Travel / Can I make payments by credit card in Poland's Biedronka stores etc,? [25]

That's because your bank is Spanish and Biedronka is Portuguese owned :)

Travel / Why does everyone seem to hate LOT Polish Airlines? [380]

Jon

Not worth spending time conversing with an obvious troll..

Law / Buying a USED CAR in Poland, my personal experiences and TRAPS to avoid !! [133]


Poles and Turks share many common traits, among other the willingness to cut corners. Whenever you buy something second hand in either countries, the same motto applies: caveat emptor!

Life / Polish people are the most ignorant people in the world! [331]


You're right, it was more the second adjective in befranklin's sentence I was thinking about...

Life / Top 5 things I like about Poland [56]


I agree about the trends, ie Poland becoming more "processed/industrialised" and Britain waking up in the past 15/20 years to more fresh produce and more variety in terms of food, in line with continental habits, as shown by the increasing number of markets in the UK. For example, North End Road market in London, which used to be quite scruffy and dinghy when I was in London has now been become nice and plentiful. So maybe the lines (trends) have crossed since I left Poland!

Life / Top 5 things I like about Poland [56]


Come on Jon. I lived 8 years in the UK and 5 in Poland and there is no comparison.. I am not saying you cannot get quality ingredients/food in the UK but you have to pay quite a lot for it. But the real difference is that in the Uk the majority a people eat processed/industrialised food on a daily basis, and I am sure this explains at least in part the high obesity prevalence in Britain. In Poland , at least while I was there (until 2011), it was very difficult to find "microwable Tv dinners" and most household bought fresh produce and did the cooking themselves. And the "standard" fresh produce you bought in Poland (eg tomatoes) were much tastier than what you buy in supermarkets either in UK or in France. But maybe things have changed

Life / Top 5 things I like about Poland [56]


Why? Unless mistaken, steak tartare (less then blue!) is allowed in the UK..

Life / Top 5 things I like about Poland [56]

i don't think it is typical American, if anything I would have said its is more typical southern European (Italy, France, Greece.;). And that is also increasingly the direction many are moving towards for at least 2 reasons :

- when you cook them less, all the vitamines/minerals in veggies do not get washed away
- it allows you to get the real taste of the produce.

Cooking less meat and fish is also a tendency I noted over Europe, even in the UK. 30 years ago, asking for your steak bloody/blue in Britain would get you an "are you sure?" from the waiter, now they don't bat an eyelid!

Life / Polish people are the most ignorant people in the world! [331]


- Yes My fellow Americans!
Sometimes I think my fellow countrymen/women the French could compete for this title!

Genealogy / Do I look Polish? (my picture) [375]


Another derogatory comment!

News / Degenerate "rainbow" eyesore to disappear from Saviour Square (Plac Zbawiciela) in Warsaw [297]

But Polonius, pardon me for asking, is Nie Zalezna a reliable source?

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]


Depends whom you ask. Edith Cresson, ex Prime Minister of France, famously once said that " a quarter of British men are gay"! Mind you, she also compared the Japanese to "yellow ants striving to take over the world". I reassure you, she wasn't Prime Minister for very long!

Life / Top 5 things I like about Poland [56]

Agreed, Polish diet is usually not very healthy plus quite monotonous. But there are some dishes which are unique to Poland (or at least difficult to find in Western Europe ) and delicious, eg zurek or makowiec.

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]


In fact, not polish is right, Sweden, like other Scandinavian countries, is a highly feminine country but probably not in the way he means.

Feminity (and masculinity) are one of 6 characteristics in Hofstede's framework for cross-cultural analysis. Hofstede developed his original model as a result of using factor analysis to examine the results of a world-wide survey of employee values by IBM between 1967 and 1973. The theory was one of the first that could be quantified, and could be used to explain observed differences between cultures.The other 5 dimensions are : individualism-collectivism; uncertainty avoidance; power distance (strength of social hierarchy), long-term orientation, indulgence versus self-restraint.

Masculine cultures' are task oriented and feminine culture more person oriented. Masculine cultures ' values are competitiveness, assertiveness, materialism, ambition and power, whereas feminine cultures place more value on relationships and quality of life. In masculine cultures, the differences between gender roles are more dramatic and less fluid than in feminine cultures where men and women have the same values emphasizing modesty and caring.

On Hofstede's ranking for masculinity/femininity (scale from 1 -very feminine - to 100 -very masculine), Sweden scores 5, versus 43 for France, 62 for USA, 64 for Poland or 66 for the UK!

