I'm engaged to a girl from Poland. Moving to Poland from the US.

Hi,

I'm engaged to a girl from Poland. She's in the US with me now, but we are coming to Poland in October, so she can start her master's studies. Our wedding will be in Poland in the end of May. Then we may return to the US for the summer. I have a few questions.

1. i know you have to get a visa to live and work in Poland longer than 90 days. In the US, the penalties are steep if you get married here with the wrong kind of visa. Is is the same in Poland? Should I say that I'm engaged and want to live and work in Poland until the wedding, or not mention it?

2. Does anyone know how much money a cook or chef can make in Warsaw? I'm a chef in the US, and would like to continue my career in Poland while I'm there. I'm learning Polish (slowly) but I'm confident that I will at least know how to communicate in the kitchen. I could also teach Englishif I had to.

3. Are there good websites to start searching for an apartment, room, flat to rent while I'm there?

Any advice would be appreciated. Especially about the visas as I'd like to get the ball rolling on that front.

Thanks,

Aaron

search around the forums. most of your questions have been answered before.

Good luck in the marriage department. Some Poles believe May is a bad month to marry. Superstitions I guess...
Contact the Polish Embassy in Chicago about the visa, they will give you all the answers you need.
When you're there you can check out the papers, they have lots of rental adds.
Cooks don't make much there. You'd be better teaching english.

he said he's a chef. big difference but i doubt he's be able to secure a temp position in that profession especially if he isn't fluent in polish.

Right, learn Polish. You might get in trouble serving bigos when someone orders goląbki.

This might seem a little simple, but as the language of the kitchen is french, why don't you find a french restaurant to work in. There are bound to be some in Warsaw.

right so you get 3 months free on entry. you can apply for permission to stay as your girl is promising to marry you. after some time, some visa extensions, many visits to the foreigners office, some cash, so many documents you cant believe you will get your green card. it takes time and patience. you have to register when you get here so its important to rent a flat from an owner who will go with you to the registration office. like they said you can find all the details on this forum. oh and you should teach english unless you want to compete with Polish chefs for jobs.

No it's not anymore. Too many people get married just for visa/citizenship. At least I remember you have to be married for 3-5 years before you'll get citizenship.

But I guess it's worth to wait, Polish citizenship will make you free from working visas in whole Europe. ;)

I don't know about working visa.. I think it's easer to get it if you're married.


Depend of the place. Try to look for it in good hotels and restaurants. There's hundreds of them in Warsaw. I think it's about 1500-4000 PLN.

If you want to teach English, you have to pass some teaching courses. Not everyone can teach it just like that. You better start looking for it in the US.. And you will get working visa faster. Try Callan method, you don't have to speak Polish there. ;) At least I know you can earn about 3000 PLN / month.


When I was looking for mine, I found few pretty good here: warszawa.gumtree.pl/

Try also here:
polskienieruchomosci.pl
oferty.net/mieszkania,Warszawa

Unfortunately, cooks dont make much here either, but for some crazy reason I've chosen this as my profession, and I love it. I never really saw myself as much of a teacher. i guess I could try it out. My fiancee' also says I might be better off teaching English. Thanks for the tip.

Don't give up on the chef thing, if that's what you want to do.

Teaching languages is not for everyone and still takes a certain amount of skill.

Do what makes you happy! You can find good job as a chef, but will need a little time...and of course you must learn polish language. On the begining could be tough for you but don't give up ! Good luck !:)

Hello
I am an American who has been living in Poland since 2001. I can say my situation was similar to yours except we were married in the states then we decided to move to Poland so my wife could finish her degree. I will just say you need to visit the local Governors office in the city you will be living in. Your soon to be wife will have a lot of running around to do as will you with the mountains of paper work that need to be filled out. However it is not all that difficult. As far as working goes here your best bet is to try and teach English unless you have the means to open your own business. The language is very difficult to grasp but eventually you will get a hold of it. I will tell you getting married in Poland will be more difficult for you then it would be to become legal to work and live. I wish you luck with everything and if you are a football fan my suggestion is to get satellite N because it has the North American Sports network on it and you can catch all your college and nfl games baseball and so on. If you have questions about the life style just ask.

Hey Eric,

Now I'm here. I'm in Warsaw just on my 90 days with my passport. I've been here for a few weeks and we get married at the end of May. My fiancee's family is great; her parents don't speak much English, and I don't speak much Polish (even with almost a year of learning the language), but they are very nice, and are teaching me the old ways of making sausage and peroggie. I'm in Warsaw most of the time. So far, I have not had the best experience with the other people around. I feel like I'm being glared at on the streets and busses, especially when people hear English. Actually I don't feel it, I see it. Is this a Polish thing, or just a city/Warsaw thing? My fiancee and I were going to come back to US after we were married, but we found out it will take a while for her to be able to come to the US, and we do not want to be separated any more. Do you know if I can work in Poland, or other countries in the EU after we're married? Or do I need to go back to the US, apply for a work visa or temporary resident visa, then come back again? There's a lot of info out there, but who knows what is correct or not. A lot of the places I've looked have conflicting information.

Also I am a football fan. As well as a baseball fan. Anyone know of any bars in Warsaw that might have Yankees games? I'll worry about football when the season comes. Finally, are there any places where Americans might typically hang out in Warsaw? I go out with my fiancee and her friends, but the conversations inevitably slip into Polish, and I can't understand most of it, especially the slang and the inside jokes. It would be awesome to speak English with someone besides her.

