History / Does Poland deserve credit for the 1989 Revolution? [87]


Uh, Solidarity? What exactly does that have to do with what I posted. You quote me thinking over what the options were for Poland to have changed the Western perception and you quote simply Solidarity. Which in context means nothing at all.


So how was Amsterdam? I ask because you have just come up with a 2/2 for nothing posts. So apparently a Pole is treated as a man from nowhere because the west uses the symbol of the Berlin Wall to emphasise the end of communism in mainland Europe? Really that is what it means?? What a ridiculous concept.


Oh how ridiculously ignorant you are. It is good though when people like yourself post rubbish like this, because quite simply it leaves no doubt as to the mental maturity of the person on the other end.

Australia's history as a settlement is only 200 years old, but (like any country) a lot has happened in 200 years. More than some others, less than some others, but more than enough to fill the minds of students. Pick any country in the world practically and study only their history for your history classes and you will still come up with enough. There are obviously people who study nation's histories for the large portion of their careers, let alone 85% of history time at school. But whatever, you are a waste of time.

Life / Do you think a smoking ban would be a good thing in Polish restaurants and Bars? [217]


Why is something legal or illegal in the first place? Because a group of people passed legislation outlining the rights of other people/groups/organisations. So by the very virtue of living in a governed non-anarchistic state, you are living in a society that determines that groups of people dictate the standards by which others live.

You are right smoking in public/private places in many countries is currently legal, but it is being faded out. When you consider that smoking would be in the top 3 causes for health expenditure in most western countries, I would expect that the average tax payer has a reason to want to see change.

I would think that once upon a time there were schools/hospitals that you could smoke and now you no longer can? A law was passed that the health of the person not smoking was important enough to outlaw others having the "right" to impact them.

Governments are essentially law makers, so of course they have a right to legalize or criminalize an activity as they see fit, if it is unjust then people will rise up and vote them out, I doubt this has happened often over smoking laws, if at all.

Take the following as an example..
Once opium houses were legal in Australia. It was no issue to go to one of these houses and get as high as a kite. Now obviously over time as the government (and most likely pushed by public demand) has decided that these establishments where unhealthy/dangerous etc, they have outlawed them and the practice in general. I would suggest it would not be at all stretching the truth to suggest that people would have been indignant and wondered themselves what gave the government the right to ban this "legal" activity.

Whilst everyone has the right to challenge through their local government laws to be enacted and in fact can of course run and attempt to overturn legislation themselves... questioning the right of a group of people to change or implement laws seems a strange thing to be questioning when it is the fundamental basis of the society most of us live in.

Life / Do you think a smoking ban would be a good thing in Polish restaurants and Bars? [217]

I am currently a "non smoker", but that has only been weeks and I have little doubt I will smoke again. My stance on the club/restaurant...? I think any ban would be a very good idea and I thought so a month ago when I was smoking as well, even though I loved a smoke with a beer/coffee/scotch.

I am not going to argue that the pub/club culture is not effected negatively (from the business perspective), but I will argue that it is

- safer for patrons/staff
- Not a bad thing to get people off the streets and back at home drinking (in regards to safer streets etc)
- a far more pleasant dining experience
- Will help reduce smoking numbers the more places it is banned and the less sociable that it becomes.

Future generations will smoke in smaller numbers than current generations (in developed countries) and that number will only continue to decrease more and more over time. In essence at some stage a country will completely ban cigarettes and then eventually others will follow suit. It is not an easy decision, due to the taxation money that is lost through this source of revenue, but it is going to happen, probably around about the time that number of smokers drop down around 5% or less.

Any bans that lead to less smoking (in general) are a good thing, regardless of any initial pain suffered by pubs/clubs.

Australia / NEW POLISH CAFE IN BRUNSWICK, MELBOURNE!- court jester cafe [16]

I was going to ask how good the Sunshine one was.
My sister lives in Sunshine and it is only 45-50 minutes from where I am. I have been meaning to check that place out for a while. So it is recommended then I guess?

