USA, Canada / Will a Bachelor's degree from Poland be recognized by an American university? [5]

From what I have heard, with doing master after a bachelor in Poland the problem is that the master courses in Poland are shorter than in the US, and many American universities make problems to recognize them because of that. Doing American master after Polish master or American PhD after Polish master usually works, but American master after Polish bachelor is problematic.

The best would be to ask the American university you want to make master at, how they look at it, and on what conditions could you start their master after Polish bachelor.

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


It's a place where just private people driving between cities announce that they have free seats and they can take others on these free seats for the proposed price. Like eBay, but for car rides :-). They have a rating system, so if you choose a driver with good rates (read also the opinions), everything should be good. I haven't heard about problems with this. You can see what kind of car the driver drives (also the color - might be important rather for women), you also can read some opinions, for example whether he drives calmly or aggresively etc.

Bus ticket price will be comparable or lower.


For most of us in Poland so spicy food is just too hot and difficult to eat. Some people like this, but many - not. I think if you say you want it very spicy, they will know what to do.


I think Kraków may have more polluted air. It's not only the matter of the industry, but also the cars in the city, and in winter - also lack of connection of many houses to the city heating network (so they must heat themselves locally and generate pollution in the city). And Kraków lays, basically, in a hole, which results in the pollution concentrating in the city.

Although I believe that in the countries like Singapore it's not much different.

A good advice with the lake, especially in a good weather!

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]

Not each country has this system with tickets stamped once entering the bus/tram (although most European countries have it), so I understand, that someone can be confused.


Good advice, a döner kebab is usually the chaepest food you can find. Also Chinese food places are often cheap and offer big portions for low prices, or small diners with Polish food (often marked as "obiady domowe").


Not necessarily. When you are in another city and you don't have your car with you, will you pay for a taxi each time? A rich person will probably do it, if you are in a group of a few people, it will also work, but if you are alone, bus/tram is much cheaper and it's pointless to use a taxi, unless you are in hurry.


It comes in such a way, that it's impossible to buy a ticket for a shorter ride from the driver. Buy the ticket in a shop, then you can adjust its duration to your needs.

There is also a possibility to get a public transport card, with which you can pay exactly for the needed number of stops, but it doesn't make sense to bother to get it, when you are there only for 10 days.


Exactly, the price list tells everything. This price list should be present also somewhere inside the tram, and probably also at the stop.


Exactly. At the hotel they should know everything, just ask there.


If you buy three separate single tickets, you can use them, of course, on different days. Or even after a few months, unless they change the prices in the meantime. It doesn't say anywhere on the ticket, when it was bought (on those from a ticket machine it may say, but it doesn't matter).

If you buy a ticket valid for a 3 days... I don't know how it is in KZK GOP. Let's see... It seems there is no 3-day tickets, there are 48-hour and 5-day ones, and both these types are also subject to validation in a machine on the board of the bus/tram, so you can start using them whenever you want, but then they are valid for exactly 48 hours or 5 days from the moment of validating (the 5-day one just for 5 days, including the day of validating).

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


Below the table it says:


So everything is ok, just the tickets bought from drivers are more expensive. It makes sense, otherwise people would massively buy them from the drivers (because it's simpler than to go to a newspaper kiosk and do it there) and cause delays.


No, 2,40 zł is a discount ticket, for example for students - it seems that the driver had no more 4,80 zł tickets, so he gave you two 2,40 zł instead You should stamp both one after another, since you should pay 4,80 zł (unless you buy a ticket in a newspaper kiosk or in a ticket machine). Then it's perfectly ok.


Milk chocolate is the standard, mild one. It will not be bitter, rather sweet.

If you were in Carrefour, there should be also a kiosk/shop selling newspapers, magazines etc. in the same building (I mean, there are usually such places in the buildings of big supermarkets), and they very likely sell also tickets. If you live close to this Carrefour, this might be the best place.


As it says on the website, the ticket bought from the driver expires after an hour from validating it, unless you don't change trams. If you don't leave the tram in which you validated the ticket, you can travel up to its end stop, even when it takes more than an hour. If you leave it and take another one, or a bus, then it's valid only for one hour.

