Travel / Hiking around Zakopane/ Tatra mountains [33]

I knew a Polish colleague who often vacationed in Zakopane during the winter and
said that it was there as a teen he first encountered the goral and their unusual dialect!

Always wonder whether or not they speak a regional variation of "standard" Polish or a
separate language.

Life / What do Polish people talk about? [56]

Europeans in general tend to discuss politics, sex, and religion far more openly
than is the custom in my experience here in the States!

Other nationalites as well, Brazilians for example, find North Americans unusually
repressed and superficial, at least as concerns conversation, especially at parties.

From having lived in Germany for a spell, by contrast, Americans don't seem to talk about
much of anything substantive. Poles are similar to Germans in terms of their topics of conversation, I find.

News / Does Polish hotel have right to turn down Americans and Israelis? [79]

Unfortunately, any private business DOES have the (im-)perfect, legal right to
refuse service to select guests, odious as the reason might be!

This privilege extends as well to non-publically funded transportation. For instance,
in Brooklyn, NY, not far from where I grew up, a bus for Orthodox refused both to allow
women to be seated beside men, but even to permit an African-American from riding in
the same bus. The gentleman naturally sued....and lost. The reason? Said bus service
was not publically funded, therefore, the driver and his company had the right to refuse
certain passengers.

Were it a regular public bus route, that driver would have been toast:-)

Off-Topic / God and Religion Talk [273]

G-d loves ALL His creatures! It's man who perverts His word.

Study / Can I change my Switzerland Schengen 3 months tourist visa to Poland study visa [9]

The French would, wouldn't they:-)

UK, Ireland / Polish vs Irish stereotypes from a Polish girl in Ireland [22]

In Ireland too.

Study / Can I change my Switzerland Schengen 3 months tourist visa to Poland study visa [9]

A good idea. As you mentioned Switzerland, do you perhaps also speak some French in addition to English?
Not sure if French was required in Nigeria as it is throughout much of Africa.

UK, Ireland / Polish vs Irish stereotypes from a Polish girl in Ireland [22]

Tough question as Poland too has had a strong Celtic influence over phases of her early history.

Language / News In Easy Polish (sample websites)? [13]

Easy Polish might be that a simpler vocabulary has been employed.
As Polish is a highly inflected language, surely only the lexic has been
simplified. Can't imagine how the morphology could be pared down, can you?

Study / Can I change my Switzerland Schengen 3 months tourist visa to Poland study visa [9]

When did you move from Nigeria to Switzerland?

Off-Topic / I am a polish communist. [83]

Post-war immigration proved as vital to the West German economy as it did and does to the current US infrastructure!
Somebody out there has to build the bridges, dams, clean the streets etc. and it sure isn't going to be exclusively white,
native born Americans any longer.

The W.A.S.P. hegemony is no more....even Trump and his minions can't bring it back, try as they will:-)

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Clearly the issue of culpability doesn't extend in fact to succeeding generations.
However, every country, Poland included, must bear the burdens of their history,
from which no nation is exempt, be it Palestine, Israel, France, Italy, Germany etc.

Curious though that while the Romans were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ,
we don't hate all Italians, merely because members of that time Italy (in which Rome
is located) produced a Pontius Pilate, Trajan along any number of other antisemites.

Off-Topic / I am a polish communist. [83]

Rich, in light of Germany's history, any thinking person can well understand their trepidations
about allowing untrammeled free speech at every bend and turn!

Hitler left indelible stains on Germany's future history and while you and others might see German
society as all but paralyzed, strangled, by political correctness, the alternative aka AfD. is to my mind
far more frightening.

At least Germany has been behaving herself for the past seventy-five years. We pray she continues.

Sahra Wagenknecht seems to be doing an American style Dem/Rep tango with the AfD and the SPD.
One wonders why.

News / Will Poland help defend Greenland against US Imperialism [333]

Kennedy apparently was considered a bumbler by colleagues and staffers,
but avoided the end of planet Earth with his resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis
in addition to founding the Peace Corps.

He did escalate the Vietnam Conflict, this is true, yet surrounded himself with a
coterie of intellectuals in contrast to the future Felon-in-Chief!

