Travel / Car Hire in Gdansk and trip to Kaliningrad [14]

They used to give temporary visas on the hydrofoil however I think they stopped that a few years ago.

Travel / Car Hire in Gdansk and trip to Kaliningrad [14]

Agreed. Better to go there by public transport. Car hire companies don't like cross-border hire, and certainly not going from the EU to Russia.

Travel / Car Hire in Gdansk and trip to Kaliningrad [14]

Yes, you need a visa and you have to get it in advance now.

Life / Living Expenses in Krakow [42]

No country is immune to the influences of its neighbours and your biochemistry degree and "extended twelve year sabbatical" as an English Teacher in small-town Poland is not in any way relevant to the gentleman's query about the cost of living in Kraków.

He would do well to have a good look at the search function here. There are plenty of threads and posts about the cost of a flat in Kraków as well as day to day expenses, bills, food prices etc.

Plus the normal range of salaries in the city.

News / Poland's President-Elect Duda leads in public trust - CBOS poll [185]

Sadly Dougpol, corruption is all to common with the teraz k*rwa my culture. I've a feeling however that the Dud just won't last the course.

Food / Polish Duck Soup [117]

Try adding finely ground liver - it gives some of the blood flavour and adds the right colour. Not too much or the flavour will dominate. A few restaurants in Poland do this to make the ducks' blood (a rare commodity) go further.

Life / Living Expenses in Krakow [42]

@aBBey5, I suggest you click on Dominic B's username and have a look at some of his previous posts. You will notice many similar posts from DominicB, all deliberately deterring people from outside Europe from coming to Poland to work or study. It is as if it's his life's mission. He does not live in Poland (in fact not even in the same continent) and was here for a relatively short time, working in a different field and in a different place. I really do suggest that you look at his previous posts and make your own mind up about how seriously you want to take him.

The cost of living estimates that he gave are deliberately exaggerated (considerably in some cases) and by the way, the Polish school system is good. Poland could indeed be an interesting stepping stone for you. Modest apartments are not expensive - the street Pruszkarska is fairly accessible. I suggest renting somewhere for maybe two weeks from AirBnB while you find somewhere - it is always easier to find somewhere while you're in the city itself and your new colleagues will doubtless have some very good advice for you. 7000zl is not a bad salary in Kraków.

News / Poland's President-Elect Duda leads in public trust - CBOS poll [185]


I wonder if he'll last a full term of office.

News / Poland's Archbishop Wesolowski trial starts [28]

The Vatican have said that he was found by a priest at 5am, dead in front of a (switched on) TV.

We shouldn't read too much into that (conspiracy theories start easily in the Internet age) but instead wait until the postmortem.

It's possible now that nothing will come out about the offences he'd been charged with. He may have been guilty, he may have been innocent. We will probably never know for sure.

Travel / Whats your favourite Polish city and why? [132]

Nothing wretched about it! Not a bad place at all, and the old meme about the railway station is unfair. Applies more to Kutno.

Travel / Whats your favourite Polish city and why? [132]


Been there. Pleasant town to live in, reminds me a bit of Northern England. Not a tourist draw except perhaps the Wine Festival which sounds worth a visit.


Didn't there used to be a decent sized British community there?

Nobody's mentioned Kielce yet.

Love / I'm a Polish girl (my boyfriend is British) and I'm proud [58]

InPolska, your post does indeed sum it up perfectly. The difference between hearsay and experience.

Even though I don't actually have any curtains or blinds ;-)

Love / I'm a Polish girl (my boyfriend is British) and I'm proud [58]

Remember that many bras are ill-fitting - people buy what's available and what they can afford. Many women have never been properly measured. What's available on allegro or at the more expensive shops doesn't necessarily reflect what is most easily available and most often sold.

UK, Ireland / Common pitfalls for Poles learning English [187]

Yes - law, saw, hoar/*****, pour/paw; shirt, girl, pert, turd - are an especial problem - by adulthood, the mouth has become used to making very different sounds. And the schwa is just counterintuitive for a native speaker of Polish.

Plus stress timing - which speakers of a more syllable timed language dislike.

UK, Ireland / Common pitfalls for Poles learning English [187]

That's an old one and is actually used by Rupert Brook in Granchester (you know, the "stands the church clock at wotsit" one).

The same issue as statue /stætju:/ or /statʃu:/.

I've always found a bigger problem with Poles who are absolutely convinces that Andrew should be pronounced 'Endryu' and not 'Androo'.

USA, Canada / For my dad... "free Steve Wlodarz" He is serving life without parole in a United States prison [32]


More than enough. Keeping him inside is doing no good to anyone and these extra long sentences just punish the family.


Or in Britain, where we can see from the historic sexual crimes hysteria, Yewtree etc plus the tens of thousands (and it is that many) of ordinary people, that you can be sent to prison for a very long time with no evidence, no proof, no forensics; just somebody's word.

Love / I'm a Polish girl (my boyfriend is British) and I'm proud [58]


Double cough. Did you know that Poland is the largest consumer of hair dye in the EU?

UK, Ireland / Why English do not like Polish? [417]



You know many murderers? Some with sex slaves? Gosh, you move in exciting circles.

