Life / Is Poland a safe country for people of color? [241]


Belgium? Or Poland the country in which you're an immigrant?

Life / Is Poland a safe country for people of color? [241]


The same way that Europeans emigrating to the USA become Americans.

Travel / Visiting Sopot for a week in late May/start of June looking for restaurants/pubs [17]


Most of them - depends what you like. If you stay off the main drag (very chic but sometimes busy and always expensive) and avoid the pier (tacky and uninteresting) you'll find some nice places. Head down the boardwalk (going south) for a few hundred yards. There are some nice places on the beach.


Visit Gdynia next to Sopot. There's Bistro Kwadrat on pl. Kosciuszki (cheap and always busy) and a lovely place in the new building by the harbour (NOT the art deco building) which has excellent food. Gdynia has good shopping too.

Avoid Sphinx at all costs. There is plenty in this forum about how bad they are. MacDonald's with bland kebabs and frozen chips. Try a Polish restaurant - there are some nice ones in Gdańsk. A menu in German isn't always a good sign, A Polish clientele usually is.


Plenty. In Sopot at the top of the main street by the railway viaduct there's a good one. Several good ones in Gdańsk two very nice ones in the modern shopping precinct opposite the station. Avoid some of the tourist traps in the old town.


The post above has some good ideas. Don't even think about going there without visiting the Amber Museum. It is excellent.

Life / Is Poland a safe country for people of color? [241]


It refers to people who are identified by the majority group on the basis of skin tone.


And would you say that to a black person? To their face, that is, rather than on an internet forum?

Study / German v.s. Russian, language usefulness in Poland? [54]

Rusty German and decent (though often 'Stratford-atte-bower') French. A couple of others, but not fluently. Polish is my second language now, and the language I speak most often.

Study / German v.s. Russian, language usefulness in Poland? [54]


I can understand when a busy waiter in Paris does it, but here it's infuriating. I've had people insisting on speaking elementary English to me despite the fact that I'm fluent in Polish and they know it. If it was just a matter of wanting to practise their English it wouldn't be a problem; but oft times it is not.

I'll always remember something that happened a couple of years ago. I spent most of the evening in a quiet bar in Warsaw with a close friend (who doesn't speak English). We were discussing some quite complicated things, specifically a betting system he uses and it's benefits and specifically drawbacks (many, in my opinion). We were talking about holiday plans and our previous joint holidays for a while and about a small business venture we had and plenty of gossip about longstanding acquaintances. Also a bit about lifeskills heuristics and 'normal life principles' for the intellectually disabled, a shared professional interest. All in Polish, all quite complicated stuff. A man who'd been about a metre away the whole time, and who had been listening, leaned over to me and said with a heavy accent "How your stay? What hotel you?" Unbelievable.

News / Polish nightclub guard whacks off client's hand with saber [58]


Night club (Klub nocny) is often used as a euphemism for a brothel here.

News / Polish nightclub guard whacks off client's hand with saber [58]

Maybe he lost all his money on the one-armed bandit...

Polonia / Polish Community - Dubai or Abu Dhabi [53]

Try Dave's ESL Cafe, the UAE forum. There are one or two Poles there and there will certainly be other expats who know Poles and maybe could put you in touch.

Travel / Travel to Lwow from Rzeszow [18]


I recommend the Hotel Georges - both as a hotel and a restaurant. Apart from being pre-war and cheap (and amazing) they have their own pierogi recipe with something like Bolognese sauce inside. Worth the trip just for that.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


Baked in mud. But they gave up years ago, apart from special occasions and ost gypsies younger than about 50 have never tasted one. But the story persists.

Law / I have to fix Karta Pobytu for EU citizens [20]

That's kind! No PESEL (I've never had one). I suppose I am a bit of a dodgy foreigner though here legally etc. Some of my business affairs don't bear too much scrutiny, though there's nothing terrible or illegal there as far as I know. By police check, I think you mean Certyfikat Nekaralnosci which as far as I know is free or a nominal sum.

Oddly enough, when Poland joined the EU, there was a grace period when they just gave them out without checking much and in only a couple of weeks. This seems to have been only short-lived.

Thanks for your advice.

Law / I have to fix Karta Pobytu for EU citizens [20]

Wow! Thanks for your reply.


No. I last had a Karta Pobytu before Poland joined the EU. For most of the time since then I've been on the board of a company and theoretically only visiting every couple of weeks.