Even Reagan was less out of whack than Trump, although he did ruin the New Deal
forever.

News / Will Poland help defend Greenland against US Imperialism [333]

The whole idea proposed by President elect Trump is so ludicrous
as not to even warrant comment.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Often times though, the sins of the parents or the fathers in this case, are visited upon the children, unfair
as this may be.

I remind you of a once well-known publication from the late '60's or perhaps somewhat later, "Papa, hast du's getan? - Taeterkinder sprechen" (Is this what you did, papa? - Perpetrators' children speak out). Although by then the War had already been over for practically thirty years, the deep, indeed, barely healed, scars of the Hitler years, in particular the Holocaust, remained open wounds, as well as a source of bruising shame, in particular, for German nationals abroad!!

News / Will Poland help defend Greenland against US Imperialism [333]

Not certain I follow you, B.B.

News / Will Poland help defend Greenland against US Imperialism [333]

Ahemm, come off it, B.B!
The man is the average scion of an above average father, who was a former member of the KKK on Long Island where he grew up, made most of his
money via investments, much as Trump's grandfather "Drumpf", when the latter came over to America during the 19th century and struck it rich during the
Gold Rush.

These men didn't pursue professions as you or I (hardly couch potatoes, by the way), but became wealthy by dint of sheer cleverness rather than hard work alone.
How can one have any respect for a man who punched out his high school music teacher and never saw a day of detention, 'cuz the school principal couldn't really
touch the kid, as his old man was mega-rich Freddie Boy Trump, real estate mogul par excellence?

Well, finally that woman won her lawsuit before Fred died and received her money as an African-American who was denied housing in a Trump-owned apartment bldg.
Good for her!

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

However, in the case of Sigmar Gabriel, his father was in fact, both an avowed and
unrepenitent former Nazi.

News / Will Poland help defend Greenland against US Imperialism [333]

Trump's either crazy or possibly senile, one or the other!
Every other day or so, our President-elect comes out with another
odd ball notion...and nobody seems to stop him.

See how far Mafia connections and coming from a rich father can get you?

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Guess we'll have to just wait and see.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Hmm, you mean then he imagines he can/could actually stage a comeback??

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Ever since Scholz lost his own party to a vote of no-confidence, are we talking
about a potential Merz candidacy??

Language / Cultural disparities shown through Polish and English languages [195]

When posting in either Polish or even Swedish, Italian, any language I learned after my mother tongue(s) etc., I never ever rely on
machine translation, but instead attempt to think and then write in the language I intend
to post, mistakes and all!!

Anybody can dash off a perfect e-mail using GoogleTranslate. This of course is cheating. How often have I received e-mails in 100% native speaker English
from foreigners, only to finally meet them in person (not on Zoom) and notice the cavernous differences between how they "write" vs. how they
actually speakLOL

Incidentally, Ironside, I sent you a private message several weeks ago.

Language / Cultural disparities shown through Polish and English languages [195]

Precisely, just as long as they don't 'die Katze aus dem Sack lassen', he-he!
Americans "spill the beans":-)

Life / Why women's rights are not respected here in Poland? [160]

Money grubbing men too, Johnny! They're called doctors and lawyers, I mean
let's spread the greed around equally LOL

Language / Cultural disparities shown through Polish and English languages [195]

In German too I seem to recall a similar idiom.

Life / Why women's rights are not respected here in Poland? [160]

The campaign was indeed in the '90s, however the article
was from several years ago, as it was a retrospective on women's
rights (or the lack thereof) in Poland.

Life / Do you collect mushrooms in your country? Poles in Poland do. [94]

A friend of mine from Swabia in Southwestern Germany used to tell me about
"Pilzsuchfahrten" or "mushroom hunts" when he was a boy growing up around the
Schwaebische Alb.

Life / Why women's rights are not respected here in Poland? [160]

I recall seeing a photograph of a billboard in the Polish news magazine "Wprost", I believe, several years back,
to the effect that women in Poland still feel helpless if their husband comes home drunk and
becomes physically abusive!