Law / Child maintenance - at what age can I stop paying child support in Poland? [9]


Yes, after the vocational school you can go to so called "liceum uzupełniające dla dorosłych" - "supplementary secondary school for the adults" (yes, the name is quite stupid), and then take the "matura" exam. There used to be also "technikum uzupełniające", but it has been removed. Its part connected with the professional subjects (what is more in "technikum" than it was in "szkoła zawodowa") was moved to so called "vocational courses" (kursy zawodowe), and the general education part can be realised as "liceum uzupełniające dla dorosłych".

(sorry for cutting most of the quotation, a stupid forum system says that the quotaton is too long)

Law / Child maintenance - at what age can I stop paying child support in Poland? [9]

Gimnazjum is not a secondary school. It's more a kind of primary school, it's obligatory for every one - just as a 3-year continuation of the 6-year proper primary school. Maybe it was mistaken with "Gymnasium" from the German educational system, which is a secondary school, being a rough equivalent of the Polish "liceum".

The basic types of secondary education institutions in Poland are:
- liceum (secondary school) - it doesn't give any professional education, it prepares to higher studies and ends with so called "maturity examination" (nicknamed "matura"), which actually allows to start higher studies

- szkoła zawodowa (vocational school) - gives only basic professional education in a given job, you cannot take "matura" after it, but you take an exam in the given profession (e.g. hairdresser, car mechanic, baker, electrician)

- technikum - gives more advanced professional education than "szkoła zawodowa" (you pass a more difficult exam in the given profession), and also prepares to higher studies (although much weaker than "liceum"), lets you take "matura"

"Szkoła policealna" is the next level - for those, who have graduated from "liceum", but for some reasons don't want or cannot take higher studies (because, for example, they don't manage to pass the "matura"). Hence the name - "policealna" means "after liceum". It's an equivalent of "technikum", but it doesn't include the general subjects, like history, geography, maths etc., it includes only those preparing to the given profession (so, for example, for a computer technician, it may include operating systems, computer networks, hardware etc). It might be also chosen for those who graduated from "technikum", but want to get an education in a different job.

By the way, there might be also a case, when someone fails a year in the school many times. Although it's not much likely, usually teachers try to push the student to the next year anyway. And to be still a school-level student at the age of 24, you would have to fail a year 4 times. And go to technikum, not to szkoła zawodowa - while so weak students usually go to szkoła zawodowa, as technikum is usually too difficult for them (not to mention liceum and higher studies).

Courts usually let the child get the maintenance money up to the moment of getting a master degree in a single study field, unless, of course, the child finishes its education on a lower level, stops the education, or has much difficulty graduating.

Law / Child maintenance - at what age can I stop paying child support in Poland? [9]

There is no defined age. Basically up to the moment he finishes his education (also higher education) and starts working. If it's decided by the court that you have to pay, you also have to go to the court to cancel that.

Travel / Question about Layover - transfer flights from/to Poland [4]

So do you have a Polish visa or a Polish passport (i.e. you are a Polish citizen)?

If you have a Polish passport, you don't need any visa for Athens. You can move around the city and outside of it without any problem.

I am not sure about a Polish visa, but I think you also don't need anything; from what I know, Polish visa = Schengen visa, and Greece belongs to the Schengen zone.

Have a read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_Schengen_Area

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]

You will get them in each supermarket, for example in the Carrefour you told already about. In a special store you will just have a bigger choice of also some maybe more unique specialities - but a supermarket should be enough.

You will definitely get some souveniers in Cracow. Chorzów/Katowice is not such a touristic site, so it might be more problematic. You can check the tourist information office, they will probably have some there.

Did I get it correctly that you live in a hotel next to the AKS shopping mall? If so, it seems that if you take any tram from there (in the proper direction, the other one is to the centre of Chorzów), you will get to Katowice. Get off at this stop: goo.gl/maps/wFS1Z5tdw762, turn right, walk and after a short distance you will reach the bus terminal, from where you can get to Cracow.

Very close to your place there is also a very big and known park, one of the biggest in Europe.

