Who has moved to Poland in the last year? Swap stories.

Hi There
I am also Irish and have been living in Krakow for 6mths now, I have done a lot of travelling over the years and lived outside for about ten altogether in various countries, so its not knew to me not living in Ireland. I will be going back to Ireland in the summer and honestly I am seriously looking forward to it. I have a lot of Polish friends in Ireland some for at least 3 years so I was fairly familiar with culture etc also I had visited 4 times in in the last few years. There will be a lot of general things that you will miss however what I miss most is the humour and just the banter. There is a very drepressing feeling in the air here which is probably understandable considering the history. Yes the city is stunning and a lot of the people are very helpful and friendly but I have also found an element of bitterness and sheer rudeness. I think the prices of holidaying here were a big draw for people previously however as it gets more expensive they will have to improve the abrupt manner that a lot of people in the restaurants, cafes etc have. You should really visit a couple ot times first and depending on where you are located will also factor!

Good Luck in your decision....Like everywhere Bring your own sausages, rashers, butter, bread and .........tayto!

I retired to Poland in 2006 with my wife. We bought land and started to build a home there. My wife could not take it and we are now back in the USA. I loved it there the food was healthier people friendlier. We now live in the south of the US. It is just not the same as Poland.

jimpres, just out of interest, why did you move there?

Why, exactly, did your wife get fed up with Poland? I ask because I'm having a hard time convincing my wife to MOVE there from Canada.

Sausage,

I moved there because my wife's meds cost $1000 a month in the USA and $250 in Poland. Also my parents came from there and I know lots of relatives there. I was raised speaking Polish. Started English in the 1st grade.

Andy,

She got fed up with the language did not want to learn it.
IN the USA before we left for over a year she studied it 2-3 hours a day.
Had stickies on everything showing there Polish name. When she go to Poland she just stopped.

Jim

Andy,

You MUST take your wife there on a visit no matter what she says. Mine said
she did not need to go knew she would love it. Big mistake.
Although there is no where in the US we could retire on my SS, her meds are just to much.

Andy,

Also I moved to the country not Warsaw. Nearest town was 12 km away and had 18 thousand people in it.
We moved from san diego

Im also moving to poland in few monthes and i think the language barrier is gonna be hard, i found out about teaching english but i think you need some sort of course to be allowed to teach it, im gonna give it a go teaching private as im sure many poles would love to learn from a true english man, if all else fouls guess ill wash cars :-) Dave20910 where in poland you moving too?

Brett,

The language will be easier when you live there. You will have to speak it.
However, if you move to a large town there are more english speakers there.
I was 11km from a town of 18 thousand and you had to know Polish.
private teaching is desired by most Poles. The schools teach the British english and not the American english.

I'm an American from San Diego and I teach in Gdansk. It's true that the books are in British English but my students love to learn the difference between British and American English. After all, they watch movies from the US and more than a few have either visited there or want to go.

The Queen's English as we like to call it! Not that there is much difference between American and British English...

I never heard the term made redundant until last summer when I met a Brit who had been. We call it laid off. Boot/trunk, bonnet/hood, cinema/movies, on holiday/on vacation, favourite colour/favorite color, in hospital,in the hospital, at the weekend/on the weekend, fancy/like, pay rise/pay raise etc. I'm not going to touch the word fag! It's fun to compare the differences.

If You want to talk pants about taking out the trash then watching a movie of the Man united soccer match go ahead. We speak English the way it is supposed to be spoken biatch!!

So would you say its a possibility to teach english privately, although i dont speak much polish at the moment my gf says many polish people like to take classes in english conversations where you dont speak polish to encourage them to just speak english.

Brettd,

I was asked to teach privately many times. I had people come to the house and we only spoke English.
So from my perspective it is possible.

Im back been away from the forum for a while.... so any new joiners in poland???
im still loving it here by the way!!!!!!!!!!!

Sure sounds like it!

I moved from Antwerp/Belgium to Warsaw in 2004 and honestly speaking my life here does not differ all too much from life back home.
- Getting up much too early to go to work (05:30)
- Crazy drivers on the road to work (thanks God not too many traffic jams, although 50 kms one-way)
- In the evening thinking if I will be home in time to catch the Flemish TV-news on Cyfra+
- Waiting forever in our local Tesco because there are no people to work there.
- In the weekend trying to meet friends in between shopping, cleaning your car and a thousand more errands.
And then it is again Monday :(

In these four years I have never encountered any safety problem. Maybe I have been lucky ?
The worst happened to me was that some idiot made a car-long scratch on my VW Touran with a screwdriver. Not nice but it is a company car :) so financially I did not suffer. Idiots you find everywhere in the world though.

