Do people in Poland live "better" than here in the UK?

ok, bear with me on this one..........

Evidence for a better life in Poland:-

1/ Better weather
2/ More emphasis on good food
3/ Diverse and rich natural scenery in Poland
4/ A more comprehensive tourism infrastructure
5/ More culturally engaged than in the UK i.e. free city centre concerts, kaberets etc

Of course, wages are higher in the UK but at what cost ?

1/ Better weather
England has shorter winter than Poland.

2/ More emphasis on good food
Britain is very multicultural, so there is more chances to eat food from the whole world. There is more international restaurants and food stores with foreign food. Exotic food and restaurants are more accessible, because salaries are higher.

3/ Diverse and rich natural scenery in Poland
For British it's easier to watch foreign sceneries, because of higher salaries. It's also easier to just go somewhere for the weekend, because price of benzine is cheaper in relation to earnings.

4/ A more comprehensive tourism infrastructure
really?

5/ More culturally engaged than in the UK i.e. free city centre concerts, kaberets etc[/quote]
If you earn enough, then these things don't have to be free. You should be comparing participation of people, not just prices.

1. Better weather in summer in Poland. Much worse weather in winter.
2. Better food in the UK
3. More diverse and rich scenery in the UK than anywhere else in Europe
4. A much more developed tourist infrastructure in the UK as reflected by the comparative visitor numbers. Having said that, the fewer tourist destinations and smaller tourist infrastructure in Poland means that there are far fewer crowds.

5. There are far more free concerts, theatre, opera, cabaret, galleries etc in the UK

LOL at "better food in the UK"

There's a better choice, that's for sure. Here you have to love dumplings or smoked meats or you're stuffed unless you fall in love with sushi or dehydrated soya products.

without doubt there's better choice of exotic and international food in the UK. but if you want to buy good quality meat or vegetables it's much easier in Poland. I haven't seen so many packaged vegetables and pre cooked food like in the UK in any other country.

That's because British houses and flats are so expensive, people have to have 2 or 3 jobs to pay the mortgage. What time's left for cooking? People come home from one part-time job and go out to the next, to try to survive financially, on low (for there) wages. They finish the day exhausted and barely have the strength to put something in the microwave, let alone start peeling and chopping and following recipes. It's also usual for both partners (married or not, gay or straight, human or alien) to have jobs - again just to survive and pay the mortgage and also other drains on their income such as local taxes, very expensive cable TV, increasing food prices, very inflated water, gas and electricity prices etc. Who has the strength or time to cook? Only a lucky few with their perfect family arrangements and luxury of having enough money to survive on one breadwinner.

As for Polish meat, I was always under the impression people said it was usually not as good as British, except for some premium quality producers being the exception rather than the rule.

1/ Better weather
True during spring and summer. UK has this perpetual raining season which can get annoying, but otherwise the whole year seems quite mild compared to Poland where extreme season shifting happens

2/ More emphasis on good food
Very subjective. If you grew up eating sourdough bread and sausage with sauerkraut, of course it will be 'the only and the best food ever'. Same for some brits who can chow 'Full English' like some gourmet dish. But like someone mentioned before, since in the UK you get so many people of different cultures, there's much bigger and cheaper variety of food than in Poland where, well, sometimes Pierogi is the only cheapest option in the city.

3/ Diverse and rich natural scenery in Poland
True, but overall British isles boast some awesome natural scenery, like eg. northern Scotland. And those charming little places like Windermere...
In Poland, mountains are really nice, but I coming from polluted Silesia, I feel sad how infrastructure damaged natural beauty in some areas...

4/ A more comprehensive tourism infrastructure
Wrong. I traveled around England,Scotland,Wales,Japan, Malaysia and now Australia. In all these places, even 'local' as Wales, they put a lot of emphasis on tourism.

The problem is that Polish tourism is well... Polish friendly. Big cities manage to handle foreign visitation, but I can see that much is to be done there yet. And while I visited these countries I mentioned, I happened to pick up brochures advertising Europe. My findings:

-Poland is nowhere a main destination in european tours
-If Poland is available, the tours include mainly Krakow (Auschwitz) ...even Contiki!!(How depressing...)
-Occasionally, tours to Warszawa are available
-For ten european tours available, Poland is included in 2 at most (compared to Czech which is included at least 8 times!!!) sometimes just as a optional destination

-As mentioned before, our neighbour Czech is doing much better, following Croatia and even Slovakia
Also, since I worked on one of the main train lines in England, I can tell how much easier it is to travel between destinations there compared to Poland...

BUT, if you happen to know someone Polish while in Poland, you'll definitely get to experience so much more than you would as a regular tourist, many locals know about amazing hidden things that no one else has any idea about.