Australia / NEW POLISH CAFE IN BRUNSWICK, MELBOURNE!- court jester cafe [16]

I am in Ballarat these days, thought I used to live in Thornbury a fair few years ago, well and Preston and Brunswick and Fitzroy (I may have moved around a few times :P)

I get down to Melbourne once a month now days

Australia / NEW POLISH CAFE IN BRUNSWICK, MELBOURNE!- court jester cafe [16]

That is pretty awesome, it is about 50 meters from where my Polish mate and his mrs live. Will have to go and do brekky with them there sometime very soon

News / Recent Polish Scientific Discoveries... (Scientific News) [19]

Cannot mods just delete nomaderol's posts as flaming?
Seriously can you stop ruining threads with your annoying, baseless dribble that is posted just to incite?

History / Life in communism vs democracy in Poland [234]

The thing is that most of these are achievable without communism.

The same standards for all is not necessarily a positive (in fact I think it is a negative). It is an idealistic benefit, but then if one person works harder or has more skills, why shouldn't they be rewarded with promotions, better pay etc etc.

low crime is achievable anywhere, no unemployment is not really, but very low unemployment is. Free medicare and education is common in a number of countries.

History / Does Poland deserve credit for the 1989 Revolution? [87]

There is a good reason that people consider the defining moment of the communist revolt the tearing down of the wall. Germany was always a big player, in Australia we knew a lot about Germany, no doubt in the US as well. The wall was symbolic and known as something people constantly risked their lives to cross. It was as well known as the great wall of china, no doubt more known than Hadrians Walls. It was a very symbolic reminder of the USSR control. Also with Germany such a big player in Europe (for all the wrong reasons) in the 20th century, it is not surprising.

Also behind Russia, East Germany would have been considered (by the western world) the least likely European country to break from communism. Nobody knew anything about Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaris, Hungary, Poland. These were just names of places that no one would ever go to in their life. But Germany was a country split in half with everyone knowing that families were split that one day your cousin was accessible, the next day they were not.

Now those steeped in history have an idea about things, but that is not the average human and really you could not expect that the average student would have any idea about how any of the countries broke from communism, only that a number of them were communist countries and that the wall was torn down. In Australia, I cannot imagine why it would be taught in schools, other than to fluke it onto the curriculum.

History in Australian schools is likely to be made up of

Australian History (85%)
World History (15%)
The World History is likely to cover the two wars, it is likely to cover issues like women's suffrage, child labour changes, the English Feudal Sytem, the Industrial Revolution, Egypt etc

Things that are really unlikely (but may be lucky to get a look in)
Minor Roman History
Minor Greek History
Rulers (such as Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great)
American Civil War (more to do with slavery/racism in the US)

Things really unlikely to get a look in
French Revolution
Spanish Revolution
Hungarian Revolution
Russian Revolution
Peter the Great
Joseph Stalin (other than mainly his dealings in World War II)
Vladimir Lenin
Poland anything
Czech anything
Yugoslav anything
Romanian anything
Bulgarian anything
Asian anything
etc etc

Now this may sound like "geez, what do they teach these people" but think about it. Most of all history in any country will be teaching about the country, that is a bulk of the workload, fair enough as well. Then when you look outside that to a global outlook, there are only so many subjects that can be covered. Of course there are specialised history courses, but in general a student will do a few hours of history each week (say 5), you can only cover so much in that time and any of the topics taught are as relevant as the ones not taught.

I have an interest in the subject, so I spent a lot of time reading up on it personally and those that are interested will do just that or they will chose it as a topic for a project of some kind. Of course though the average conversation people have does not surround the fall of continental communism and there are not plaques up all over Australia discussing the shipyards etc. I am not sure what Poland really could have done to make it any different other than if they had some well known symbolic barrier keeping their people from entering the west, but with all the borders communist borders, this simply never was the case and if there was, it would never have become as well known in the west.

It is a fact that the Berlin Wall will forever be symbolic in the west, that is just the way it is. I am not even sure why it is important to Poland for others to know Poland's role. It should forever be important to Poland and of course the history books, but for others ... well they do not even think about it, it is not relevant to their lives.

Love / Polish blonde and a British pensioner. No fool like an old fool, or is it love. [57]


Hmm not sure why i am replying, but I will.