In Antwerp they broke into my car tiwice in two months' time.

I moved from Bulgaria to Poland in 1994. Lived here till 1998, moved to USA ( I thought it was forever) but come back to Poland in 2007...My husband couldn't adjust there:(

So...I felt depressed almost 6 months, at one point even thought to get divorce and fly back to USA and start my life over. So many thing are driving me crazy..

-Long faces, people never smile..:(
-driving like crazy,yelling
-everyone always complain ..:(
-not many thing I can do online,some days I have to take half day off to go to Town hall, online banking system is awful..:(

-cold weather, always windy..
Well, but my husband feel happy...so, that's the most important..I guess will take me long time to be on "phase three and four" as Andy said.

I moved from New York to Zamosc in January, and from Zamosc to Warsaw a month later. I would have liked living in a small town like Zamosc just for a change, but it turned out that that wasn't realistic or practical, so we moved to Warsaw, which I'm not too excited about. I love my little flat here in the centrum, which I share with my girlfriend, I love my cats, (our cat gave birth to two kittens, they're just hilarious,) and I like the new routine, waking up early in the morning to give english lessons. I used to do some catering in New York, club promoting, modeling, etc, so this is a pretty interesting change. Otherwise I can't find much to do around here.I haven't really made friends here which I didn't mind until recently, I'm starting to miss socializing. Language is a huge barrier, one I've been lazy to overcome, but the difficulties seem so daunting!

If I find a way to make some more money out of english teaching then I might actually stay here much longer than a year.

The weather is great! My friends are bruning alive in NYC right now! There are some issues with the being black thing, but I've discussed that enough in other topics.

As a general rule, we all go through a change cycle when we experience something new. We may go through one phase quickly or slowly or we may opt out and stall ... generally with negative outcomes.

It is anti intuitive to realise that to effect permanent change we need to go through ALL phases, otherwise the change is usually non-permanent.

Reverse culture shock is generally tougher than culture shock as noted. Australia isn't standing still waiting for me while I am away!

I have been in Poland for a year now, and it has been all good but I'm here for a working holiday and few expectations.

Yes, life goes on. Unfortunately I can't turn back time. It took me a while to realize that one part of my life is gone and I MUST watch in future.

Now I try to make new friendships, work, continue my education...I hope some day will wake up and say to myself " Hell, yes...I am happy:)"

I got one for you, I just moved back to Poland about 6 months ago. I bought a house here. So the previous owners had two weeks to take their furniture. So they brought the whole family, I mean parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, grand children, the whole lot. Well you'll never guess, they were taking light fittings, light switches, unscrewing the sliding doors, built in cupboards the whole lot. My understanding of furniture is movable items. I am a big guy and I can have a fierce temper sometimes. I flipped, roaring and shouting, punching walls (I know it is stupid) and threw the whole lot out. Told them they could come back the next day and all their crap would be out the front.

It must be noted that this could have happened anywhere and is not the normal practice in Poland, well at least that is what people tell me ;0)

Normal practice in my experience


What, Polish people?

I have not had that happen before to me or anyone I know.


Yes, well one guy from Krakow said he had a similar experience.
And the people doing it were shocked I got so mad.

It's happened in every property I bought in Poland. I've even had toilets removed. I expect it as standard practice.

jeez...i hope they didn't want to take also the wall paper...

I have to ask you to elaberate, it would be different if they wanted the toilet and I did not, did you want the things they took?

I would like to make this a thread? put it to the people if you know what i mean.

I didn't really, no. I was doing total refurbs so was almost pleased they took the stuff. I had also been told to expect it so it didn't come as a great suprise.


mamdom.com/aboutpolishproperty_needtoknow.php?u_usern=&u_userp= - What to expect

Ha ha ha ha, that's mad, I honestly thought it was just me. ha ha ha, WOW!
ha ha ha, If it is normal they must of thought I was a complete lunatic (and I do not mean a sleepwalker!)

And was it done on the sly or just kinda matter of fact? But of course if you were doing refurds it is cheaper than a skip

Alot cheaper and easier than a skip, for sure. Plus all the grief I've got when putting skips on the pavement outside my places, even when I've been told I own the pavement and have to pay for it's upkeep! Time to give the lawyer a call ;)

And to be honest, if you read the reasons given in the article then it makes sense. It's just a bit weird for a foreigner not expecting it. And many Brits, for example, want to put a new kitchen / bathroom in when they get a new place. Why would you want to take your old stuff? Answer's obvious really.

Who knows what your people must have thought LOL :)