Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


Speaking in the name of a nation is always tricky thing, but well, we not used to it so sometimes reactions can be like surprise, astonishment, sometimes one just cann't help it and burst out laughing... But don't worry about that and go for it...

PS.
Welcome in the polish speaking community ;-)

News / Poland rejects H1N1 vaccine [28]

Old news... Basically it goes like this:
Those big international companies wanted to sell Polish gov, milions of vaccines. Our gov. look at their papers and said:
"wait the minute, it looks like you didn't checked it properly... hm... ok, situation is not rosy with this epidemic in Ukraine. Ok, ok, we (Polish gov.) will buy it, but you have to guarantee it [which means if somebody die/get ill because of it and sue us you (big pharma) will take the blame]"

- Big pharma said:
"no way, we have plenty of others gov. buying it without stupid questions"
and they said to themselfs...
"we have WTO in the pocket, we have army of good paid lobbists, we will break them, stupid little polish politicians..."

But, bad luck happend... Turn out that polish health minister is a tough little lady doctor who has some independent university advisors/professors, and this tough lady doctor got this enorumous pressure on her and said to big pharma "F..K OFF" :-)

It is the exact reason why it wasn't possible to buy this miraculous vaccine in the drugstores. Vaccine producers were afraid of lawsuits in case if something wrong happend.

Genealogy / What certificate is this?; birth certificate from the greek catholic church [63]

About mothers name, if it is really Osina, then at first it don't seems to have much sense, because it currently is used rather for surnames. Anyway, osina means some kind of soft wood (probably from poplar). Another interesting thing is that Osina is also a village near Tyszowce (supposedly birth place of the guy from the certificate).

Anyway, if you are really planning some trip in autumn (better not later than september), then you can try to visit churches there. They usually have quite old archives regarding births (I suppose you can try to send them a letter first with copy of your certificate).

Good luck :-)

Genealogy / What certificate is this?; birth certificate from the greek catholic church [63]


I have no idea, another poster wrote that. Personally I couldn't encode that part.


No, I wouldn't expect snow in October :-) But if you will have bad luck, than in October could be a little chilly. But if you are lucky and the weather is fine then it can be quite beautiful autumn here. Maybe this will help you decide:

pogoda.onet.pl/0,3,38,,,,warszawa,miasto_klimat.html

Travel / Travel to Silesia (contacts, places to stay?) [8]

Mining industry in Poland is not so much black and white situation like it used to. There are profitable mines, there are problematic ones. You will have to make quite a research to show it in true colors. Anyway, this museum in Zabrze could be cool place to start with :-) :

kopalniaguido.pl/galerie/poziom320

Travel / Travel to Silesia (contacts, places to stay?) [8]

KGHM it is entirely different story. They mine copper and silver, and are located in the west of Lower Silesia. And this is really rich company... ctobin clearly wants to show struggle of hard coal miners in Upper Silesia ;-) If someone want to show entire mining industry of Poland then there would be quite a lot places to visit, ranging from west to east of Poland, and not only in the south.

News / Too much change in Poland?! [25]


This is uncomparable.... During this time, first Poland didn't existed, then existed as a multiethnic entity, then didn't existed again, then existed as a monoethnic communist dictaturship, and since 89' Poland is democratic republic. So it is not surprising that the law was changing contantly...

**Educational reform -> splitting highschools into two separate levels. In my opinion it was a mistake and unnecessary change, but it is hard to see politics in that. Gov. really thought it would be better system and they had some merits. Other than that and huge boom in private universities there wasn't any structural changes. So I wouldn't say it is constant change.

**Health care is not changing much, there was a try with those "Kasy Chorych" but it failed, and now we are back where we were for good and for bad.

**about tax'es I have mixed feelings. They are of course to high :-) Are they complicated, I'm not sure. My friend told me, that Polish base tax act has about a few dozen pages and British base tax act has about a few hundred pages. Judging from that it seems that Polish tax law could be more complicated ;-) So maybe it is not a problem with a law itself but with arbitrary execution of that law.

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

Personally I support it, maybe because I don't smoke :-) I don't care about smokers lungs, it is their choice. But I really get mad every time my clothing stinks after I'm back from some club... Beside smoke and alcohol means headache for me, without smoke I'm just fine. This smoke is just getting in my personal living space, if smokers can find a way to hold this smoke in their breathing area then I'm ok with that. But obviously they can't.

Anyway, this ban is to rigid. There should be clubs/restaurants for smokers but it should be clearly signed on front doors, just to let me know that I should avoid it, exactly like in some trains. Simple.

