philosopher Korzybski whe also discovered that MAP is Not TERRITORY. This mathematician dude is quoted all over the world with this simple sentence for some reason.

I've been traveling around Poland quite a lot in recent 3 weeks and my impressions are that Poland is very diverse "in reality". Live in Gdynia or Sopot often resembles the upper middle class american neighberhood whereas traveling by train from Gdansk to Wejcherowo would make you understand workinging class trauma and how socialism ideas in 19th century were formed. In Plock you would see all town in stable lower midle class liveform, all living off PETROCHEMIA company and in Kutno you could experience stillness of despair where in order to safe energy everyone moves only to satisfy basic needs ..and Warsaw ...waiting for bus to come there I was thinking "this could be anywhere".

Love to you all

Life / Do they have a class system in Poland? [16]

Some visible classes of people in Poland are:
*"people with coledge degree" - some would limit their contacts only to those with coledge education; would dare to ask for your education socially and look down upon you if you don't have one

*people from nobility (szlachta) - they would ask for your name and if it doesn't sounds familiar to them would discriminate against you ever since

*new money people - they want to know how much are you worth and if they are your league or lower or higher. (easy to put them down claiming nobility but coledge wouldn't impress them)

*clergy - large and special group in Poland; they don't do things like cooking or cleaning (they have poeple to do it for them instead); recently into cool things like playing soccer or playing electric guitar, rock singing and business

* people from very small towns, villages - often suffering from questions like "where are your from?" (similar suffering to the one experienced by those "having bad address")

:)

News / Just answer 4 quick Q's on "Polish Dress" pleaseeeeee(",) [10]

I know from a friend of mine, who has his own business, that to pay someone about 1500 a month in salary he would have to spend about 3000 total. You can imagine that we have large number of people working in so called shadow economy.

Good news is that our statistics about unemployment must be in fact lower, bad news is that many people will never get enough years of employment to get their pension plan working for them and are to be supported by family and social services in the future -I guess. (...) Still, things are in comparison as Confucius claimed so Poles are optimistic since it is ....better then before and the smell of money is mixed with despair, all in aura of The CHANCE ...(I'm lauging!)

News / Just answer 4 quick Q's on "Polish Dress" pleaseeeeee(",) [10]

This is what one would get on hand
655.27 PLN
2117 PLN
I'm not sure I did calculations right but that's what I came up with.

That's my source (PL)

personelodadoz.pl/kalkulatory.php

Click: "Kalkulator podatków i składek od umów zleceń na 2007 rok"

News / Just answer 4 quick Q's on "Polish Dress" pleaseeeeee(",) [10]

Q.3 Latest statistics from december, 2007 say that minimum wage is now 936 zł ($300)and an average one 3027,51 zł ($1000)

biznes.interia.pl/news?inf=874677

Life / Need to send sms to 600 number in Poland [15]

It says Send SMS message: "A"
to their number: +48 604 11 6677
if you are not ERA subscriber

Life / Need to send sms to 600 number in Poland [15]

I do it through this web sita but I had to register first with an emal, give them my cell number and have a password they had sent me via sms. The web site is in polish so I don't know how you can handle it.

eraomnix.pl/pl/

Life / Polish PAYG sim/Network [24]

I'm far from being an expert on cell phones and rates but this is what I'm overhearing about prepaid cards. The least expensive is Heyah, their starter kit card, with phone nuber costs 5 PLN and additional cards (minnutes) also avalable from 5 pln and up. Heyah is popular among young teenagers who'd now change numbers every week or.

Then you have POP, Tak Tak, Simplus . You buy cards in newspapper kiosks or in operator's outletes (quite many in shopping malls)

Food / Fatty Thursday (Tlusty Czwartek) Today! [17]

Google got its first polish doodle for it. google.pl

Travel / Korean visa for Polish citizen [4]


She deosn't need visa for stay up to 90 days. For longer, non toursit stay she' d need visa and answer question in Korean consulate, then get residency permit in Korea. Polish foreign ministry web pages recommend leaving Korea for short time and entering again for new 90 days period. If you' d like her to have work permit she' d need visa though.

Travel / public transport costs between areas in Poland [5]

I'll tell you something hopfully usefull about trains in Poland.
We have Intercity Trains (IC) with seat reservation, which are the fastest, would stop only on major hubs and are with best blessed with best quality customer service, where you'd have restaurant car and some trains would even have an internet access. Food is actually good there but there's not much to choose. Anyway you'd be better off having your meals somewhere else but it would be still nice to have a break in reastaurant car on longer routes especially. There's also someone selling snacks and drinks, newspappers on IC trains. No smoking anywhere.

Another type are the Express Trains (EX) with seat reservation as well - they differ from IC that they don't have restaurant car but usually would have a snack car with drinks. EXs would also tend to have more stops then EC and would be somewhat slower then EC.

