Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

Indeed it is!

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

Alrighty. Well try not to take it too seriously, it's just a light-hearted, layman's documentary with the soothing narration of Morgan Freeman :)

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

Ah my bad. They said that it has no explanation, it was the second signal that was determined to be of human origin.

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]


At around 12:00 to be exact

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

The WOW signal I'm certain was confirmed to be of human origin. Take a look at the video I linked above, the scientist who discovered it explains something about the direction of the signal - further explaining that it was in fact originating from a satellite sent out to orbit the sun.

Also, thanks for the Google Mars link! Fascinating

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]


If anything else, future generations will be able to cook their eggs on a non-stick utensil


Cannot even pretend to know, but there are massive dunes on Mars that are the size of mountains. Who knows what lays buried beneath them :) Curiosity is aptly named.

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]


You misunderstand. They are, most certainly, searching for the existence of compounds. However, the rover is not equipped with technology capable of identifying microbial or fossilised microbial life.


Who knows what the solar system looked like 4 billion years ago when Mars had oceans. Isn't it conceivable that the orbit of Mars was also different? Perhaps even inside the so-called 'habitable' zone. Another emerging theory out there, is that Asteroids are repositories for chemical compounds that serve as the building blocks for life. One connected theory is that similar life may have once existed on Mars, and asteroids that impacted the surface of Mars carried microbial life (which is capable of surviving in the cold vacuum of space) to Earth. If not life, then at least other compounds.

... this might be an interesting video for you.

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

Quite excited. I followed it from launch and I was very happy to hear this morning that it landed. NASA noted that it's not designed to search for microbial life, which is a pity - I think that proof of the existence of life outside of Earth is of great interest to many. But each extra-terrestrial mission brings us one step closer to that. We already know a lot about Mars and its history. It's believed that 3-4 billion years ago it resembled a smaller version of earth with oceans and continents. Solar winds stripped away the atmosphere, resulting in the barren wasteland we see today. It's quite possible such an occurrence could happen to us too. Thus, any knowledge we can gain about the history of our closest neighbour (just outside of the 'habitable zone') I think could be of great importance to us.

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

:) It's ok. I didn't quote because I thought it would be a very quick response, we both posted in the same minute :D

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

I was referring to Polonius's comments about "untold billions of taxpayer money"

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

Actually, if you knew much about NASA, you'd realise that the majority of their funding comes from the private sector - not tax payer money..

Give this a read: cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-you-should-be-excited-about-mars-today/

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

I think you're also missing a very big point:


With only one rover up there, how do you expect it to perform large-scale exploration of various different geological structures? Saying that we need one rover with everything conceivable attached to it is no different than saying "Tanks... Flying tanks... Flying tanks that can land on and submerge under water, armed with nuclear bombs, turret weaponry, SAM/STS missile systems, laser weaponry, an in-built hospital and the ability to blast off into orbit". More rovers = greater coverage. Rovers designed for a specific purpose will be more efficient than a jack of all trades trying to waddle a few thousand miles to the next POI. After all, we do want to make some progress within our lifetime, right?

Off-Topic / "Curiosity" Lands On Mars! Huzzah! Poland's Mars Society Must Be Ecstatic. [77]

Glad to hear it was a success. The first thing I did when I woke up (well, after my coffee) was run to the news and check to see if it succeeded.

Work / Finding work in Warsaw / Poland as an English private tutor [63]


50zł / hour for 'conversational English'? Oh my.

If you could find someone capable of having 10 hours of classes in one day (let alone three-four times a week) then I would call him mi'lord. I'm fairly used to long days and little sleep, but on any day where I have 5 or 6 individual classes, I feel completely drained.

I've only been doing it for two years and I'm fed up with it. Don't get me wrong, I love my students and it's amazingly rewarding to see their progress and I would now consider many of my past-students to be friends. With private students, there is a tendency for cancellations or "rescheduling" which often results in your loss. It seems the most common route for teachers who don't get a solid job at a reputable school providing 20-25hrs / week in-school tend to move on after a few years. They either set up their own school or take up other positions (exams, state-schools, translation and in the unfortunate cases, 'methodology').

