Law / I lived in Poland for 5 years then had studies abroad - should I apply for permanent residency or citizenship? [12]

What is your native country?

UK, Ireland / Are Polish people moving back home from the UK? [68]

I maintain that "Brexit", not as yet a fait accompli, is simply a delayed reaction to the "Cool Britannia" of Tony Blair's legacy.

Guess what, friends! Brits of the younger generation, let alone pensioners of the War Generation (not to mention the average Englishman living in Essex and other ethnically homogeneous shires), don't want a "cool" Britania and are basically pleased as Christmas Punch that there are no longer colonies, so that Britain can at last take care of her own surplus at home and stop being badgered by Belgian "bullyboys" in Bruxelles.

Sorry to be so blunt here on PF, but it's the sad truth!

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

Let's hope the same together, Chemikiem! Perhaps my posts were indeed precipitous:-)

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

Poles share a lot in common with Icelanders and Hungarians I've encountered over the years; they know their language(s) are damned hard for the average foreigner to pronounce correctly, let along with idiomatic naturalness, and yet they seem annoyed to the point of distraction, when foreigners mispronounce words:-)

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

True, jon. A sort of "living" museum, I'll certainly grant you as much:-)

I HAVE heard from a Polish-Jewish survivor friend of Austrian birth however, whose father got his two children Polish "passport" papers as well as other necessary documents after the War, that the town of Oświęcim itself is actually quite charming and inviting on the surface, if one tries to forget the fact that not far from the outskirts are the infamous camps, Lager I and II of Auschwitz-Birkenau!

Apparently, the townspeople, though only too aware of their hamlet's reputation overshadowed by the War, were not at all anti-semtic towards my friend, a spry octegenarian, when she visited Oświęcim in the late '90's, surprisingly enough.

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

I reiterate, Auschwitz is hopefully NOT merely some museum aka (G-D forbid) "sightseeing" stop for a few gruesome photo ops and then back in the bus type deal:-)

How someone can visit a Concentration Camp site, call it day and then move on to the next spot, is slightly beyond me, that's all I can say!

Perhaps because I'm Jewish and from the US (although mother-tongue fluent in German!), when I went to Munich, I saved my visit to Dachau for the tail end of the the trip. I couldn't have stomached it otherwise, and I didn't even view the gas chambers.

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

.....sernik, jabłeczna......SMACZNE!!!

Travel / Planning a trip to Poland - Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakopane and other places - winter, Christmas [56]

Wowwee! That's some trip. Personally, I'd leave Auschwitz aka Oświęcim OFF the itinerary, as such will require certainly a liberal allowance of time to digest adequately (especially for a gentile), and therefore likely cannot be "sandwiched" in the rest of what looks to be a rather full agenda:-)

From surely what promises to be the most beautiful city in Poland to what augures to become the most nightmarishly awful visit on the heels of Cracowian nightlife, much less on to the great resort Zakopane,would seem to me at least a trifle jarring. How do you think you can do justice and respect to each of these places at the same time?

Something to consider.

News / How will BREXIT affect the immigrants in UK and Poland. [1114]

I read this morning on Yahoo-News that the Parliament might try and foil the Brexit:-)

Let's hope and pray, as the decision against Cameron by Farage is sheer madness for the European economy (including Britain) as well as for the world markets!!!

Trump supported the Brexit from the start. Well, we know what a dumbbell he isLOL

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

If so, then impress 'em with some homemade bigos (Polish hunter's stew - DELICIOUS!!!!!), sałatka z grządkami (beet salad), wędliny z gomkami (traditional Polish smoked sausage with dumplings) and they'll be eatin' outta yer hand in no time, trust me:-)

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

I didn't realize that, Messageman. Never would've guessed, the two cultures being so different, at least on the surface. I learned something, thanks:-)

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

Just curious, Luke! Ever been up to Szczecin? That's where I first experienced Poland and the Poles in their own surroundings:-)

Again, I enjoyed myself immensely, although a week's scarcely enough time to really get to know a culture first hand!

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

Once more, it's what one brings to the experience in the end! I'm sure you're having a super time because of the impression you've made and probably without pre-conceived notions either:-)

Admittedly, it's easier knowing the language aka local dialect. However, sometimes you can bond without knowing the partner's tongue.

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

Once again, James, Luke et al, having been to Poland, albeit briefly, and gotten to know many Poles personally during my frequent sojourns in Europe, I must confess that I didn't find the average Pole "rude" as much as disarmingly direct in contrast with Americans, who can talk 'till their blue in the face, but it usually amounts to squat:-)

Then again, I'm still convinced it all depends upon how much of the local lingo you speak.

Law / Freelance taxes in Poland, made simple. [12]

Would you be a Russian national by any chance?

I'd imagine you'd have to pay some form of estimated, self-employment tax as an outside sub-contractor.

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

I concur roundly, Luke old man!

Just give them a chance and try not to judge based upon your own English suppositions of what is considered "correct", even "normal" behavior back home:-)

Have a blast!