Horror! I've been on the phone today to a couple of people and they didn't mention any police check. Maybe because they both did this several years ago and the rules have since changed; maybe the Warsaw office don't require this. I've had the old style Karta Pobytu a couple of times and was never visited. I know the Krakow office do visits. Touch wood Warsaw won't, not least because time really is of the essence and that the zameldowanie will be at a friend's address.


This part I like! The website of the voivodship mentions scary sums.


It's Saudi and getting a visa has to be done in person.

Thanks for the helpful advice!

Law / I have to fix Karta Pobytu for EU citizens [20]


Yes. Since Poland joined the EU the procedure has changed for citizens of EU countries. My only experience of this was pre-2004 and my experience mirrors yours. But the rules have changed for e. They even call the card something different, apparently. But thanks for your kind reply.

The reason I'm panicking is this. I hope to leave Poland in late May for a short contract in a foreign country which has very strict visa rules. If I want to arrange the visa here in Poland, I must regulate my stay here. I haven't needed a Karta Pobytu (or it's EU specific equivalent) for some time, but now do. I have two options, either to get the card as quickly as possible or to go to London for a couple of weeks which would be very inconvenient for me. Hence the question.

If I can't fix the paperwork, I can't take up the job offer. This isn't a tragedy (though a shame because it pays silly money) since I'd probably start a year's contract with the same firm in October, but frankly I'd like to get this out of the way now for a lot of reasons.

Another problem is that the department on ul. Dluga are very inconsistent about what they require. They are closed today, and the online information is vague and conflicting.

I'm interested if anyone British, Irish, etc. has done the formalities recently, and if so, what was required, how much it cost and how long it took.

edit


More thanks!

That information is like gold dust, rocking-horse **** or a virgin in Fantom. You wouldn't happen to know what they'll require in terms of other paperwork? eaning work, insurance etc. Since I've only arrived last week that is. And would a month zameldowanie satisfy them? And how long should I expect to wait?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but there's a bit of a race against time here.

History / Israeli wants to wipe Poland off the map! [198]


Where to start? Maybe when they took all those Americans hostage back in 79. The list is long.

When push comes to shove, Iran is a country that people seem desperate to get out of. Israel however has a huge influx of people year on year.

News / Can a Polish person give up EU handouts? [15]


My friend who's a farmer has just got a shiny new tractor thanks to the EU. Why don't you break into his farmyard and try to steal it in order to send it back? When his four brothers are there. The results could be funny.

Of course if you don't want the benefit of EU subsidies, you'll have to avoid travelling by train in Poland, since PKPs rolling stock is being upgraded thanks to the EU. You'll also have to avoid driving on the new roads they've paid for too. And don't even think of travelling by tram in Warsaw.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


In Warsaw you get the REGON direct from GUS which takes an hour of waiting, a flurry of photocopying and stamp buying and about 10 mins to actually get it

Perversely, you don't go to the huge shiny GUS office in the city centre, but to one down a mud track in the outer suburbs.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


Or in Warsaw one trip to the Urząd Miasta, a trip to the tax office then to Główny Urząd Statystycne, and trip back to the tax office. If it's a one man band your last tasks will be a visit to ZUS and to get a rubber stamp made while-U-wait.

Don't let Poles befuddle you with stories about it being complicated, remember you need to know what type of accounts you are going to keep (choose the easiest), remember that three tax officials will have four different answers to the same question which they will each swear on their life is right - choose whatever answer suits you best and take a good book with you - there's a lot of waiting in corridors.

If it's a limited company however procedures are a little different. Perhaps even simpler, but you need to register it with the court and sign the articles of incorporation at a notary and with a sworn translator.


Yes. People have gone bust due to a bad accountant (bookkeeper is more accurate but they always say accountant) - many of them in PL don't understand their role - they see themselves as some sort of intermediary between the business and the state and actually refuse to do the client's bidding.

It is vital to get a good one. When I started up I had a bookkeeper who booked the first two months of 100k plus billing as well as the start-ip capital into the same month and all the salaries and overheads into a subsequent month showing a 250000 zl pre-tax false profit. For only two months and the tax bill due right away. She swore blindly (and loudly) that this was right and is "how we do it in Poland".

The old bi tch nearly busted the company and made 40 people unemployed and the financial analyst I had to get in to sort her mess out it out "isn't Polish so can't understand".

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


This is a doddle and the new syllabus is more fun to teach than the old one. BEC Higher too.


I came here to do ESP (Military English as it happens) and quite liked it. EAP is less interesting IMHO but more useful on the CV.


There's a lot of 'soft' ESP here has been for years but on a more concrete level I agree with you, it has yet to get off the ground.