5/ More culturally engaged than in the UK i.e. free city centre concerts, kaberets etc
True, especially during 'Juwenalia'. I have to admit that living in cities, not towns, in the UK it was sometimes hard to find free or interesting events, to do that I had to go to the main city of the County...

It's a lot harder to buy good meat here than in the UK.


That's entirely correct; however, those places cost a lot (e.g. good steak in the region of 160zl per kilogram).

Apple and oranges...


As a Polish living in the UK - I miss a real winter. On the other hand - I am very happy that it is impossible to freeze my ass here.


Really? British love to talk about food, talk about food. The bookshops is full of cooking books. TV - don't get me started. I can not imagine any more emphasis to be put on the subject of good food. British are food-crazy!


Also diverse and rich scenery in the UK. Scenery full of history. But to see it - You would have to leave your London suburb and open you eyes.


I beg to differ.


Take London for example: dozens of museums, galleries, concert halls. Hundreds of theatres. Vibrant stand-up comedy circles. But if your idea of "culture" is sipping beer during open-air pop concert - then you are right.


At a very affordable cost.

This comparison is really silly and close-minded. If you take Poland as a "gold standard" of life quality, then you are right - every other country less Polish than Poland... I see that in your mind "less Polish" equals to "worse".

Unfortunately, that is not true. Young people do die in British winters, often late at night walking home in freezing conditions.
mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bernadette-lee-found-dead-after-1547507 Kent, near London
standard.co.uk/news/uk/essex-office-worker-dies-in-snow-after-night-at-the-pub-8547784.html Essex, near London
news.sky.com/story/1040667/two-die-as-winter-weather-keeps-its-grip-on-uk

Not wearing a coat, having a few drinks and randomly wandering around in the snow... well, it's not really the fault of the weather if you get hypothermia under these conditions. It's sad that people have largely forgotten how to dress when it's cold. I'm truly sorry for the people who died, but what makes it even more tragic is that their deaths were so preventable.

Yep. If one try hard enough it is completely possible to die from hypothermia even in a relatively warm weather. All it takes is to get really drunk, wear wrong kind of clothes and then to fall asleep on the bench or pavement. Some drugs may also be useful.

In Poland one can get frostbite when completely sober. That is difference between UK's -5°C and Poland's -20°C :)

In any of the butchers shops in my small town in the UK you can buy a bigger selection of cuts of meat and from a wider variety of animals than in most large supermarkets in Poland. All local,, and they'll get things in for you, save things, do special cuts etc. Plus the local market sells 20 or 30 types of fish, most of which were in the sea a few hours before. And the fruit and veg is better too, and more likely to be local.


Poland doesn't exactly do badly for its vast range of packet soups and sauces. And remember, a lot of the meat eaten day-to-day is actually wędliny - processed and preserved meats. Of course it may be different in tiny villages in the countryside (which foreigners don't spend so much time in) but that's exactly the same in the UK. And what's with all the frozen chips? It's as if people have forgotten to cut potatoes. Even in restaurants. I asked a (young) waitress a couyple of months ago if the chips were frozen and here reply was "what other kind are there?"!!!


Horses for courses. If you're from the South, especially the so-called 'home counties', yes, real estate prices are high in proportion to wages. If you're from where I'm from, they're not - the average for the borough is about 130k.. In Warsaw where I live, real estate is expensive compared to wages and trust me, couples who both work long hours don't sit up rolling their own pierogi or boning trout.

At least one in the story wasn't drunk and had a big coat on.


History of winters
netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=winter-history;sess=
The trend is for colder winters
wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/23/trend-to-colder-winters-continues-in-uk
and -8.7 in 2011
bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12119329

Perhaps it's because people are not used to sudden -21C in the south of the UK, they get caught out, but it happens

metoffice.gov.uk/education/teens/case-studies/severe-winters


Usually with monosodium glutamate and recently they've added pig fat back in to most of the yellow packet range! Yum yum!


:D


Is that a saucy euphemism :D

One had a "coat" on (they didn't specify what type, it could have been a flimsy old thing for all we know), but he was still coming home from the pub. I bet he hadn't been drinking lemonade all night. The problem is, if you've had a few, and you fall over in the snow, even a "big coat" won't help you for long. You need to keep moving.


If you're not used to this kind of weather, doesn't it make even MORE sense to bundle up? If it's snowing and below zero, why wouldn't you add an extra layer or two before venturing out?

It's like explaining that some people died in the summer because it was unexpectedly very hot and they never thought to take their sweaters off or sit in the shade.

You should see the young ladies in Bigge Market in Newcastle - far from 'randomly wandering around in the snow' (who does that, anyway?) but very determinedly heading from bar to bar having fun. Hardy people. Whereas in PL, I see people dressed like Nanook on mild spring days.