Sounds like Papieza is either beyond mortal or beyond honesty, which you believe is your choice :)

Tommy: With one or the other you'd at least have a chance. But without either you'll find it very difficult to get work with any reputable school. Even if you were able, I'd be cautious of any school that would offer a position to someone completely devoid of both qualifications and experience. It's not uncommon - at least in Poznań - to see such people come here for a girl and charge 20zł/h for "konwersacje" to fuel their nightly beer and kebab runs. However, they often won't make it past a year.

Life / Noisy kids every night. Police in Warsaw don't care.. [22]


Melodramatic much? There's a slight difference between curfew (say, group orders) and, well.. we won't go there.

I do understand your plight OP. I have the teens outside here yelling, drinking, singing and blowing fog horns every night and sick of it too. If it were people from another neighbourhood, I wouldn't mind throwing a water balloon at them either, but they're people who live in my apartment building or the one opposite and I'd rather not have to deal with that.

On a funny note - last Monday, at 1am, a large van pulled up with three or four people who came to collect the clothes in a little donation point outside my building. They were extremely noisy - the engine was on (and sounded like it was fueled by vodka) and loud, obnoxious techno music was blasting out of the windows. Had to get up at 6am for work and it was taking the **** - tried telling them to turn the music off and got no result. Eventually we called the Police, who told us "We'll come, but we'll also have to knock on your door and get your details". The men started packing up after 15 minutes and we thought they'd leave before the police got there, but thankfully they didn't. Police showed up and as they were pulling up we heard one of the guys say "I'm sure it was that ****** who called them.". They got a ticket for something and we let off a vengeful smile. Alas, they came back again last night at 11 but they had a new guy with them. They started telling him "Oh that window there is where they called the Police on us" and they were all looking at the window as I waved to them. They started shouting "oooh we're criminals" before making a bit of noise and ****ing off. Got a photo of their license plate and took two videos of them on each night, I hope they'll lose their jobs and the neighbourhood can sleep peacefully.

Don't give up :)

Life / If a Phone Gets Stolen in Wroclaw [11]

Android also has the ability to track if you're fortunate enough to install the software prior to losing it. There is also a slim possibility of tracking it by remote-installing an application from the market website, that's of course assuming they have internet on the phone.

I lost my phone around 1.5 - 2 months ago... I believe the most likely explanation was that it fell into a bag or something that went out into the trash and didn't notice it for a few days - I had serious burns on my legs so didn't leave the house, phone wasn't charged and didn't bother with it. It was a HTC legend. By the time we noticed it wasn't in the house it was a bit late, we called up Play and they told us the sim was being used in an LG. We had the IMEI and the sim blocked, made a police report and spent the next two weeks looking on allegro (my phone had a very obvious and identifiable scratch on the front), checking in komis, etc. We never found it and I didn't really care for the phone, I wanted my SD card back which had some photos / videos on there that I cannot replace but never uploaded anywhere - more fool me! I since replaced my phone, I have tracking software installed on it, a mobile data plan that I always leave on, and I'm immensely protective of it now :) We learn our lessons.

Work / 4-5,000 gross enough to live off for 1 person in Poznan? [13]

I honestly can't say why, but everybody seems to spend so much money on food here. I spend probably no more than 700-800 for two people per month. Also, while private medical care is a bonus, you will still pay ZUS gaining access to free state health care.

We own a flat (paying the mortgage on it, less than 20k to go) but we still pay a fortune on "administration" costs. We pay 50zł a month because our building has an elevator. We pay 380 a month in 'rent' (which is based on the presumption of how much we will spend on utilities. It got highly inflated due to a leak we had, so expecting a nice payout at the beginning of 2013). For a breakdown of two people, on average we pay:

380 - rent
40-50 - gas (every 2 months)
180-250 - electricity (every 2 months)

Of course you need to keep in mind you'll likely want an internet connection, telephone (contract?PayG?) etc.