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

@Atch, I distinguish purposely and for geographical along with geoPOLITICAL accuracy Continental Europeans from "Insular" Europeans, the latter including Britons of every stripe aka the English, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish):-)

When I speak of Europeans in this context, I'm referring almost solely to those on the mainland, among them (for purely historical reasons) the Scandinavians.

Sorry if you felt slighted!

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

Mafketis also hit it square on the head! Superficiality in general is distrusted by many Northern as well as Eastern Europeans on the whole! In the case of the Poles, this is completely understandable, owing to their long plight under Communism and the tendency of chronic snitching among neighbors, co-workers and sometimes even friends.

Perhaps among Europeans, only the Southern French, Spaniards and Italians warm up to a stranger smiling for no apparent reason. Poles don't and the same goes for small talk! Perhaps were the tables turned and some drop-dead gorgeous hunk from, say, Katowice went to Texas and decided to chat up some cute cowgirl, the latter might be appreciative. After all, Americans are practically weened on PR. In Poland however, were some good-looking footballer interested in chatting up an attractive Polish woman, unless the American were MEGA-rich, chances are if he were just average, he wouldn't get too friendly a reception:-)

It's all a question of perception, really.

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

...gleaned only after years of having lived abroad aka outside of the States and having observed some key differences between Continentals and Anglos:-)

Being brought up in the US with "It's a small world after all...and a smile means friendship to everyone....", I realized while only out of my teens, that this is simply NOT so; it's a Disney-set pipe dream, an illusion, a myth!

When I finally arrived in Poland, I was forewarned, thus, forearmed, and therefore, not a victim of culture shock, as I understood the culture into which I was entering (armed with an imperfect command of Polish, no less).

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

Trump aka Brexit supporters.... am I right?

As far as Poland and culture shock are concerned, the fact is that Anglo-American culture places considerable emphasis on accentuating the positive like a bunch of incorrigible little Polyannas, "If you've nothing nice to say, don't say anything!"-type thinking, and generations of us have been inculcated with same, through our parents, movies, popular jingles etc.., so that frequently a European encounter can feel like cold snap in the face with a wet towel!!!

Anglos have to learn to listen sometimes to WHAT their European partner is saying instead of always HOW it's being communicated:-) Their bark IS worse than their bite most of the time and they simply resent Western-style condescension, that's all.

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

You betcha, hence all this Brexit rubbish! The traditional, button-down Brit honestly believes the whole world revolves around their (LONG LOST) Empire and believes every non-Brit to be culturally disadvantaged:-)

What a joke (and the joke's on themLOL).

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

I tend to agree, Paulina! Luke may be no different from many Anglos, as well as Americans, whose ethnocentrism causes them to measure the foreigner by their own yardstick, not realizing that the experiences which shaped Poland are markedly dissimilar from those of the UK or the US:-)

Having lived in Germany prior to visiting Poland, I was already long used to a greater degree of directness and self-confidence than many Anglos are comfortable with! If, for instance, a Pole thinks their English is better than your Polish, by golly, they'll tell you, and often in no uncertain terms!

Moral of a European experience: If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

....don't forget the late 'Lolek' Wojtyła's "Tygodnik Powszechny", very parochially Catholic, so I'm told, but solid reading!

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

Yet Germany and Russia haven't somehow "stopped" being your neighbors, even if the War has been over seventy-five years and counting! Poland continues to depend heavily on both her nearest states, admittedly much more than vice-versa:-)

Not having been back to Poland (Szczecin) since around the mid-'90's, I nonetheless follow Polish news religiously every day, reading the "Wprost", "Gazeta Wyborcza" or whatever I can lay my hands on.

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

I too was in Poland for a very short while, but well over twenty-odd years ago! Although this was post-Communism collapse, similar impressions which Luke has shared occurred to me as well. Often my interlocutors would turn away ever so slightly if I so much as smiled, even faintly, in their direction.

What impressed me though, as had been my experience in other European countries, namely Germany and part of southern Scandinavia, was a degree of seriousness and candor, supported by well educated responses to questions, which, as an American, I found MOST refreshing indeed:-)

Life / Poland after one year of living here [105]

Luke aka "Łukasz":-)

How much has your Polish improved since the move?

Genealogy / Heudorf Polenlager - my birth place in Germany; Polish parents [3]

Could perhaps a local Hall of Records (Standesamt), disclosing your birth as well as the marriage of your parents, be of help?
Often in circumstances such as yours, it's usual for such records to go missing in all the hubbub and confusion, particularly with borders changing hands and so forth.

UK, Ireland / How might Britain`s withdrawal from EU affect Poles there and here? [474]

'Just heard this morning on the news (local NJ Eastern TimeLOL).

Frankly, wasn't surprised at all, though of course quite pleased from a business point of view:-)
I knew those "Brexiteers" were just a bunch of fringies anyhow! They didn't have a chance.

There, you see? Reason won out against stupidity and stubbornness!

Language / "TO" or "ONO" / "i je je"? [20]

Always good to know from a native speaker, kacper!

Thanks again:-)