News / Coal-Powered Poland Refuses to "Go Green". EU Ain't Happy. [304]


And?? One just has the travel a little around the world to see how much free space there still is on the planet. This ongoing joke about "overpopulation" started a few centuries ago with Malthus and his likes, making alarmist predictions which in the end prove wrong..

Life / Single mothers in Poland [175]


Would that be France? I happen to agree with some (even most) of the ideas that you have presented but there is something so "arrogant" about your way of putting them forward that one almost feels bound to reject them...

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]



You should make up your mind.. Are you talking about Asians or Africans (or both??)

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


I think it is a bit more complicated than that. Many economists put contracts which are not "umowy o prace" (salaried contracts) in this category. But the reality is that many highly skilled workers prefer not to go for umowa o prace in Poland for tax reasons, since they pay only a 19% flat tax rate against a higher tax rate for salaried workers of 32%. I have worked so far in 5 different countries and,as an example, Poland is the only one where I saw most lawyers employed by financial institutions ( I am here talking about internal legal departments, not outsourced work) employed on the basis of civil law contracts and not salaried.

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]


I know, that's why I suffer from schizophrenia.. My French half wants to make such sweeping statements (and no, I don't eat horse but I do enjoy the occasional snail or two!) but my other half, the British one, resists it!

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]


In fact, Hungarian is not Nordic (ie unlike Danish or Swedish) but has the same roots as Finnish, Estonian or Turkish. Attila is quite frequent a name in Hungary, which is logical since Hungarians and Turks share common ancestry (Huns)

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]


That would be quite surprising, Polish and Hungarian/Estonian are very different languages and they sound very different, even to an uneducated ear (Hungarian is closer to Turkish or Finnish)

Life / Single mothers in Poland [175]

thanks Polonius for this clarification, good to hear!

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]

Troll??

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]


you're probably right.. Voltaire famously (and sardonically) remarked: "This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.".. It must therefore have been Germanic, unless we are talking about a complete misnomer..

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]


Yes and no. I agree that on an individual basis Poles and Russians are quite similar and usually get on well with another. However, it makes one think again when you see that the majority of Russians believe that Putin was right to invade Ukraine and that they still believe Stalin to be a hero as opposed to a mass murderer..

News / There is no Poland without the Church! [178]


Yes. The church where I married in Warsaw in 1986 was St Stanislas Kotka in Zoliborz and it was there that late father Popieluszko preached. Although baptised, I am an agnostic, and i must say that i was deeply moved by what i saw when my wife took me to one of the monthly "masses for the Fatherland", which were ongoing despite Popieluszko's assassination 2 years earlier.

The church was of course full, so was the small park around it, and seeing all those people starting to sing patriotic songs at the end of the "normal" mass despite being filmed by the secret police was extraordinary.. That's when I started to delve in more details to understand the role of the RCC in Poland, and I agree with Polonius, without it, Poland would probably not exist, or at least not in today's shape. Contrary to many western countries where the Church was on the side of power, RCC helped sustain the very notion of "polishness" by running underground schools etc when the country no longer existed or when its was under foreign control, including during communist times. I am still an agnostic (verging on the atheist, sorry Polonius!), but I do respect the Polish Church for their role in preserving Polish culture. At the same time, many young Poles, while respecting this past and the role of the RCC, lead their own personal life without necessarily following to the letter all the "teachings" of the Church and I , for one, find this quite healthy..

News / Czechs most liked by Poles! [35]

yes, and that's also part of the reason why Poles get on well with Hungarians in spite of the latter not being Slavic. Poles and Hungarians are both susceptible to mood swings and quite impulsive, contrary to the Czechs. They are more "instinctive" as opposed to the more rational Czechs

History / Poles should emulate Jews? [153]


I don't think that's correct otherwise Switzerland, one of the world's richest countries would top the tables (at least on a prorata to inhabiatnts basis). It is true that A Einstein was working in Zürich when he produced the theory of relativity but apart from that and the cuckoo clock I am not sure that the Swiss are responsible for many breakthroughs.. I agree with Polonius, and believe that the key reasons for the success of the Jewish "nation" is the perpetual challenge and sense of insecurity which came with them not having , until recently, a country of their own.

Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]


+1


Show that indeed it is not directly linked to the people/nationality but rather to the environment in which live.

Law / Do Poland's taxes apply to foreign pensions? [21]


Taxation has nothing to do with citizenship/nationality and all to do with (tax) residency, except of course for US Nationals.