UK, Ireland / Cost of transferring items UK - Poland? [7]

Thankyou for the replies. The guy sounds great but probably not what I'm looking for, it seems like quite an effort just for a 19" monitor. I would have thought there'd be some kind of way of shipping this, maybe I can look on ebay for people selling monitors who ship to continental europe and badger some of them for advice on couriers?

Anyway, will be happy to give you a yell when I'm all settled in, will be nice to know people who have undergone the same or similar :)

Best regards

UK, Ireland / Cost of transferring items UK - Poland? [7]

Insured presumably? :D

Law / Poland residency permit / registration questions. [23]

Merged thread:
*Urgent* UK national - need residency permit in Poland

Hi there.

A little bit of information:

I am a British national from England. I'm currently a student with the OpenUniversity, and on october 5th flew here to Poznań to live with my [polish] partner in her flat which she bought/owns. I knew that in order to get permit here to stay, I had to be registered to an address here but it took some time for my partner to receive the necessary documents for her own registration (from her home-town) to the flat.

Last thursday we went to ' urzad miasta'' and I now have my 'potwierdzenie zameldowania cudzoziemca na pobyt czasowy' (I am registered to the flat here in Poznań) which expires on the 04-01-2011.

I am also aware that we have a maximum stay of 3 months before I get told to go back to england, unless I obtain some sort of permit, correct?

On the same day we went to 'urzad wojewodzki' to see about this card, but there was very little information on the kind of things we need there, and no other english people were hanging about it was all people from outside the EEA. We are both very confused as to which form to fill in, which documents we need, where we have to take them, and any costs / processing times.

I would really appreciate some advice (preferably with citations) and quite soon as we intend to get this sorted on monday.

Best regards,
Jay

Law / Poland residency permit / registration questions. [23]

"As an EU Citizen, you are entitled to stay freely in Poland for up to 3 months. If you plan on staying longer than this or working, you must apply for a residence card (Karta pobytu obywatela UE). This can be obtained from your local council offices in the town/village you live in."

Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Citizens of EU traveling ot Poland
Legalization of Stay - Instructions to EU Members

Language / Dreamglade-lipro Polish language-learning blog [8]

Normalnyfacet: I look forward to seeing it, keep me posted :)

Pawian: I don't speak Polish with her :) She speaks English quite well. And I'm too afraid that my pronunciation is horrific. In KFC I tried to order two of something that I didn't know how to use correct case with, so I started with 'Dzień dobry, nie mowię po polsku dobrze. Czy pani rozumie po angielsku?" I've said this phrase many times and not been misheard often. But I had to say it 3 times to one person, then twice to another person before I just said "English, do you speak it?" (And not in a Samuel-L Jackson way mind you)... It just really hurts the confidence :(

Dorota: That sounds great, thank you :)

Regards

Language / Dreamglade-lipro Polish language-learning blog [8]

Heh thanks Vincent,

I actually write these on paper first (the excercises being checked) with little to no errors. But for my blog, I just put my paper on the desk in front of me and touch-type it into the blog, so I didn't notice that error. Thanks again ;)

Regards

Travel / ISIC and travel in Poland [8]

Ah okay thank you good sir.

Pity that, though I suppose it's not something that's groundbreaking. We paid 25zł total to get to Wrocław and 45zł to get back (The first train was major budget train without carriages, and ended up with a window seat where the sun was pounding on us - and this all after a 3 mile walk in t-shirt and jeans!) But the train on the way back was quite nice, seperate carriages, and apart from one old man getting into our carriage, it was a nice peaceful trip back.

I suppose I don't really use ISIC much here, the only thing I've used it for is MPK. Mind, the 15% off from Pizza hut is tempting ;)

Travel / Planning a trip back to the UK (Brighton) from Poznań. - Travel plan & costs. [6]


Well, perhaps then it's so astounding that it just slipped by your simple mind, seeing as we're - *shock horror* - on the internet! I suppose it was just quite silly of me asking people who live in Poland or the UK and/or travel between them if they may have some advice on the cheapest alternatives.


Thank you, I'll keep an eye out

Language / "someday" / "kiedys" - Confirming some spelling and forms [11]


Sorry for the slight necro. But may I ask why it would be "w niedziełę" and accusative? (I know that you're correct, I just don't understand why) I thought when followed by the preposition w(in) something must become locative? even if it's a response to the question "when" I.e, "Kiedy będziesz napić? " - "W Wrocławiu"

Travel / After 7 Weeks, why i loved Poland =) [22]

Oddly enough, many of the young ones seem to know how to ask for cigarettes, money for wódka among other unpleasantries. I had an (almost) violent encounter on the bus, when a particularly smug youth got on the bus, stood in front of the glass opposite my seat and glared down at me continuously without breaking eye contact. I called up my partner to vent my frustration, but he then started leaning in and being aggressive, when I stood up he was mumbling something (which actually turned out to be English) "U mad bro?" - his words. He eventually settled when I offered him the opportunity to get off the bus with me ("No, i no fight, you ok, happy be").

I never rely on anyone here to speak English, a large proportion of them often tend not to speak even if they know. Thus far, any experience I've had of trying to ask for help from people on the streets had ended poorly. Man eat man world in Poland (don't take my sentiments to heart though, it's probably just Poznań)

Language / "someday" / "kiedys" - Confirming some spelling and forms [11]

Thank you,

Is it only weekdays that become accusative following that prep in response to "when"?

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?

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.

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]


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 / 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 / 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.

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)

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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...