Travel / Jazz in Poland [26]

In August? Hm... if I remember corectly August is usually quite uneventful in Wroclaw in regards to music events. You know, everybody is just before/during/short after vacations...


Yeap, Mozdzer rules:
youtube.com/watch?v=qEx739dYw40

Travel / Jazz in Poland [26]

Heh, I didn't look closely at the date ;-/ anyway, Mozdzer still rules ;-)

News / Poland's Economy Is No Joke [63]


in short: yes they estimate there will be less money from insurance/taxes but there is something called reserve fund for such scenarios. But in general it would be not easy year for hospitals (NFZ is always fine, because they contract only as much as they have money for).

PS. As far as Shiff is concerned, for all I know the guy then I'm sure he wouldn't be in favour of anything like National Health Insurer, so I wouldn't mix his article with health care :-) It was more about finance world. It just happend, that Polish banks didn't sell securitization crap and Polish gov. didn't even have to think about rescuing them, lucky bastards ;-) So in that regards Poland's economy indeed is no joke, just old plain simple banking. Before crisis it suppose to be "retarded" to lend and keep the loan on books...

News / Poland's Economy Is No Joke [63]



Personally I fully believe that Honest George saw such things in aforementioned tv shows, because I used to watch them sometimes too. The problem is, that those programs are designed precisely to show what is wrong in this country and as such are sometimes very good journalism (sometimes they can be politically driven). But basing entire personal view on this and making bold generalizations is just wrong. It is like saying that "many people has six fingers because I know a man who has six fingers".

Work / Poland is headhunting seriously in IT, Finance and HR. [41]


He is looking for help desk people. If you trully were IT dev in the past then you surely know what is the difference...

Life / Lack of Spacial Acuity in Poland [69]

I wonder if you were living in some big city previously (or it is really just polish thing)? My experience with blind crowd is that it is connected with big cities. When I first move from my lovely but small town to "big town" then my experience was exactly the same! I just have to be careful to not to crash with others... But in time it just went automatic and subconscious, and now I to don't look at others way and somehow don't crash or (don't bother?) :-)

News / Poland's Economy Is No Joke [63]


I understand you, I just want to point out that those tv shows you mentioned are made exactly for finding and showing people in trouble. And often this is good journalism. But as such, they are focused only on part of picture. So in order to make some generalizations it would be proper to take some broader statistics/info and compare it with those choosen group. For example, if they show some shipyard workers struggling for finding new jobs, then probably it is the case for huge part of shipbuilding industry, because most of big shipyards are in trouble. But if you see some town where some producer of car parts is laying of people it will not be probably the image of entire industry, which as far as I know, so far in general take the crisis hit relatively well.

Last but not least, one have to take into consideration that Polish tv, especially public tv tends to be politically biased, depending on current political deal. For example now public tv is in hands of PIS and SLD (it is changing like in kaleidoscope recently).


Well, when I was young... :-) during PRL, they were canteens at elementary school with cheap meal for everyone. If I remember correctly one had to do some monthly payment. For all I know now it varies between schools and towns, some things are school things, some are organized by local gov (because schools belongs there now), and I think there is/was some central goverment program regarding free meals for poor children.

News / Poland's Economy Is No Joke [63]


In what years exactly? Of course there is no doubt that polish road network is sparse, but in last couple of years there were big changes. Currently there is really HUGE develompent going on concerning highways (one of the reasons why polish economy took crisis hit relatively well). There is silent revolution going on (especially since not so long ago law concerning tenders changed). Not much people is paying attention to that (here you can find everything):

skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=49478773&postcount=2917

New highways (mostly on new track):

Rok A 2x2 S 2x2 S 1x2 Ogółem 2x2 Ogółem(summary)
______________________________________________________________________ ________

2000 90 0 0 90 90
2001 38 0 0 38 38
2002 5 0 3 5 8
2003 69 15 5 84 89
2004 50 4 0 54 54
2005 34 20 15 54 69
2006 174 28 23 202 225
2007 24 30 28 54 82
2008 65 54 87 119 206
2009 85 71 13 156 169
2010* 30 146 12 176 188
2011* 126 60 1 186 187
2012* 400 240 7 640 647
2013* 0 0 0 0 0
2014* 56 0 0 56 56

News / Poland's Economy Is No Joke [63]

Yeap, definitely good thing is going on in that field. By the way it is another example of poor journalism in Poland... People in that skyscrapper forum (mostly highway freaks :-) ) are often going mad with news in Polish media usually focused on some problems, which is not bad actually, but news which are entirely not conected with reality.. As saying goes, usually devil is in details (is it the same in Englis btw?)

