Life / If I could introduce something from my country into Poland, I would.... [175]


The only place I've actually seen well-dressed ladies with small children, full-on young middle class professional types, drop litter unobtrusively (ha ha) onto the pavement, or even go as far as to empty their handbags of dirty tissues / bits and bobs / lint balls in the street -

- was in London, UK.

And the total amount of rubbish of all kinds on London streets is absolutely appalling - chewing gum specks, chicken and chips boxes, chips, bits of chicken, flyers, old shoes, rags, building debris... the list goes on and on...

Life / If I could introduce something from my country into Poland, I would.... [175]

Have you ever tried buying polędwica wołowa (beef loin)? This is what Polish people call steak meat, this is what they eat as beef steak, and if it doesn't taste good, it's not the meat's fault, but the cook's ;-)

Polędwica wołowa is the absolutely supreme cut of beef IMHO :-)

Life / If I could introduce something from my country into Poland, I would.... [175]


Sorry to rain on your parade, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Not a week passes without a cashier in Tesco or Asda putting one or more of my items aside and saying "Sorry, but I can't sell you this because the barcode is missing / is wrong / whatever".

And don't get me started on supermarket cashiers in general! Some of them look startled and seem surprised to even be there, and have problems with the whole procedure... I am really thankful for the self-service checkouts.


Reminds me of the time I wanted to buy a computer monitor, so I booked it online at a PC World store, and showed up in due time, and the appropriate department was so empty there was practically an echo ;-)

Took them about 20 minutes to show up and realise what I wanted etc, plus extra time for finding the monitor, scanning the barcodes, payment...

So I guess either customer service in the UK is slipping fast, or there isn't such a great difference between our two great nations after all... The latter seems much more probable.

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


I though it was disgusting until I tried it, quite recently actually (about a year ago), and I was hooked ;-)
Now the only thing I truly cannot stand is flaki (tripe soup). Maybe it's tasty, but I can't get over the ingredients.

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]

The only solution to this is to have lots of clients with different pay patterns spread out over the whole month, and work for all of them for approx. the same amount of time in a given period. In this way, after the initial month-or-three of having to wait for the first payments to come through, you always have some money coming in from somewhere ;-)

I have been successfully employing this policy for some time now.

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]

I am self-employed here in the UK and some of the translation agencies I work for pay me 30 days after the invoice date (which is sort of OK), some pay me up to 60 days after invoice date, and I had one agency (a local authority, actually) which would first collect my individual job confirmation sheets (over a month or longer), then send me (within up to a month) a list of the approved jobs with prices on them for me to write an invoice, then I would send them the invoice, and then I would get paid after exactly 30 days. How many days is that altogether? I lost track. ;-)

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


Sounds just like the UK. I've had a cheque and a replacement debit card stolen from my mail, among other stuff. Oh, and the "sorry you were out" cards - don't get me started on those!

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


So you did not make any inquiries on your own whatsoever? Did you really totally rely on some random secretary in a random language school to tell you what you needed to do? Hey, it's not really their job anyway, their job is to answer the phone and file documents ;-)

So it's actually just one school and one or two people who messed up, not Poland as a whole, not even a single town or region. :-)

Food / Healthy polish food? [134]




Look who's generalizing! I'm slim, and I'm not crabby/nervous, and I eat what I like, which includes fruit, vegetables, meat, some bacon as well, I occasionally drink beer, and I'm Polish, and I know lots of Polish people just like me; incidentally, I'm 40 and I weigh only 10 kgs more than I did in secondary school! Most of my school friends haven't put on loads of weight either. So there. BTW - my liver is in really good shape. ;-p

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


I don't, but my Czech friends did ;-p

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


I have basically lived most of my life in Poland, and my mum has been dead these many years now. So I am more Polish than Czech in my outlook and everyday life, I'm sure. It's hard being divided in this way, but I know that if had to live in the Czech Rep. permanently, it would probably seem odd because although I know the language and the culture, I would still be an outsider. There's loads of small everyday things I just don't know because I don't visit that often or stay long enough when I do... :-(

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


It's a bit like comparing apples and pears. I would say the best in Polish cuisine comes from the noblemen's tradition, and is related to Russian and Lithuanian cookery. On the other hand, Czech cuisine is strongly related to Austrian and even some Hungarian traditions (guláš, leèo). And of course, because my mum was Czech, my most most beloved comfort foods have to be Czech, they're what I grew up with... :-)

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


Well, actually, with my parents. I was 6-9 years old at the time... ;-)


That's why I endeavour to cook my own meals ;-p


Vepřo-knedlo-zelo: the food of the gods... How I miss it sometimes!

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


Incidentally, my mum was Czech, and I spent 3 years in India as well. So I guess I got to taste quite a variety of foods and dishes, including my British experience as of now ;-)

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


Yeah, I understand. But even broken down into different dishes, you seem to be describing either pork with sugar, or lard with salt, or pork with lard, or... Your list of ingredients just doesn't add up, neither as a whole nor broken down into smaller units. For example, I made cauliflower soup and pork chops in onion sauce with potato dumplings the other day. Would you say I used onions, pork, cream, salt, and flour? Because I did, but this list does not actually say anything about what I actually cooked. And I used a helluva lot of other stuff as well. I just can't seem to think of any dishes which would comprise solely or mainly of

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


I'm still not convinced. I spent almost 15 years doing the housewife thing in Poland, and I am Polish, and I used a Polish cookbook etc., but never in my life have I come across the weird combinations you seem to be describing. ;-)

Maybe your lodgers are not the most gifted of cooks?