One of the poor ladies who died of exposure. She had no coat on and no shoes apparently, the friend she was supposed to be staying with was out, for some reason she didn't call anyone, and pretty much froze to death without showing much initiative or motivation to stay alive. I would have been banging on strangers' doors at that point. I don't think she even realised what was happening to her, poor thing.


Alcohol and drugs make you feel warm. They also considerably cloud your judgement. In Poland, the only people you hear of dying of exposure in the winter are the homeless and alcoholics, basically. Not nice middle-class girls who did not think to put on a coat.


The only thing that can happen to them is that they might get a bit sweaty. It's always easier to take something off if you're uncomfortable than to magic an overcoat out of thin air when you're freezing to death.

Silly cow. Mind you, I've never seen anyone frozen to death in the UK, but I've seen it several times in Warsaw.


I suspect the young ladies of Newcastle leave drugs until later, if at all and in any case, they start the evening off like that. As I say, hardy people.


Gross. Anyway, I doubt anyone's "freezing to death" on a bus in April or October.

Well, I don't know about Newcastle, but I know a thing or two about London and I don't think the young ladies hold back too much. Also AFAIK, before going, out, it is pretty much de rigeur to drink a bit at home, to get in the right spirits (pun intended).


I never said they were. On the other hand, as far as silly wardrobe choices are concerned, it's definitely less dangerous to put on too much in April than a tad too little in December.

Exactly - young people will have fun. Also, the UK and Ireland have a very rich pub culture. Sadly dying off now, but definitely not a nation who keep themselves to themselves.

I wholeheartedly agree, nevertheless, "pub culture" has little in common with binge-drinking till you drop or young "ladies" in almost non-existent dresses and towering high heels, cackling raucously as they totter home from the pub, drunk as lords (or should we say ladies?), many of them completely oblivious to their surroundings... Mind you, I love pubs in general, and I totally love nipping down to the local, and all that sort of thing. It's just that certain people tend to go just a bit overboard with their "enjoyment".

Now that's something new. Started after I left UK. I'm not sure what to think about it.


That's nothing new - a long tradition, but more disposable income seems to have led to this. I see it more and more in Warsaw too.


Me too. I do think old fashioned pubs are nicer than big drinking factories. I miss some of the old pubs you used to get in the industrial North - real focal points for the community. In Poland I tend to prefer more old-fashioned bars, though they're going the same way in Warsaw, often forced out by rising rents and younger people preferring big and loud places.

Well I'm glad to see there's at least one thing we can agree on! :-)

Indeed ;-)

if the food in the UK is such good quality how comes there are so many overweight and obese people? sure we have them too in Poland but not to such a degree.a lot of Polish people i met there quickly put on weight when they emigrated.in other western European countries people are slimmer too. i lived with some English families and even though my female landlords weren;t working they prepared for their children pre cooked dishes...chips almost every day, chicken legs in breadcrumbs etc. . my mom 's been working since i was born and she never bought a pre packed meal. we had a soup every day and main dish. and there's a lot of pocket soups and sauces in the UK too. i lived for some time in the UK and for me the biggest flaw in this country is the food. it was very difficult for me to find good quality meat where i lived. even Polish people who lived there for many years brought meat from Poland.

but i'll be greatful if you tell me name of a supermarket or chain store where you can buy better quality food. i still have friends living there.

That's pretty bizarre. Most people have the opposite experience. Mind you, I've heard of a guy who brings Coca Cola from PL to UK, because the stuff in UK isn't sugary enough for him.


Why go to rthat sort of place. Reminds me of a guy I know from Warsaw who went there and complained about the bread. Turns out he'd only bought white sliced in a packet from petrol stations - just the same sort of muck as if you buy tost or Baltonowski in Poland.. If you must go to a supermarket, try Waitrose.

Oh c'mon people!
Why can't we stay on topic? Winter in Poland is harsher than winter in England. That is a known fact.
Can we just agree to the facts and get over it?

I think that the guy who started this thread had made some bloody good points that may lead to some good, fine-quality brawl, ok?
I don't think he is right in all the things he wrote. But what he wrote is much more interesting than discussion on the subject:

"Who and why would find his balls suddenly frozen and falling off?" Poland is a winner here, hmmmmm ok? Our Polish balls fell off easily because minus twenty centigrades for a few months, ok? Did you ever experienced minus twenty? Did you? Then imagine -35°C. That's Poland for you.

Just read the entry on the top of this thread.
This is much more interesting that this icy subject.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267817/UK-named-binge-drink-capital-Europe.html

Some English / British people are obviously making up for lost time...

Although historically, they already have some experience in this area:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Craze

Really??? I would think that Spain, Italy, and France would be ahead of the UK for most...