The thing is that if you are looking for a serious relationship then you need to be somewhere within your range. Otherwise chances are for a good portion of your life together, one is going to be a nurse/care giver to the other. The social groups do not work either. If he is hanging around with younger friends, they are tolerating him. If she is hanging around with his friends, in 10 years he will be 40, and have no one as all of his friends are dying/dead.

She is a beautiful enough girl, no doubt she would have suitors without a problem, I do not really believe she has fallen head over heels for this man. I wonder how she would feel if she knew she was not going to be in his will or had an iron clad prenuptial agreement?

As for wanting to be in his position? No, I do not want to be 72 years of age hoping to fall in love and possibly even convincing myself that this 29 year old beauty has fallen for me for my wit and charm. I would much prefer that when I do get to that age, I am living with my lifelong love and looking after grandkids etc etc..

I also think it is ridiculous that you really believe most women would rather get to 29 and be in that position of going to be with a 72 year old than to have found their "one" and be settling down and perhaps to be having children etc... In fact I would say it is so ridiculous that you do not believe it either, you are simply looking to be outrageous.

Love / Polish blonde and a British pensioner. No fool like an old fool, or is it love. [57]

I must admit that I am extremely sceptical that thsi is a dream made in heaven or anything of the likes. 10 years... sure. 15 years.. maybe.. 20 years.. hard to believe.. 40... it would be some unbelievable miracle that these two are there completely for love.

Even on his point, he would love any 29 year old in the world who was willing to show an interest in loving him surely. On her part.. I would think it has a 99% chance of being a monetary thing. Surely she did not just fall in love with a guy of 40 years older and think... hmm for as long as possible I want to share my bed and life with this person.

However... it is not a Polish thing, it is a world thing. There are gold diggers everywhere.

Food / Polish honey liquor called something like "vitatass"? [37]


It appears it is honey alcohol beverage made by the Lithuanians, using plants from Lithuania, but only really made in the US and seemingly Baltimore is where it all started (still is?)

The following link has more detail on it: citypaper.com/printStory.asp?id=10542

Language / ch - antychryst - chłeb [13]

Just to confirm...
Is it my hearing that is wrong or is that saying a "k" sound.



everytime I hear
anarchia and antychryst it sounds like a k to me..

Yeah I thought this right up until today.. perhaps it is just my hearing or something... check out the video if you get the chance and see if it just me.. in which case I better get my ears checked :P

But.. I notice the ch 'wh' sound and have heard it in many words.. arrghhh :( :P

And now.. I cannot even decide if it is a wh or a k.. sheesh I need some sleep... when you cannot tell a k from a h something is really wrong ...

Life / Do expats living in Poland speak Polish? [233]

For everything you are saying Fuzzy about gross generalizations and mistruths etc, you then make grandiose assertions.

Polish language is useless outside of Poland.
It is not useless, it is not mandatory, but any European language can be useful in any other western country in the world. I have Latvian, Dutch, Czech, Polish, German, Austrian, Greek, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Brittish, Italian, Turkish, Swedish and Irish friends here in Australia. Now granted that means at the moment i would never have had the chance to speak Portugese, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Danish, Flemish and a handful of other languages, but I would have had the chance to speak those other languages if I knew them. Mandatory.. No, but certainly not useless.

Your comments about people from rich economies etc is just rubbish you are throwing up for the sake of sounding as though you come from some sort of superior country.

Well I am Australian, so I probably qualify as being one of those people. We have low unemployment, a welfare system that takes cares of those that cannot, free medical, free education, housing assistance etc etc.

Salary wise I will not go into specifics, but I am a senior IT professional, so I do ok.

Why then with that would I want to learn Polish? Why if asked "what language would you want to learn most?" would I answer Polish?

Simply languages are learned for many reasons. Some may learn a language because it is close to their native tongue and as such think it will be easy. Some may want to learn a language because of how difficult it is. Others may have a partner who is from the country and want to make the effort. Perhaps people want to travel to a country and not come across as loud ignorant travelers from some other areas of the world.