I found this information on expats-in-poland where you can pose a question and hope for an answer from the Polish students of the Law.

"Question:

hello my name is christian, I\'m foreigner , soon I will marry , my girlfriend is Polish, and I want to know that I must fulfill requisites to obtain the Polish nationality and the process that I must continue to obtain it. In advance thank you very much. attentive greetings,

Answer:

Firsty You can apply for temporary resident permission (for 2 years). Only conditions are: be married with Polish citizen and move to Poland. After 2 years living in Poland with your wife, and 3 years of yours marriage You can apply for settlement permission. Right administrative power is voivode of voivodeship where You settle down. The thing that is important is that applying for settlement permission requires 2 years of permanent staying, which means that none of the intermissions which took place during 2-year period was no longer than 6 months and all breaks were no longer than 10 months within these 2 years. Then, if You got settlement permission and are married to the Polish citizen for at least 3 years, You get the Polish citizenship, if You will submit the application, in the right time to the appropriate organ, which will give the decision of accepting the application. This application should be submitted in a 6-months period since a foreigner got the settlement permit, or 3,6-year period, since he/she got married with a person who possess the Polish citizenship. If you get temporary resident permission or settlement permission You can work in Poland without any other work permissions. "

Hope that helps.

I don't know about baseball (but will ask my American colleague tomorrow) but NFL games are shown at Bradley's Irish pub (Sienna 39). There's usually a decentish crowd of Americans in there watching and often a few of the Warsaw American football team too. Bradleys shows both the early and late games (a choice of one from two games for each) and can record the sunday evening and monday night games if you ask them to.

As for places Americans hang out, there are plenty of expats in Bradleys but they tend to be more Brits and Irish than Americans. There are also a lot of expats in Bar Below (Marszalkowska 64), although less than this time last year. The Warsaw Tortilla factory is another place where expats can be found but there are usually as many Poles as expats.

Getting glared at? It's a Polish thing. Just glare back. Or better yet wear sunglasses.

I hear you on the glaring thing, I have noticed that and its very annoying, what the hell are they staring at. I know that they must be thinking forigner..........

Actually we're thinking ; How dumb is that person? He/She comes here and can't even speak the language. Your doing the same thing to people speaking other languages in English speaking countries, and you even make rude comments like “dumb foreigner” or “stupid emigrant”, yet you complain about it when you come here, How pathetic, get a life will you.

Maybe people are glaring at you, because you look strange. Have you ever thought of that? ;) May it be you are very ugly or very beautiful or dress strange. Usually people don't glare at everybody.

You throw the word you around quite a bit. In the US where I've been, we hear multiple different languages daily, and appreciate hearing them. I can't remember ever saying dumb foreigner, unless joking with my foreign finacee'. Yes, I should know the language a little better, but I've only been engaged for a little more than a year, and for some crazy reason, Polish wasn't an option for language courses through high school and college. So I'm learning as quickly as I can.

Some Polish people (young ones tend to do it less) stares at people who don't look Polish. Probably they don't mean to be rude. Because of the small number of foreigners in Poland they are probably just curious. But in many countries it's extremly rude to stare at people, maybe they are not aware of that.

I think Poles are staring on each other generally when out, doesn't matter if you're foreigner or not - off course looking different helps, too.

Staring back is my way of paying back or just getting into ignore mode.

Its true Poles do really look at each other. When I first came here it bothered me that people stared but then I realized they do it to each other as well. You get used to it.

Why do you sign on as a guest to insult people, I have never called anybody anything like that. Polish people stare at me when I am in poland, I never open my mouth so how would they know my level of polish, I have a polish surname and my grandparents are polish. The fact is i get glared at its rude just like your post.

Did I insult you? Perhaps you should read my post again. I made a simple observation which happens to be true. You may or may not hold this view to be true but that in itself dose not make it false. People simply do not see this or hear it or perhaps they just do not want to and dismiss it off hand because it dose not effect them personally. As soon as the tables are turned they complain about it. So you get glared at, big deal, perhaps you're an attractive woman, who knows? Have you ever considered that? You feel like a stranger, your senses are heightened therefore you assume the worst, but why on earth do you automatically reinforce others in their stereotypical point of view? If you ignore it you will be a much happier person for it, who knows you may even enjoy your stay. Like I said get a life, never make an assumption, case at hand, this was not some kind of a personal attack on you, just a simple observation. Just because I sign in as I guest I must have some kind of a sinister alternative motive for this, right?

I see a foreigner in a bus once every couple months. So it's normal that it's something different, and I look at him more than on other people. Foreigner in non turistic places in Poland looks like alien.

geez....

No geez, but something normal. If you see something strange, unusual, you look at it.

I have been to Poland many times and have seen people staring at me too. It used to bother me a lot, but I think it comes from three things:

1. I don't look Polish, and in the little town I stay in, I probably stand out.

2. I don't speak the language and that makes me a bit uneasy. This causes me to put my guard up and I probably see things that are not there.

3. Polish people like to gawk more than I am used to.

At the end of the day, who cares. Quite honestly, if everything in Poland was the same as the U.S, it would be damn boring. I love the all the cultural differences - good and bad!