Travel / How come no one ever seems to pay for the bus in Poland? [63]

Close to where I live (about a 10 minute walk) is a ticket machine. I use a KomKart (MPK) and I insert it into the machine to update my ticket. I was on my way to work early in the morning and knew I had to renew my ticket (couldn't remember if it expired that day or the day after). Anyway, I walked to the station only to find out that the machine was broken, so I ask for a ticket in the Kiosk to be told they don't have any! Uh oh, back to my home where there's another shop with the possibility of purchasing a ticket... nope, none there either. I had to get to work and I knew there was another ticket machine only 2 stops away. I say "2 stops" but it's still a 20 minute walk at a brisk pace so it wasn't plausible - especially considering it was their fault there's no ticket machines.

I get on the tram, and it pulls off a moment later. Then, a butch man and woman spring up off the benches screaming "tickets"...gulp. As it turns out my ticket expired the previous night, and all of my complaining and arguing in the world about the non-functioning ticket machines (offering to prove it to them) and the store/kiosk with no tickets, did not matter to them. 103zł spot fine or the police are called. Knew I wasn't getting out of it without causing too many problems, so I paid up and was told to go to the ticket machine across the street. Get there, and with my last few zloty in coins after they cleared me out, what do I see? "This machine is currently only accepting notes, we apologise for the inconvenience" or something to that avail. I was required to cancel my 90 minute class and not only did I lose 103zł but also my salary for that day! (And to boot, I had to walk back home in the rain, dishevelled.

I never forget about my ticket now...

Travel / Ryanair travel by air - subtle scams to be wary of [98]

Flying from Poznań to Luton via WizzAir, we had a situation where a clinically obese man found himself stuck and was incapable of getting out of his seat[s]. Two of the cabin crew had to assist, one pulling him up while the other pushed the seat in front of him with all her weight trying to create a little extra space. We were told to move on so as not to cause a scene or block the aisle.

Food / Your favourite Polish foods! [180]

To elaborate on pgtx's response:

Szarlotka is basically an apple pie, but sometimes it's filled with other things such as cream.

Sernik is cheese cake, but not like the traditional cheese cake you can find in Britain. Often it comes in 3 layers, the top being a thin chocolatey (or honey) layer, the second the white cheese and the third a spongey base. My local Cukiernia used to make a delicious one, but then they cheated on the recipe by using a cheap white-cheese substitute to fill up the weight because it was denser than the cheese they had before.

Food / Your favourite Polish foods! [180]

Firstly, my sample likely isn't the scientifically recognised definition of "representative". However, in my own experience, i see an overarching state of self-loathing among the Poles. There is a predominant "must get away from this country" attitude, and - while this may be in part because of the type of people I meet in my profession - this attitude is also prevalent amongst the majority I meet outside of my work. The Polish may bash many elements of their own country and culture, but by the heavens if you mention food then they'll lose their shizzle. The Poles are highly proud of their cuisine and will argue unto the end of the earth about its supremacy over the British.

WielkiPolak, it's amusing that you come up with comments like "British food sucks" and "stores are full of crap" then moan about how we attack you. Actually, contrary to your assumption, I don't see many British people declaring how brilliant our food is on these forums but I see a lot of Polish people doing just that. Unfortunate though that they often tend to do so using faux-experiences: "Yeah, English bread is awful compared to Polish bread. Here our bread is fresh, and not this dry stale crap you buy in England", while having only bought standard bread at a local corner shop instead of going to a bakery or the bakery section of a supermarket. Unbelievable! Freshly baked bread tastes better than Hovis best of both!? Obviously English bread sucks. Much the same, the Polish might attack British sausages, citing the quality difference between kielbasa from a local mieso i wedliny and frozen walls' sausages. Evidently we have been outclassed at every turn...