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


Looking at this stop at the Google Street View, I can see a kiosk there, which would most likely sell tickets as well, but on Sunday it's probably closed. There is a big shopping mall nearby, there is probably a newspaper shop inside as well, and most likely they are open on Sunday and they sell also public transport tickets.

Theoretically you should have an exact amount of money to buy the ticket for the driver, but maybe he will sell it anyway. It's always better to have a ticket bought before. Ticket is "bilet" in Polish.

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


It may depend on the city. In Łódź the tickets don't have any magnetic strips, in Warsaw, from what I know, they do. No idea how it's in the Silesian metropoly.

Wawel is a good chocolate, Goplana as well. Don't buy Wedel, it's probably the most known, but it used to be good in the past, until it was bought by one of the western corportations.


Belvedere.

Yes, Żubrówka is most known.


In a huge supermarket, like Auchan, a big Carrefour or a big Tesco, it shouldn't be so difficult. But the whole range can be found in their factory shops.


I would recommend Play, but someone else will probably recommend T-Mobile...

Play usually has the best prices.

From Chorzów/Katowice to Kraków it's better to take a bus. The train route is being renovated and it takes more time to go by train because of that. You must buy a separate ticket for the train or bus from Chorzów/Katowice to Kraków, and if you want to use the city public transport in Kraków, you also need separate public transport tickets there (although if you want to see just the old town and Wawel, the old Polish kings' castle, you will not need to use the city public transport).

You will probably have take the train or bus to Kraków from Katowice, there is no direct trains from Chorzów. There is a direct bus, but it's in the afternoon from Chorzów to Kraków, so it will not work for you as well.

A good and usually very cheap bus company is polskibus.com - for them you have to book the ticket online. You don't have to print it, the "ticket" is just a long code consisting of numbers and letters, which you can write down.

Remember that the bus station in Katowice is in a bit different place than the train station (although not far away, at 500 m distance). From Chorzów to Katowice you can take a tram, a bus or a train (especially if you will live close to a train station), the website gop.jakdojade.pl can find all the connections - but remember that the city public transport tickets aren't valid on the train, you must buy a train ticket for the train. It seems that a train ticket from Chorzów to Katowice costs around 5 zł. If you board the train at the Chorzów Batory station (or back from Katowice), you have to buy the ticket at the counter, otherwise - from the train staff (buy the ticket immediately once you board the train).

For the other bus companies you can usually either buy the ticket directly from the driver (although it seems it may not work on this route), or at the office at the station, some of them offer also online tickets on their websites.

You can find all the bus connections at e-podroznik.pl

The biggest bus companies on this route seem to be, apart for the PolskiBus, also Neobus, Inter and Uni-Bus. There are also some buses making longer routes and going through Katowice and Kraków. As a result, the bus connection is very frequent, every 15 minutes or even more frequently, so it seems you can go to the bus station in Katowice whenever you want, look at the timetable, buy the ticket for the next bus (unless it's PolskiBus) and take it.

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


If the Google Maps can find public transport connections in Chorzów, it should work.
The website jakdojade.pl might be better, as they update the data more frequently, and you are less likely to get timetables which are not up to date.


They do.

Actualy in the Silesian metropoly the system of tram/bus tickets is that they are valid either for specific time, or for a single ride (without changes) within one, two or more cities/towns (covered by this public transport system).

You have the total price list here: kzkgop.com.pl/strony/p-1-cennik-oplat.html?lang=en


You put it to the validating machine, which stamps some number on it (including the current time and date and the number of the vehicle), probably also punches holes in it (but not necessarily).

It looks like that, or similarly (this one is quite an old model, I don't know if they still use it in Chorzów - but newer ones work in exactly the same way, they also have a single slot for the ticket):

Po polsku / Pies rodowodowy/nierodowodowy w Polsce i w innych krajach [3]

A co jeśli ktoś po prostu chce sobie kupić psa nierasowego (kundla)?

Można oczywiście wziąć takiego ze schroniska - ale co jeśli ktoś chce takiego psa od kogoś kupić - bo np. chce go wychowywać jeszcze od szczeniaka?