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


Where do you eat? Not that I have anything against raw vegetables. But the pork and lard thing. Where do you eat, for chrissakes?

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]

As for me, I have come to love and respect Poland a lot more since moving abroad. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with other countries, but out of all the idiocies of the world I most prefer the idiocies I grew up with. Amen :-)

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


I see nothing sweet in being told I wasn't home when I was, and having to wait 24 hours to travel quite a distance, wait in line, and finally get my hands on my parcel. Believe me, I am Polish and have spent most of my life in Poland, and I see no difference either way, except that the British authorities seem absolutely hell-bent on getting rid of their post offices altogether.

Speaking of which - in Poland, I never had my letters "delivered" in the following manner: quite simply [i]thrown[i] on the ground outside the house where I live! The house consists of a number of flats, and the letterboxes are outside as well. Seems the postman was too lazy, or maybe tired, to fit the letters through the appropriate slots - or maybe couldn't read - so just threw them by the front door, rain or shine. Thankfully, whoever it was has stopped coming by (I complained formally). I know British postal services used to be top-notch and I wonder what the heck happened, it seems someone really wishes it this way.

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


Well - local... That's what it's called, you see, it being the nearest one. It's thankfully not that far away, but I definitely need to take the bus to get there. And they closed down my lovely friendly post office which was a stone's throw away... :-(

Life / 3 reasons why you hate Poland. [1049]


???
They don't deliver your letters???
BTW, my local Post Office here in London never delivers my parcels either; I always find the "Sorry you were out" card in my letterbox - even when I hadn't budged from home all day.

Life / Famous / Iconic Polish Women [48]

Iconic?

Ewa Demarczyk (a famous Sixties chanteuse) and
Kalina Jędrusik (the Polish Marilyn Monroe, only sexier and smarter)

spring to mind.

Food / Confusion over flour names in Poland [46]

What about the flour sold in Warsaw then?

Food / Confusion over flour names in Poland [46]

"Mąka z kłoskiem" - Ear of Wheat/Ear of Corn Flour - it's a brand name. There's a picture of the ear of wheat on the bag, isn't there? :-)

The actual name of the type of flour is shown at the bottom, below the picture. E.g. wrocławska, tortowa, krupczatka...

Genealogy / Polish Gypsy Roots & Roma ancestors in their families [205]


that was at Heathrow airport, right? just before you approached the immigration officer?

Genealogy / Polish Gypsy Roots & Roma ancestors in their families [205]


The thing is, Czech and Slovak Roma don't take their children out of school at 12 and don't marry off their daughters at 14.
Their women are allowed to cut their hair, wear trousers or short skirts if they so wish.
They are literate, articulate, and if asked - usually refer to themselves as "Czech" or "Slovak", not Roma.
BTW, they are very sarcastic about their Polish brethren with their traditional crippling lifestyle of no employment, no schooling, and teenage marriage plus obligatory long skirts and long hair for the ladies.

"Roma" literally means "human". We are "Gajo" and can never become Roma. As long as there are people who see themselves as superhuman, any truly two-way communication between "Us" and "Them" will remain impossible. In the long run, they see us as pathetic and slightly comical.

All spoken out of experience as community interpreter.

Genealogy / Polish Gypsy Roots & Roma ancestors in their families [205]

True story: I went to the best childrens' hospital in GB, possibly Europe, yesterday, to interpret for a v. sick boy who was to be admitted for surgery. The staff had been trying to get him into hospital for several weeks at this point, there was always something amiss, the family didn't show up, or cancelled appointments etc. When the staff called and said they were from the hospital, the other side would hang up. Yesterday was no different, even though a day earlier the family had solemnly promised to be there with the child. Of course, I showed up, the clock ticked and tocked, and finally the nurse rang the family again, to be told that... they would not be coming. Why? Because they FORGOT. You can guess the ethnic origin of those people yourself.

I will not comment on this at all. But I think that some of the attitude they present here, and not only in this instance I can assure you, causes other people to view them the way they do.

Language / Polish Swear Words [1242]

kutwa is not a swear word as such. it means "miser".

Genealogy / Polish Gypsy Roots & Roma ancestors in their families [205]


...long hair, long skirts, lots of jewellery (preferably gold), high heels?
Hair and skin colour might vary a lot.
Nobody here said Gypsies are ugly. Most Gypsy girls are quite presentable or more - but they also age very fast, probably because most of them are married and pregnant by 15.

The main issue the Polish have with the Gypsies/Roma is not their looks or their background - it's their refusal to integrate, attend school, take a job, coupled with marriage at 15 and no education for girls, basically. Plus, sorry but it's true, lots of them earn their living through means not necessarily legal (understatement). Same situation here in the UK, where they emigrated as asylum seekers in the late nineties and claim to have "special rights" to this day, even though as EU citizens they have lost their refugee status. They want this, that, and the other - and fast - while not sending their kids to school (ask any attendance officer what ethnic group they visit the most) and not working if they can help it, definitely not working more than 16 hours a week. And they have the cheek to tell me stories about horrible Poles burning Gypsy children alive (this was supposed to have happened the week before last, somewhere in western Poland).

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

A veeery old joke (probably pre-WW2):

There is a guy travelling from France to Russia, and another going the opposite way. Yet they both get off their trains in Warsaw. Why?

The first one thought he was in Moscow already, the other one thought that this had to be Paris.

So "central" would be my guess, yes.