On topic: I truly think Polish dairy products (milk / butter / cheese) are dreadful. But I'll give them one thing, they know how to turn nothing into something great (cauliflower and bread crumbs - genius). What was the name of that egg-brand that did the advertisement, where they'd open the fridge and there'd be an egg and a few other random things and the narrator would say "courgette patata", was it Lion or something similar? That's the Polish ethic on an everyday basis.

Law / EU Citizen without Karta Pobytu [2]

Hi Erika,

You don't need a Karta Pobytu as a British citizen unless you plan on staying longer than five years (I believe).
However, you must have legalised your stay here by obtaining "Registration of residence of an EU citizen in Poland". It takes a couple of hours out of your time at the max. I read somewhere today actually a link to the exact information you need but I cannot seem to find it. Anyway, you fill out a form (must be in Polish) a long with a little description of why you're staying here and/or how you plan to support yourself while here (e.g. a job contract, or if not that, then a scan of your bank balance).

When I did it, I just needed a scan of my European Health Insurance Card (EHIC), my passport and my bank balance to show that I could support myself here, a long with a declaration of my reasons for staying here (e.g. "I intend to find work doing X"). You get your surprise visit from the Police at 8am as they interrogate you like a dirty criminal, and then a few days later you get your registration. After doing that, you can apply for your PESEL and after PESEL you can apply for NIP at your local tax office.

As you've been living in Poland for 2 years, I assume you have already done these things, if not... tut tut

When I had my surprise interview by the Police, they asked how long I'd been here. (I believe it was 3 1/2 months?) to which they raised their eyebrow and said "Polish law states that you have to leave after 3 months"... Gulp... "But nevermind".

Life / You've been in Poland a while if .... [49]


No, it's a rather common occurrence. Most days, my local Żabka or Delikatesy 24h is staffed by employees whom I've likely never made eye contact with, except when I've offended them by butchering their language. (You know, those moments you go to say something you've said a thousand times before and have perfected the pronunciation, only to end up saying something like "ploshy" instead of "proszę").


You'd have a pleasant surprise in Poznań then. There a few stations notorious for being "difficult to leave the tram" at. For the Poznanians here, they would be: Małe Garbary, Most Teatralny, Kórnicka and Półwiejska. You have to be very strategic about your positioning on trams to avoid being in situations where you have to ram people out the way like an American football player, or where you could be the one being rammed, crushed or pushed by babcie frantically trying to get off or on in case the tram left without them.

A few other things:

* You think it's normal that if there are multiple cash-places but only one queue of 10+ people, it's fair to bypass them.

* Entering an occupied elevator without saying "dzień dobry" imparts that you are either (a) mute or (b) the spawn of the devil himself.

* When a tourist asks you a question in English, you instinctively respond "Niestety, nie wiem". I was sitting at a table in a mall last year when a man comes up to me and in English clearly says "excuse me, is this seat free?" - I responded with "to nie wolne" and he walked off while I pondered the reason I responded in Polish.

* You start calling your toes 'fingers' and assigning genders to inanimate objects. "Oh that's a nice phone" - "Yes, he's really good"

* You appreciate that it's probably better to treat your serious medical condition or injury at home, rather than take your chances with the Polish emergency services

* You grow a fondness for flavoured bottle waters - a la Żywiec

* You spend 300zł on window netting to prevent an invasion of mosquitos during the summer.

Life / Living Costs and life in Poznan? [70]

1000zł a month on food? :) Are you shopping daily in Piotr i Pawel? We don't eat anything special either, but we certainly don't starve and we probably 'eat out' as it were maybe 4-5 times a month. I don't budget particularly well so I couldn't tell you my exact expenditures, but it's likely between 400 - 600 a month for two (plus two cats).

It would be nice to know what you plan on doing here - as others have mentioned above, lessons dry up this time of year. Due to cancellations and rescheduling in the last two months alone - both with schools and private lessons - I've earned only around 60% of my usual salary, not that it's a major problem - it's given me a lot of time to get ahead with preparing lesson materials. That being said, I did move to Poznań in October 2010 and didn't start searching until mid-December. By mid-January 2011 I had around 5 classes a week, so enough to scrape by.