Nie powinno być to zakazane, i mam nadzieję że nie jest.

A przepisy dotyczą chyba raczej psów rasowych pochodzących z hodowli - zdarzały się nielegalne hodowle, w których zwierzęta były po prostu źle traktowane i żyły w niegodnych im warunkach. Stąd wymaganie, by takie hodowle były rejestrowane i ich kontrolowanie jak najbardziej ma sens. Szczególnie, że ludzie zarabiają na nich duże pieniądze.

UK, Ireland / Should an English website in UK have Polish translations? [12]

In my opinion - English should be enough. From the people going abroad (for any purpose) it can be expected that they will be able to speak if not the language of the country they go to, then at least English - as it's kind of "lingua franca" now, the language that most people in the world learn as a foreign language. So a website of such a unit in any country should have at least two versions: in the language of this country and in English. In this specific case both of them are exacltly the same language - therefore it's enough it will be in English.

I understand that it is a multi-cultural society, but it's still the UK, and the immigrants are only kind of guests.

However it's always nice to make things easier for the people, and if there lives many Poles there, it's definitely a good idea to translate the website to Polish. But it isn't anything necessary.

The idea of translating only the most important things is very good.

Law / Required Documents for Buying a Used Car in Poland [17]

I have found some information that the PESEL number on the car sale contract is obligatory from 1. Januar 2016 to register the car, but maybe it doesn't concern foreigners not having this number (as for example this possibility is taken into account in the car registration form). I couldn't find any detailed information.

Travel / Optimal order of Warsaw-Gdansk-Krakow for train travel September [8]

Hm... equally well I could say "never drive in Poland" :)

The Polish railway isn't maybe the most reliable means of transport, but it's not much worse from the railway in the other European countries (ok, it is, in terms of the speed, but it's definitely not bad, and still in many cases faster than car or bus).

Taking a plane is also a good option, if you can find a flight in a good price. Lot should be better from Ryanair in terms of that in Warsaw it uses the Okęcie airport, which is located within the city, while Ryanair uses the remote Modlin airport, from where you have to take a bus or a train (to which you have to get by a shuttle bus from the airport anyway) to Warsaw. But will be also probably more expensive.

Law / Required Documents for Buying a Used Car in Poland [17]

You must sign a sale contract (umowa sprzedaży, sometimes incorrectly called umowa kupna-sprzedaży) with him. There is no official pattern, but you will find examples on the Internet. Normally you usually include the PESEL number, the address and the number of the identity document of both the seller and the buyer. If you don't have the PESEL number, it should be enough with the passport number and the address, but I am not sure if PESEL is not necessary to register the car.

If the car was registered in Poland before and you are going to register it in Poland now, it's enough.

The seller has to give you the registration certificate (dowód rejestracyjny) of the car, the vehicle card (karta pojazdu) and the insurance documents. The obligatory civil liability insurance is automatically passed from the seller to the buyer, but the prices depend on the person who is the car owner (for example you pay more if you are younger), so it might be so that you will have to pay something extra, even though the insurance paid by the old owner is still valid for a few months. Contact the insurance company in which the car is insured. If you buy the car from a private owner, apart from registering it, you also have to go to the tax office and pay the tax (2% of the price).

Be careful while buying the car - it's good to have a specialist with you who will check it's technical condition. Don't trust the km counter (it's common to modify its indication before selling the car), rather look at the wear-out of the surface of the elements like the steering wheel, the gear changing lever or the seats to determine how intensively the car has been used. If you buy the car from a reseller (komis) and you want to take the car for an inspection to a local car service, also be careful, it happens often that the reseller and the local car service owner know each other well and the closest car service won't necessarily tell you the truth about the car. It seems to be better to buy a car from a private owner than from a reseller.

There is also a lot of sale offers for cars imported from Germany, and sometimes from other EU countries. They may look very good, since the prices are usually lower, but you will have to pay quite a high tax, do a lot of paperwork, and those cars aren't usually in a perfect condition.