EAP is going to be really very big and in a worst-case market scenario, the best practical option for teachers who are under about 40-45 and want to work here until retirement.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


I was thinking of studying and deducting it from my tax. If you are a Director of an Sp z o.o. this is possible; if you operate a Działaność Gospodarcze there are some options too.


Agreed. And the changes will be radical. People have been saying the 'glory days' of Polish EFL are over for years. The market is maturing. A useful exercise is to look at the state in other countries. It can't ever be an exact comparison but is worthwhile reflecting on. Will it turn out like Spain, like Finland like Argentina, like Turkey? None of those possibilities bode well. Kids have been coming out of better schools already with FCE for a while now and the level of English in Polish schools is really improving. Plus Europe-wide changes in the way universities operate will come sooner or later.


That's true, but getting harder.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


They mostly earn money by taking a franchise fee from language schools who use their name. They have a reputation among newbie teachers but among students their reputation is only as good as their local franchisee. Changes in visa requirements (plus expansion of the EU) have dinted their profits because London-based courses (with visas allowing their students to work) was a big part of what they do. Of the two mentioned, one is close to losing its charitable status and has already had to sell its London headquarters and the other is dependent on a couple of precarious income streams and has lost its Chief Executive among other problems. Of the two, Bell is probably better - they have a wider spread of operations than IH, but again, they're OK as a recruiter but the actual day to day operations depend on the local franchisee over whom they have little control.


Never read one. I'm intrigued,


I thought that back in the UK. Until a tragedy changed everything and I found myself grieving and desperate for a change of scene.


Harmer's good. All EFL teachers should not only have a copy but also read it and refer to it. I like Wright too.


That will help you. I still urge you to get some concrete proof on paper. You know you have the skills - the important thing is proof.


Thirty-plus thousand Americans in Prague, and half of them short of work. A language school in provincial Czech (I think Ostrava, the Scunthorpe of Czech and a long long way from the capital) advertised a full-time vacancy a month ago and got 250 CVs.


I've a strong suspicion that in ten or fifteen years' time Warsaw will be unrecognisable. The schools that will be doing well will be either the ones with huge marketing budgets or ones outside the capital doing korepeticja and FCE from the ground floor of the owners' homes and declaring only half the income to the tax man. And then PYPs will come and then only korepeticja, U3A and evening classes will be left.


It's a good thing to have, but don't you want to study further? If I wasn't thinking so strongly about leaving I'd be looking at studying an unrelated subject just for the joy of doing it.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


Which books do you mean? As an aside I haven't read any 'career books'.


Respectable enough.


That's just dandy, great on a CV, but better if you've got the little embossed bit of vellum to prove it.


A masters' degree or a DELTA is an 'egomaniacal game'?


You and me both, and it's nice to have enough money to enjoy the best of them.


Very much so. Those aimed at EFL teachers (the better ones - choose carefully) indeed have 'intensive studying and continuous mentoring'.


We're coming from the same place. In my case I want to make damn sure it works. Entry level jobs in fourth rate tertiary sector institutions are no paradise.


Groundhog day after a few years and even the good ones can feel like sweatshops after a while. And increasingly you will have to compete for lessons with Poles who speak near perfect English, have better qualifications than you and lower salary expectations.


I have a language school in Warsaw :-)) I like it all, the selling, the hiring and I teach some of the lessons myself too. But the business is only as valuable as the value of the in-company contracts which can (and sometimes do) go in a puff of smoke. And the margin on an in-company lesson (ten years ago at least 100% less overhead charge, now closer to 20%) means a lot of selling for small rewards. I'm ready for a change, and grateful that I have the paper qualifications to give me a choice in this.


Agreed. A company report Pol to Eng can be grindingly dull, a 100 page technical specification Eng to Pol quickly becomes a chore.


Right now yes, meaning the state and direction of the market in PL compared to other places. I've also seen far too many people here that I don't want to become like.


You've almost hit the nail on the head. My professional journey has always been upward, and I really want it to stay that way. Call it ambition, call it a fear of being stuck in a rut, call it anything. I would still advise anyone who wants to make a serious and rewarding career in EFL to not stop with just the CELTA.


My point exactly. I'm approaching 45 with a business that could vanish at the stroke of a few finance directors' pens. At least at the moment I'm making a bit more money than I really need - there's a hell of a lot of people in a far far worse situation, including many in PL. Prague and Vienna are full of them. I wouldn't want that for myself, and I'm sure you wouldn't too.