News / Poland's Economy Is No Joke [63]

That is another general perception made from news and previous experience. Recently this notion is being build in common consciousness mostly because of A4 between Katowice and Krakow. This poor road is constantly on the news.

News / Poland's Economy Is No Joke [63]

Yeap Juche, vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas...
I suppose you are on the empty side of the glass guy :-) I'm talking about highway building program wich is going relatively well recently, and you are saying that someone somewhere didn't clear snow properly... I have really no idea how this two things adds up together :-) You know, trams and snow clearing is responsibility of the local city gov, in your case Warsaw probably... I haven't experienced Warsaw this winter yet...

Anyway, "I think that this winter will end sonner or later" ;-) :
youtube.com/watch?v=e2XP5cc-AAQ&feature=related

Life / Horribly cold in Krakow at the moment , how do you cope with such temperatures ? [124]

Believe me or not, when it is about -10 I usually drive to work by bicycle... It is just the problem of proper clothes, in fact it is quite warm when you move :-) In -20 it is getting somewhat cold though.

Anyway, people are not a problem, what about swans, ducks and seagulls? I was feeding them near the river today with bread, and well, those are tough animals...

Real Estate / Nice sections of Krakow to live in, and other questions [4]

mattyz, if you are a student or in student age, then good option are student organizations. Usually they have some good and relatively cheap offers.

Life / Polish and Czechs [190]

It is hard to not to like Chechs after Arabella in the childhood and a few books by Kundera sometime later... As to 1939 and Cieszyn thing, then according to some Chechs journalist, Czechs don't care about history as much as Poles, and it is not an issue..

Languages are different, but it is worth to notice that modern literary Chechs was partially remade in XIX century with borrowings from other Slavic languages (in much part including Polish).

Last but not least, one should remember that Polish-Chechs history of neighbourhood restarted in full scale quite recently. Before 1918 there was almost no common border (at least since middle-ages) and between 45' and 90' communists regime didn't supported normal social interactions.

Love / Are Polish girls forced to marry by their parents? [33]

Of course they are! For example during this harsh winter, parents use to make igloo-like buildings with steel bars. Then parents lock there their disobedient daughters and wait till they grow wise. It is obvious that poor girls start to dream about knight on white horse, and of course sometimes some brave man with long spear crushes this glacial jail ;-)

One should remeber, that some girls aren't that lucky. Some of them froze to death, or oh horror, instead of white knights on white horses with long spears, white polar bears are crushing the igloo and taking poor girls as a juicy meal.

PS. The rumour is, that a few years ago in the east of Poland some village people saw even a big red dragon with a star on the head, who was trying to break some igloo with hook and hammer. But girl inside of an igloo had some poison in blood and the dragon exploded after eating to much snow.

Love / Are Polish girls forced to marry by their parents? [33]

Be careful, because some enterprising women with not ortodox moral code are using those igloos as a trap for not cautious man. You may have to pay for your own bread twice ;-)

UK, Ireland / Poles living in the UK returning home or not? [63]

In UK they saying 700000 have gone home. In Poland they saying they have not, at least in such number. Where is the missing part? probably all over the rest of Europe... Poles, the most mobile European workforce? ;-)

Law / Polish Cop Took My Car Registration :S [143]

Wooow, after reading this thread I'm not surprised that the French are often kiling with the look or pretend to not to understand English... Few meetings with some of the characters from this thread in real life, and one has to wonder if it was worth to learn English.

Life / Horribly cold in Krakow at the moment , how do you cope with such temperatures ? [124]

Well, mother of nature probably will have a mercy around Friday, it will be around -1 to -5 :-) As for wildrover tips, I'm not survival teacher, but don't forget about warm hood or hat big enough to cover your ears. Or both :-) Supposedly, human loses about 40% of heat through the head.

PS. for those hopeless cases who freezes even in +10, and has to/want to spend few hours outside, then they are small chemical heaters, which can be put inside of the shoes or gloves. My fiance is using that staff when skiing. It works just fine and isn't excessively expensive (around 10 zł if I remember correctly). It can be obtained in all those sports shops like intersport, hi-mountain, skalnik, horyzont, etc. and via internet

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


But language is also good shield against globalisation. There is no practical possibility to make call centers/help desks/supports for Polish customers abroad :-)

There is always the other side of the coin...

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

For current polish salaries?

Life / Horribly cold in Krakow at the moment , how do you cope with such temperatures ? [124]


Seriously man, where are your long johns !? :-)


According to the weather forecast this friday, at least in Wroclaw and Krakow area... I really do hope so, because I'm going to climb on some small mountain during the weekend and get seriously drunk over there...