Here (in Polish) is everything you need to register a car: motofakty.pl/artykul/wszystko-o-rejestracji-samochodow-oplaty-podatki-dokumenty-poradnik.html

In short, you need:
- a filled-in registration form (you will find it in the office where you are registering the car, or you can print it and fill it in by yourself before - DOC: bip.um.wroc.pl/attachments/download/13188, PDF: bip.um.wroc.pl/attachments/download/13809)

- proof of owning the car (usually the sale contract)
- the old registration certificate with a valid (not expired) confirmation of a technical inspection - a car must pass such an inspection every year
- vehicle card (unless it's an old car, from the times when such cards weren't issued yet)
- ID card or another identity document (passport in your case)
- the old license plates

If the car was registered in the same county (powiat) before as you live, you pay 81 zł for everything. Otherwise, you need new license plates, and you pay 180,50 zł altogether. Also, if the car still has old black license plates with white letters, you will have to pay the higher price and get new plates - even if it was registered in the same county before. If you have white license plates with a blue bar on the left, then they can stay if the car will be registered in the same county as before, regardless of whether they have the Polish flag on the blue bar, or the EU flag.

If the car is very old and doesn't have the vehicle card, you will also have to pay 75,50 zł for issuing one.

After doing all the formalities and paying all the fees, you get a temporary registration certificate valid for 30 days. In this time they will print the proper registration certificate, which you will have to receive in the same office where you registered the car. If there is such a need, you will get also new license plates, a new sticker with the registration number for the windscreen and a new vehicle card (the last one only if you didn't have any before, the vehicle card is a document which stays with the car forever). If the old license plates stay, then they will only put new legalisation stickers on them.

Travel / Optimal order of Warsaw-Gdansk-Krakow for train travel September [8]

And will charge you service fee, while you can do it online by yourself without any problem...

Booking the tickets through a middleman may make sense only for international tickets from Poland other than to Berlin, or maybe, sometimes, tickets for connections involving changing between trains. Because it's impossible to buy them online.

By plane it's faster and also cheap, for a distance between Cracow and Gdańsk it makes sense, but you have hand luggage only unless you pay extra for registered luggage.

Travel / Optimal order of Warsaw-Gdansk-Krakow for train travel September [8]

It doesn't matter.

Between Gdańsk, Warsaw and Cracow you have quite fast "EIP" connections with Pendolino trains. Buy tickets early (they are released always 30 days before the departure, and it's best to do it immediately when they appear), then you will pay much less - you can do it online. The fastest train connection between Cracow and Gdańsk is exactly through Warsaw.

Is it smart to travel overnight? It's 5,5 hour by train, so it may make sense to do it overnight (the night train is deliberately slower, so that you don't have to leave Cracow or get to Gdańsk in the middle of the night, and it takes around 8 hours). But then book a sleeper, or at least a couchette (the night train is an ordinary train, not Pendolino). Travelling overnight in an ordinary compartment you risk being robbed, the thieves are active in the overnight trains in Poland.

Language / Use of Kochanie in Polish [37]

Exactly.

moja miłość, moje kochanie

Law / What banks are people using in Poland? [50]

How is Poland different from another countries in terms of that?

And what is your problem? What should we help you with? I cannot see any question in your post, so I don't understand what was the point of opening this thread.

Law / Need help with Allegro in Poland, I'd like to sell a few things. [5]

It should be OK, although an offer with shipping from abroad will be always less trustworthy. There is many people reselling on Allegro products from AliExpress, then the shipping is from China and it also works.

How will the shipping work? You have to take care about that. Send the products by post, or by courier service. I don't know how it is with the British post, but once the parcel gets to Poland, everything should be ok. The Polish post is fast and reliable.

Another thing is payment. Sellers on Allegro usually offer both payment in advance (by a bank transfer) and at the moment of receiving the package (the post offers such a service, the courier companies offer it as well). If you are new and you don't have any reviews yet, many of the buyers will not trust you if they have to pay in advance. But it's good to offer such an option anyway, and it will be best for you to use the Allegro paying scheme (if I remember well, it's called PayU), then they will not have to send money to a foreign bank account, which might be problematic and which would make you much less trustworthy. Then you can withdraw money from the PayU system to a foreign bank account as well.