I do not know any Poles or British, in either country, who keep 'sex slaves', nor would it be a reason to dislike a whole nation even if I did. But then again, it looks like we know very different people.

Travel / Whats your favourite Polish city and why? [132]

Yes, the alcoholic haze helps. I do like Bialystok, especially in the summer. Zamosc is good too, but only the middle bit.

Kazimierz Dolny is massively overrated. Nothing special at all, sub-Hebden Bridge.

Travel / Whats your favourite Polish city and why? [132]

Exactly. The neighbours would basically be going ballistic and writing to the council. In buildings with some shared area in Poland, all the old biddies do their very best not to maintain it, since their flats are nearly always bequeathed to a relative who would use it rather than sell and in any case, they don't like shelling out £20 each towards paint.

They rarely object to festooning very old buildings of architectural and historical importance with satellite dishes - this has blighted parts of the old town in Poznan.

In some smaller Polish cities, they also have buildings insulated (with of course subsidies) and part of the deal is painting them. The paint colours (often two-tone) are chosen by old glimmers with cataracts. Some of the early 60s estates are like that, and the building colours are chosen by the residents of each block rather than the estate as a whole. Sometimes this makes a sort of unity by inclusion, otherwise it just clashes.

Parts of Warsaw have been affected by this.

USA, Canada / For my dad... "free Steve Wlodarz" He is serving life without parole in a United States prison [32]

That's really throwing the book at him. When push comes to shove, he didn't actually kill anyone and has done 15 years in a very unpleasant place already.

USA, Canada / For my dad... "free Steve Wlodarz" He is serving life without parole in a United States prison [32]

The main question is whether or not he is innocent of the exact crime for which he was convicted. This awful 'no parole' thing they have over there is another issue too.

Language / Sentences: stół z powyłamywanymi nogami / Nasi przodkowie na mchu jadali [25]

"We", from our American friend! And no, not everyone uses żreć all the time, for animals. In fact most people don't. So don't be pedantic; Polish isn't some exclusive primitive language littered with shibboleths.

And yes. The double entendre is so obvious as to be banal.

Travel / Whats your favourite Polish city and why? [132]

With Lodz, (and a lot of other Polish cities, towns, villages) just. Few pots of paint would make the difference. This cultural thing about not keeping up to the exterior of your home (are you listening, Pol3?) unless you do a totalny remont is responsible for a lot of the problems with cities' appearances.

Somebody please tell them that an external paint job every 5 or 10 years is normal and that there are other colours than grey.

Travel / Whats your favourite Polish city and why? [132]

One problem is that people don't seem to like the idea of living in converted industrial buildings as much as they do in the UK or US. People in Poland want bling and shiny new buildings.

USA, Canada / For my dad... "free Steve Wlodarz" He is serving life without parole in a United States prison [32]

Are there forensics that could help him, and are any organisations like the Innocence Project involved?

Travel / Whats your favourite Polish city and why? [132]

£ódż just wouldn't be the same without the industrial grime that gives it an air of faded elegance.

I agree hugely about development mistakes. So many are car orientated and not people friendly. In Poland there was never very much Victorian architecture to destroy, however some first class 1950s and 1960s buildings are being despoiled or destroyed for the sake of cheap tatty newness. 1960s marble interiors plastered over and painted orange or covered in Formica. Same with exteriors.

Language / Sentences: stół z powyłamywanymi nogami / Nasi przodkowie na mchu jadali [25]


Nope. Because a, I can't be deported. b, it isn't a test or part of any recognised test; it's just an internet troll writing trash, c, you aren't a Polish Citizen so aren't in any position to set such a test (though come October I may well set a test for you) and d, it's a banality that many normal people in Poland would scratch their head at or just google.

Roger, Roz etc may wish to set some irrelevant cultural tests for you as a guest in our Europe...

Na mchu ja jadam też. A pająk je biedronkę

Language / Sentences: stół z powyłamywanymi nogami / Nasi przodkowie na mchu jadali [25]


I missed that bit. I wonder why he says that, especially since some of us were doing very nicely before and came for all sorts of reasons. Especially since he's an immigrant himself.

Work / Is moving from Moscow to Wroclaw worth it? (.NET software developer) [39]

A lot depends on where you are. Eastern Poland is very much Eastern Europe - you would find a lot in common, and in Wroclaw, many people have family roots in Lviv, somewhere between Eastern Europe and Central Europe in feel. Culturally, Poland is somewhere between eastern and western. The food is closer to Eastern Europe, vodka is drunk (though not so much as in Russia and not as much as a few years ago) yet the bars, shops etc could be in Germany, and Wroclaw (the former Breslau) has a real German look.

Prices of things are far lower than in central Moscow but more expensive than in the Russian provinces. You'll notice a smaller difference between rich and poor - there are not the same extremes as in Russia. Bars and nightlife tend to be very safe, and Wroclaw (from the point of view of an ordinary resident) is Mafia-free.

Dealing with bureaucracy is easier than people tell me it is in Russia and Ukraine, but sometimes frustrating for someone from Britain or Ireland. Poles tend not to be as friendly to strangers as the British or French (or the Russians) however this is changing a bit.

The nightlife round the Rynek in Wroclaw is something you will enjoy if you like Spain. There's more joie de vivre than, say, Germany, however it isn't Malaga or Barcelona ;-)