Wouldn't you want to return there with a nice nest egg in an offshore bank? A safety net that gives you free choice about when to return, where to live and what to do. That takes either exceptional drive, exceptional luck or very solid professional skills backed up with proof on paper.

I like living in Warsaw. I go to the theatre every week, the opera every month, the philharmonia too. I eat out at the country's best restaurants, have weekends in good hotels, live somewhere nice. I'm lucky. Either lucky or very driven. Most EFL teachers aren't in that situation.

I know a lot of EFL teachers both here and elsewhere. Without exception the ones who live in sub-optimal accommodation, eat at burger bars and have to be very very careful with money and are in dead-end underpaid jobs have only the CELTA and often not even that. The ones who live well and happily have either got real estate back home, higher qualifications, an absence of ambition, a rich spouse or a combination of those factors.

Maybe I sound preachy and patronising. If so I apologise. My point is that doing the DELTA was one of the best decisions I made - it has given me the flexibility to up and leave when I want (important in our profession) and was great professional development as well as being intellectually stimulating. I know a lot of teachers, married with kids, who've gone to the Gulf, to West Africa, to Central Asia (basically anywhere with oil) for their and their families' future. The ones with minimum qualifications had to leave their families back home and remit money like a third-world citizen; the ones with that extra bit of paper could get jobs with family accommodation, health insurance and school fees provided.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


I'm not sure what sort of age you are but it's about where you want to be later in your career. As Thatcher said "jam tomorrow".


Touch neither. They are parasites.


Agreed.


Most people would find that an unusual comment to say the least.


Avoid the kind that are all by distance. The better employers don't accept them. The two that I mentioned recognise that you can do the academic part from anywhere and the observed teaching component can be done in two annual sessions at a time of year that mutually suits, usually the summer.


You and me both, but where do you want to be a few years down the line?


By opening a heck of a lot of doors and by leaving less to chance.


A better more fulfilling job than language school or entry level university work.


We've all done that. I do translations (the reason I'm sat at the computer so much, looking at PF every half hour) and they are the icing on the cake which pay for my holidays and a few of life's luxuries. But only that. I have about 20 years left of working life, assuming I retire in my mid-60s, and wouldn't want to be doing language school work and translations during all of that time. Would you?

If you really don't want to develop academically and you want to stay for life in PL (I once thought that), you could do much worse than open a language school as I did. But be very aware that the market is changing very fast and PYPs will eventually kill 80% of it here as they have in many other developed countries.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


What do you see as the next stage in life's journey?


A university is vulture-like? Check out MA Tesol at New School in NYC. Or the MA at Sheffield Hallam.


Or for people who like professional and personal development and want access to jobs with better pay and conditions, not necessarily in bottom-feeding language schools or on company contracts which last as long as the firm's current training policy.

And remember that in Poland you'll soon be 'competing' (and that's how they see it) with well qualified non-natives with near-native levels of English. They are also very prepared to accept 3000zl a year and are overjoyed if they get 4k.

By the way, although DELTA is useful in its way (and I found it valuable), an MA in Applied Linguistics or the MA Tesol (geared up to people doing 75% through distance learning) opens a lot more doors, worldwide.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]



I hope by the time you retire Help The Aged are still operating to make sure you get the fuel vouchers.

There's also the issue that it's OK for a twenty-something to be slinging Headway at Agnieszkas and Magdas in their language school FCE classes but after 10 or 20 years doing it you might find you want a little more job-satisfaction, salary, personal development and value in the employment market.

There's also the issue that the EFL market in a given country is subject both to market forces/economic change and government policy. Over the last ten years I've seen a lot of change here in PL, and the international trend towards PYPs has frozen out underqualified teachers already in some countries.

Getting a DELTA, QTS or MA Tesol is one of the best favours you can do for yourself in the EFL profession. That or buy a lot of Lotto tickets.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]



So what happens if you decide you want to teach somewhere other than a bottom feeding language school, in order to save some pennies for your old age?

Life / Conditions for officially unlocking Iphone Orange.pl [7]

Take it to one of those places under Dworzec Centralny, they do it for 15zl.

UK, Ireland / English teenager refused service at Polish shop [87]


Blood on the carpet and tears at bedtime.

UK, Ireland / English teenager refused service at Polish shop [87]


Classic trolling.


Exactly.

Sounds a bit similar to the teenager I saw tonight throwing a kebab all over the owner of the shop due to some imagined slight. At least the shopkeeper threw it back even though it ended up all over the pavement on Marszałkowska. Chilli sauce everywhere.


She'd probably stuck a kielbasa down her knickers.