Then we have the POSPIESZNY P (fast) with no seat reservation -those trains are most popular, usually you'd have many connections to choose from, trains do stop in biger and some smaller towns but do not in very small towns

OSOBOWY O (regular) Osobowy stops on every train station along, often every 15 minnutes or so. Good for shorter trips.
Here are my sugestions for your route

Gdansk - Torun - take P - 36PLN 2nd class or 54 1st class, TIME less then 3 hrs
Torun - Poznan - take P TIME 2.30 similar price
Poznan - Warsaw take IC - 90 PLN 2nd, 125 1st, TIME 3 hrs
Warsaw - Wroclaw take IC - 96 PLN or 131 PLN , TIME 5 hrs
Wroclaw - Krakow take IC - 84 PLN or 114 PLN, Time 4 hrs
Krakow - Zakopane take bus, about 2 hrs
and finally at the end of the adventure
Krakow - Katowice take P - 20 PLN 30 PLN, less then 2hrs

Last year we had summer promotion package from PKP where you could take 4 trips on Ex or IC trains anywhere for the price of PLN 150. Two trips on 1st class and two 2nd class. It was called VOJAGER package and is likely to be offered for thiscoming summer. With that package you'd still have to pay for seat reservation on each route (about 25 PLN for EX or 50 IC) but it's overall great value.

Also from Friday 18.00 PM to Monday 6.oo AM for the price of 60 PLN 1st class or 80 PLN 2nd class you could travel all POSPIESZNY and OSOBOWY trains all over Poland, wherever you want.

The ticket's called TURYSTYCZNY and is issued with your name on it. You'd have to show it, when asked with some picture ID. Your name's on it so you wouldn't give it or sell to someone when still valid on weekend.

Work / Average Polish Income is 2700zl per month [65]

To give you some idea for lowest pay...Someone I know is looking for part time janitor employee for his bar, 2-3 hours daily, job has to be done anytime before late afternoon so it has flexible hours and he's offering 5.5 PLN, paid in cash.

So far nobody seriously was interested he said but I know he's afraid of being robbed by his employee so he probably was picky.

Real Estate / Land Claim in Poland? [3]

You can only get financial reimbursment or some other property from the state and it would be only 20 % of estimated value of your family lost property. People in Poland were fighting a long legal battle and this is the current state of afairs according to my knowledge. You'd have to establish only just one heir/heiress, have someone doing legitimate financial estimate of your losess among some other steps - I'm reading on website in polish ... Looks like you'd need a layer, too and there are some specializing in cases like yours.

Food / Is there McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut etc in Poland? Food survey. [222]

First Hard Rock Cafe opened just some days ago.

UK, Ireland / Ireland cares for Polish Peoples! [5]

The final got about 5 milion viewers (rathr low number) on POLSAT, which is I think available almost everywhere in PL at no cost. More people were watching skijumping Malysz victory happening at the same time on TVP1 (public television).

Life / Situation of women in Poland and the society [25]

Child abductions and abuse are not more common but rather less thanks to new legislation, more education and media attention that brings the issue up actually. The same goes probably for domestic violence issues. Some neighbors, witnesses and victims are calling police and they are better equipped to help.

Over all many are getting better of in Pl so more women are able to live on their own in big cities, certainly more then ever before.

(not to argue main thesis in your post which I consider valid but rather want to stress improvement where obiously visible)

Love / Gift for Polish girls - question [56]

I'm thinking silver jewelry, amber and zubrowka (vodka).:)

Language / English words and expressions used in Polish conemporary language [16]

hardcore - someone describing poor quality hotel in Lviv "warunki hardcore"
man - "man" - moj man, nie mam mana
money - describing someone with cash, rich or looking rich - "gościu jest money", "ten money, w skórzanej kurtce" (spelling: many )

"Jak sie masz?" "Jak sie macie?" - this pharse entered polish language quite recently, too and comes obviously from traslating "how are you"

"dokladnie!" - used now in polish as often as in eglish "Exactly!"

Love / How do I approach or meet Polish women [34]

Yeah, but it's a man risking rejection in reality. Women say yes or no. You are deciders, we are to make first move and you can stay tempting and flirting or signaling.

Love / How do I approach or meet Polish women [34]

u got me! but see this: https://polishforums.com/archives/2005-2009/love/guys-date-woman-5795/

Love / How do I approach or meet Polish women [34]

Yeah, but with Bling he would be extinct by now, with Strum und Drang he is eternal, they say, ... and still touching. :)

Love / What do Polish guys do to date a woman? [38]

It's hard for them because they don't want to feel the pain of being rejected. They often would pretend that their interest is not serious or that you are one of the many they are caring about in the same time desiring you most of all walking createures on Eart.