Personally... I want to learn because the country intrigues me, because I want to travel through the countryside in the smaller villages/towns etc and think it would be difficult to get the full experience without a better than 'basic" knowledge of the language. I think it is difficult beyond belief. I am not a natural linguist and I find pronouncing a number of the sounds really difficult, but.. it is a challenge and maybe I will not ever speak it, but I would rather spend my evenings learning that then watching something on the idiot box or play world of warcraft or whatever the hell it is that most other people are doing at night.

Language / Free and accurate Online Polish-English / English-Polish translator? [49]

Some others have made comments and I have many links also bookmarked, but the best translator I have used is translatica.pl and the best dictionary/resource is dict.pl these have both already been mentioned a number of times here.

History / What Was Poland like in the year 1988? [50]

That sounds like a heck of an adventure Bzibzioh, even in a mały Fiat (which I just seen for the first time now :) ).

That is pretty much exactly what I am talking about, that sort of trip could not be done or really appreciated here in Australia (or now in Poland either of course), because it is too simple to jump in a car and even drive 2,000kms here without any other thought than.. I have a couple of days spare, so why not.

Whereas that sounds like a trip you will remember forever.


If you ever did publish your memoirs I would lap it up :)

btw, your English is very good, it is amazing because by the standards that foreigners judge their English and say it is poor... I will never even be poor in Polish at this rate :P

History / What Was Poland like in the year 1988? [50]

This is a topic I would love to speak to someone in some depth about. I read a book on Poland written in maybe the 60's/70's by a Brittish author (it is still somewhere deep in my collection, but I am not sure where). It mentioned things such as long queues for bread and all the normal stuff you always heard in the West, but it went on to discuss how Poles still quite frequently openly discussed politics etc, I found this strange because I recall thinking that in the midst of this time the Soviets were extremely strong and that I thought that it would be very easy to be locked up.

It would be wonderful to read the diary/autobiography of someone who lived perhaps as a child through the war and their life through communism and then also the same type of paper from someone that was born in the late 60s and how as a young man/woman (ie college student) they first hand experienced the hopes that communism would falter and what that meant to them. The whole communist break down has long intrigued me, but not from a political sense, that is there for all to view. More from a human perspective and the differences of opinion across the different countries. My friend was around in those days, but his father was quite high up in a company and they had a car and plenty of holidays etc, so to him his childhood was very good. To others life may have been more of a struggle.

News / What is wrong with Poland that Poles emigrate? [167]

I read an article specifically about this phenomenon about 3 years ago. It mentioned that accountants and even doctors etc were moving from Poland to England because with the strength of the pound they were able to make a better living, even in unskilled work than they could at home. It was talking about a fear that Poland would end up loosing it's skilled labour force and looking at ways that this could be turned around.

It went on to mention that the Polish government was looking at incentives to help retain it's work force. Now I am not sure what these policies are/were, but I remember reading a follow up article (which I was able to find again) timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3378877.ece which suggests that the tide is turning and stating to flow back the other way.

This makes sense, with a strong pound compared to a weak PLN and weaker overall economy it made sense for people to go out and make a start in life, the opening of the doors in regards to removing work restrictions means this was not surprising, nor is the trend for them to want to go home after a period of time as well.

Just in case anything I have said is inflammatory.. (cannot see what, but I know some people are a bit touchy), I am not British and have no qualms either way, I feel that the EU is working as designed and this was always going to be the case. The idea was to pool the strengths of Europe together.

Language / I want the audiobooks called "Zaczynam Mowic Po Polsku " [18]

I would be very interested as well if possible.
My email is mateinone@hotmail

Thanks and Regards
Matt

Language / Pimsleur's Polish Lessons [38]


In street Street? :P

I actually have both Pimsleur and Michel Thomas and I like both. If you want help with "writing" the words, then go through the lessons on this site, they are nothing short of sensational and through the pronunciation of the alphabet it will improve your spelling out of sight.

I would also think it is worth some or of visual work. So and internet course or a book or something that just lets you work at your pace to compliment the speed of the cds.

Michel Thomas is an interesting way of learning as you learn with the man & woman that are learning at the same time. I have only done cd one, but it deals a lot more with the whole this/it, it, how, why etc Pimsluer tries to constuct a final story and knowing the final story(ies) it builds it from the start.