Travel / Upgrade of Warsaw - Zielonka - Bialystok train line (linia nr 6) [8]

I suppose they will still end in Wileńska. Looking at the location of railway lines, if a train from Zielonka to Warsaw was supposed to finish at Warszawa Centralna/Śródmieście, it would have to omit Ząbki. And there is a subway station at Warszawa Wileńska, so it's a place well connected with the rest of the city.

I have no idea what are the planned timings. You may create an account on that forum and ask in that thread in English, explaining you cannot find that information - I think you should get an answer.

Travel / Muslim tourist visiting Poland - safety concerns [51]


I believe you, and for sure many people also think so... But how to explain it to the whole society?


Definitely, it's always the case.

If someone likes to wear blankets, it's definitely nothing bad in that, as long as he accepts that other people in the country dress up in a different way. If someone forces his wife to hide the head - it will not be accepted in Europe, because it's just breaching the basic human rights. If the wife does it according to her free will, then it's ok. The problem is that sometimes it might be dificult to decide where is the border.

Law / A Polish bank that doesn't rip u off..... [9]

WTF? This is definitely something wrong, it's impossible they charge you anything like that unless you have taken a loan, or you have a direct debit (polecenie zapłaty) and it's not the bank who charges that from you. You must explain that with the bank.

Travel / Muslim tourist visiting Poland - safety concerns [51]

I would say it's a fault of all the extremist and terrorist organisations, who are mostly muslim, that muslims are here in Poland seen as they are. But it's even difficult to call it a fault - for me it looks deliberate.

The true is that humans and humans, and also muslims are normal people, they even believe in the same only God as christians. But explain it to simple people, who see on TV that muslims (not christians, not jews, not buddists - but muslims) are making terrorist attacks, that muslims rape women in big European cities on New Year's Eve (I am not saying whether it was true or not, I say what media were showing), that muslims break into trucks on French-British border to illegally cross the border, that muslims make turmoils in camps for refugees, that muslims massively move to European countries saying they are refugees even if they aren't. I don't say people of other religions don't do that. This is just what the mass media show - even not the TV (on the main news on the Polish public TV, in the time when the "refugees" topic was very popular, they were even showing, every day, the life of the real, not fake, refugees from Syria, coming to Europe as refugees fully legally - to show people that real refugees also exist), but mostly the Internet.

It's definitely not fair that because of a relatively small group of idiots who either don't know how to behave, or do it deliberately, the muslims who are just normal people and don't look for any conflict are discriminated. Or even not only muslims, but any foreign-looking people, especially those with a skin darker than typical for Poland. There is also a group of Polish people, originating mostly from the football (soccer) fans/hooligans society, who as well look for conflict with any foreigners, saying they are patriots and they want to protect Poland (as if the conflicts with the fans of the opposite football clubs weren't enough). But what can we do about that?

I would say, muslims have these dzhihadists, extremists and terrorists, as well as fake refugees and other "naughty guys", and first they have to do something with them.

Law / A Polish bank that doesn't rip u off..... [9]

PKO BP is definitely Polish since it belongs to the state.

But does it matter, who owns the specific bank? I don't think so. What I would like first at a customer is the quality of service, not the country of the bank.

Also most of these banks used to be Polish, they were created either in the process of division of the NBP (Polish National Bank - currently responsible only for taking care of all the money on the market and supervision over all the banks) in 1989 - for example PKO BP, ING, BPH - most of the biggest banks, or were created from scratch as private businesses - like mBank. Only Pekao SA is a bank which existed before 1989 - and was also originally Polish.

Therefore they employ really a lot people in Poland and also pay taxes here.

Charging for checking the balance in a cash machine is typical especially for the online-oriented banks. From what I know, for example Pekao SA doesn't charge for this.

Debit card without monthly fee - yes, there are such accounts, but then you usually have a given minimum amount of card transactions which you have to make not to pay. If you use a card, then you don't pay for it. If you almost don't use it (using means making transactions in shops, not withdrawals in ATM's), then you have to pay. Or it might be also so that the card is totally free, but you pay something just for having the account. Although it might be also so that if you have a regular income to your account, then you don't pay anything for both the account and the card.