@Peter - how many potatoes are you buying such that it costs 4zł? I bought enough potatoes to make 3 meals for 2 people for around 1.20zł in my downstairs delikatesy (I don't weigh them, I just shove the best spuds in the bag). It's certainly possible to survive cheaply here in regards to food, However, it depends on your ability to lower your standards. Carrefour makes for cheap shopping - jars of typical foods (gołąbki, pulpety, klopsiki, bigos) and packets of other things such as krokiety, kopytka, kasza, etc. My weakness is that I live directly opposite a McDonalds, so on those long days where I've been working from early morning and I don't get back home until gone 20:00, it's awfully tempting to indulge on the fatty goodness of a cheeseburger.

(p.s. the hyphen did not offend me)

Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]


Does that come out of your service costs? ;) Sounds like a nifty deal you have there - 2 hour lesson, lift to the location and meal included.

Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]

I'd really advise against travelling to a student's home. It does seem convenient at first and when you have only a few (2-3) students a week it's quite practical and even enjoyable. Do you drive? If so that might make it considerably easier. If not, then like me, you will probably become very tired of it very quickly. I have around 10-15 private classes a week scattered throughout the city (Poznań) and some even outside the city. I would be extremely happy if my students came to me or my lessons were consecutively ordered. I could save from that around 25-30 hours a week or more on just travel alone. Think how many extra lessons, language study, etc. that you could fit into that time?

Work / Englishman seeking non teaching work asap - to stay in Poland or ..? [37]


But are they exploring all avenues, e.g. Gumtree, dropping CV's into language schools, sticking obnoxious papers over university campus message boards, etc? The demand for Natives seems to be quite high at the moment in regards to private lessons, but from what I've experienced schools are not prospering, at least in Poznań. One director was telling me about how the proposed changes to education taxing posed a big risk to their finances.

I think it's quite possible to make a living from private lessons but it will be extremely tiring. At first I was quite nervous regarding group lessons, but I found that in fact it was far more relaxed, particularly as you tend to ask a question you expect a short answer for and the class ends up waffling to each other for about 15 minutes.


Ah I've heard of that one too, but frankly, listening to moaning passengers all day would drive me into a deep depression. I was referring to the phone service. They have a call centre for German and English clients.

Work / Englishman seeking non teaching work asap - to stay in Poland or ..? [37]

Without knowing Polish, the job market for foreigners here is extremely limited. Perhaps there is a small opportunity to get a job in a bar or in a restaurant cleaning dishes, or anything that doesn't involve the slightest possibility of being spoken to by a Polish person. Judging by the OP's lack of answer to the question about qualifications, we're left to assume he has none (particularly as he "gave teaching a try but wasn't good enough"). The only other option is searching for some international company that needs native speakers to deal with phone calls. We have something like it in Poznań and one of my students work there, but it's not glamorous and the pay is terrible.

Work / Englishman seeking non teaching work asap - to stay in Poland or ..? [37]

As a fair few people have already mentioned, people won't be satisfied with a "teacher" who has neither the qualifications or experience necessary to suit the role. If teaching is something that you have a serious interest in, then perhaps you should enrol in a CELTA course? At the very least you should research the market, brush up your grammar, acquire some textbooks and spend some time writing and checking your own materials. If however, you came for the girl and teaching is your only available option for work because of a lack of qualifications or knowledge of the local lingo, then I'd recommend that you re-evaluate your decisions. I've only been in Poland for a year, but at least here in Poznań, I know that the market is very competitive and it's all about the connections! At first, I had to fight to get a [very] small client base and cooperate with some schools, but it's not enough. Now, my students recommend me to their friends and colleagues and I have not needed to place an advertisement for work in quite some time (I'm not saying that I would object to more hours though :)). With that in mind, if you have a reputation for being unreliable or unqualified, then you're not going to get far.

Law / How Much Does It Cost To Form a Political Party In Poland? [15]

And posting on a forum that you're 14, from the UK and wish to become president of Poland doesn't?