The comments about being American are a little sensitive. I am Australian and will never need to use Jestem Amerykaninem, but that is not really the point being made.

Pimsleur has a better method of introducing new words. It will pronounce from the last syllable and work backwards. I find this very easy to work with.

There is no doubt that Michel Thomas works through a lot more words/scenarios thought.
I do believe that if you do the 30 cds in Pimsleur Polish I you will be able to verbally engage native Polish people with some simple requests.. can I have a beer, can you book a table for eight etc etc. Remember there are 3 courses in the Pimsleur group and the 30cds covers Polish I, basic level Polish.

One big advantage for Michel Thomas is that if your cd does not have a "seek" facility in your car or a pause etc, each section on the cds is broken up, so it is easy to skip back and forth.

Anyway, just my thoughts on what I have found so far.

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]

I am looking at building a web based application at the moment. A friend and I have been working on it and well it is still a long way to go, but.. once it is complete if it takes off we will be looking at multi-lingual support as well as general upkeep.

I am wondering how much we would be looking at spending to get 'work from home' resources in Poland, so there would be no office only programming from your own home.

Technical resources with skills in PHP/javascript/programming flash & mysql etc as well as web security. Graduate type people would not be appropriate.

So for example if we were to look at hiring someone for 20-40 hours per week, how much would it cost approximately? (I would prefer to get a rough estimation of what the "hourly" costs are)

We are looking at a number of countries to compare prices, though price is not the only issue, quality of work is far more important. The costs in Australia are far too high and we would not want to do full support ourselves the whole time.

Please remember this is just high level stuff, we are not actually looking to employ anyone just at this moment, just to get a feel for the marked

Travel / Recommendations for Krakow and Myślenice [80]

Yeah the camera sucked, insured.. but it is the contents that are a pain of course.. but that happens.

Btw I told my friend we would be riding to Myślenice, they were not very impressed, but I am hopeful they will do it in the end :)

Food / Polish food in Pictures. [277]

Some of these meals look fantastic, I do have one question though and forgive me if it sounds like a ridiculous one, but I have not looked deeply into the cuisine.

How easy is it to get good Polish meals all over the countryside and avoid cabbage/sauerkraut and beetroot? I am not really interested in just going the pizza/kransky route as I can do that well enough here.

Also are there nuts used in many things? Just something I need to avoid because of an allergy.

Love / Nice Polish women photos [329]

I must say that the most beautiful women I even seen was a Polish girl. I usually prefer brunette women to blondes personally, but when i was at the Krakow airport about 3 or 4 years ago I seen the only women that has ever literally made me stop in my tracks, indescribably beautiful and "just a normal girl".

As for beautiful women in general, really they are everywhere. I have never been to a place where there are no beautiful women yet. Usually though you find better looking women in the streets than you do on the television set I think.

Travel / Recommendations for Krakow and Myślenice [80]

I absolutely loved reading through this, you have done a brilliant job Sean and I cannot wait to get back over there.

The bicycle ride to Myślenice is exactly the type of thing that I would love to do as well.
Also need to go back to the Salt mines because we had our camera stolen in Amsterdam and it had most of our Polish pictures still in the camera.:(

News / What's the stupidest question asked about Poland? [414]


Whilst that is a far stretch, I reckon a large portion of people are still ignorant as to what life was like and communist rule and I think and even larger % forget that 20 years has passed.

There is of course another % of people who really just have no clue and a reasonable amount of these tend to be Americans. I am not anti-American, I think the reason for this is that they probably have the highest number of tourists in the world, with 300 million people, there are going to be some real dumb ***** with enough money to travel. I am sure this is not the majority of the population by any means. I also get the impression that studying international cultures is not high on the agenda in the US and so some people are gullible to believe any wives tale. I know of Americans thinking we ride kangaroos to school in Australia as well.

I hope I did not offend all the US people on this site, was not my intention at all.

Language / Polish Lessons Units [189]

I have gone through all of these in the last two days and loved doing so. This is a wonderful piece of work that Janusz has put together.