There is only one bank where the account is totally free - Smart Bank - but it's online only and you may have problems if something doesn't work (you have to call their hot line, wait for getting a connection with a consultant, and waste money for that, the consultant will probably unable to do anything other than just accepting a complaint, then you wait until they decide about your complaint etc).

There are banks which have offers for free withdrawals from ATM's of other banks.

WBK seems to have quite a good offer, if you want free withdrawals from all the ATM's.

mBank might be also good in terms of the prices, or T-Mobile (it's actually an offer of Alior, just branded by T-Mobile), but they are online only (mBank have some brick-and-mortar points, but not many, only in bigger cities, and only few of them allow you to do something more than just signing a new account or credit contract; T-Mobile have such services in some of the T-Mobile shops, also only in bigger cities), which means you will probably have to use a Polish-only web interface and sometimes use a Polish-only hotline.

mBank has "eKonto z darmowymi bankomatami", where if you make transactions by card for minimum 200 zł for a month, you don't pay absolutely anything. And you have free withdrawals, as the name says, from all the cash machines in Poland. In T-Mobile it works in actually the same way, but the monthly fee for a card if you don't do these transactions for 200 zł is 6 zł, not 7 zł like in mBank.

In PKO BP you have "Konto za zero", it's free if you make card transactions for at least 300 zł in a month. Withdrawals are free only from PKP BP ATM's, but they have probably most widespread ATM network.

But mBank has "eKonto standard", where it's enough to make 5 card transactions in a month (so just whenever you do shopping, pay by card) to make the account totally free, and they have free withdrawals from the ATM's of: mBank, BZ WBK, Planet Cash and Euronet. Those together are definitely a wider network than ATM's of PKO BP.

PKO BP is, though, definitely a brick-and-mortar style bank, you don't have to do everything on a phone. You just come to the bank in a street and do everything there. But still you need to find such a point of this bank in which the employees speak English.

What is weird in Poland is that most of the banks don't offer any online interface in English.

Travel / Upgrade of Warsaw - Zielonka - Bialystok train line (linia nr 6) [8]

Here is a version from February 2014:
skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=111294331&highlight=harmonogram#post111294331 - I have no idea if it has changed or not.

Seems that the official deadline is (or was) June 2016. As you can see in the posts below, even in that time people didn't believe that they will do it until 2016.

Here: skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=125719114&postcount=2836
someone says that theoretically the end of the Tłuszcz-Zielonka section upgrade is with the end of 2016, so probably they extended the deadline. Others say that they will probably end the four-track section (Wołomin-Zielonka) in 2017.

I have asked the people there and that's what they answered:


The deadline for the section Wołomin Słoneczna - Zielonka (railway line No. 21) is July, 1st. In my opinion they should manage to do it on time.


Maybe they will manage to finish one track on time, but not the full section with full infrastructure. Only when they switch the traffic to the track for local trains (one track, not both), they will start to disassemble the old track and to build tunnels under this part.


So, I don't know, what is going to be finished in three months, but definitely not the Słoneczna - Zielonka section.

Travel / Upgrade of Warsaw - Zielonka - Bialystok train line (linia nr 6) [8]

Even if there are any plans on that, I wouldn't count on doing it on time according to the announced time. If you don't find info on that there, you won't find it anywhere.

Life / Is living cost in Poland lower than Germany ? [32]


The countryside looks even better in terms of rapid development than the cities!

Costs of living are IMO lower in Germany if you takes the earnings in Germany and not those in Poland into account. You earn much more while grocery is not much more expensive, maybe with the exception of fruit and vegetables - those are cheaper and of better quality in Poland.


3rd German? Nope. In some aspects it's even easier than English. And languages like Finnish or Hungarian are also not easy.

And why is everyone considering Polish so diffucult and Russian at the same time not? Grammar is quite similar. The only difficult thing in Polish I may think of is that we have quite a wide variety of different sounds - from nasal, French-sounding vowels such as ą and ę to hard "humming" cosonants like sz, cz or dz. But it's not something that is not present in other European languages, in Polish it's just everything mixed together.