Work / Moving to Poland to work at a company (Warsaw or Lodz). Average expense per month? [57]


Sharing a flat is indeed a possibility. However, it would be difficult for him to arrange that until AFTER he arrives in Poland. Not too many young professionals are going to take someone in sight unseen. On the other hand, the risk of ending up in an apartment that he doesn't like and where he doesn't fit in is not negligible. Good roommates are worth their weight in gold. Bad roommates can make his life a living hell. Unfortunately, the latter are more common than the former. Living alone is "safer", in spite of the extra cost, at least until he acculturates. And since the assignment is only for a year, he will be returning home or moving on to greener pastures before then. 5000 PLN a month net is quite low for an experienced SAP consultant, even in Warsaw, where it is about half the going rate.

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


To about the same degree as Polish does to Japanese. They're not at all related.

Life / SWEAT LODGE CEREMONY IN POLAND [3]

There are a tiny number of Poles who are fascinated by Native American culture, and they occasionally have Pow Wows. I attended one once, at it was quite ... amusing. The largest such group is Huu Ska Luta from Toruń. You could try asking them on their website whether they know of anybody who is into steam lodging. Here's the address: huuskaluta.com.pl

Love / Indian girl met a Polish guy and got pregnant. He doesn't want to marry me and my visa expires... [14]


Depends on whether you will be able to find employment or not. Are you currently working? If not, so you have any qualifications that can be used to find gainful employment on the job market? Do you speak Polish, and how well? How do you expect to financially support yourself and your child while here in Poland? Have you given serious thought to the questions of abortion and putting the child up for adoption? How do you plan to ensure that the father of the child fulfills his financial responsibilities for the child?

There are a lot of questions here, many very personal and sensitive, and many of which you are not going to be comfortable with discussing with a bunch of strangers. Looking for advice on an anonymous internet forum in a complicated case like this is not a good idea. Find someone who is actually qualified to answer your questions and meet with them face to face in the real world. The person to ask first is your gynecologist. They can refer you to qualified professionals who can answer your questions. Any advice you get here or anywhere in the internet is likely not to be very useful.

Good luck!

Food / Where to buy British mature Cheddar Cheese and salted butter in Poland? [289]

Generally, Polish cheeses are pretty hopeless. There is one exception, though. There is a hard cheese called "Bursztyn" that is excellent for sprinkling on top of pasta. It's usually available in the larger, better supermarkets at about 45 PLN a kilo, which sounds expensive, but, like Parmesan, a little goes a long way.

If you're talking about a convenience product like pre-grated cheese in a shaker or bag, it's never going to be as good as freshly grated real cheese. And if you have to go out of your way to look for it and order it, it's not worth the effort and time.

Love / Polish guy - (are we ever going to get together if he doesn't understand me or I him?) [5]


It's very possible. I have an eleven-year-old cousin who was born to Polish parents in the Sates, and lived all of her life in the States. Her English is just plain awful. And there are plenty of immigrants from Poland from my grandparents generation who lived 70 years in the States without learning English at all.

On the flip side, I also have a British friend her in Wrocław who has been living in Poland for fifteen years, is married to a Polish woman and has two teenage kids. He never learned Polish beyond a few basic words and phrases. Even though he's an English teacher and speaks only English to his kids, their English is not at all impressive. They both have strong Polish accents that do not betray any British influence.

Work / Moving to Poland to work at a company (Warsaw or Lodz). Average expense per month? [57]


That's low for an experienced SAP consultant on the world market, and even less than the going rate in Warsaw. For a single man, though, with no bad habits, you will be able to live relatively comfortably and save up some money, barring unforeseen expenses (like having to fly back to Bangalore for a wedding or funeral, or extended illness). As Maybe said, there will always be unexpected expenses, and you should be diligent in building up a rainy-day fund to deal with them. Foreigners, especially inexperienced ones, cannot live as cheap as native Poles do.

Being a vegetarian is not a big problem in Poland. While the proportion of vegetarians in Poland is nowhere near as high as in Bangladesh, there are still plenty around. As Maybe said, finding vegetarian options in most restaurants is not a big challenge.

The main factor that determines your food budget is how often you eat out away from home, including coffee in a cafe or soft drinks and such. Cooking at home from scratch saves you a lot of money.

As for social life, there are plenty of options in Warsaw that cost very little. Standby tickets to the opera and theater are very cheap. The main expenses associated with social life are alcohol and women. Both are black holes as far as your savings are concerned. Avoid both, and you'll be fine.

Also, NEVER stop developing your qualifications and experience, and ALWAYS be on the lookout for a better job. Experienced SAP consultants are in demand, at pays much, much higher than yours. You will be able to save much more in absolute dollars working as a SAP consultant in a western country than you will in Poland. So keep looking. For orientations sake, at your rate of pay, you will be able to save up at most $12,000 a year in Poland. An experienced SAP consultant in the West under similar circumstances can put away four or five times as much, even taking into account the higher cost of living. Also, the opportunities for further education are much better in the West than in Poland.

Work / What salaries are for IT specialists (Senior QA Engineer) in Poland? [59]


Move only after you land a well-paid job. Do not move on the assumption that you will find one once you get here.

The range of salaries can vary very widely, depending on qualifications, experience and current market supply and demand. Knowing average salaries is helpful, but, in the end, the only figure that counts is the one that your prospective employer offers. Employers in Poland are highly motivated to keep wages as low as possible, and that is often their primary, and sometimes only concern. Poland is not a friendly market for job seekers, even for IT engineers. Wages are still significantly lower than in the West, which significantly limits your ability to save up in absolute dollars or euros. Paths to career advancement are more limited, as many IT jobs are outsourced with the best jobs remaining in the home countries. Opportunities for quality advanced further education are also more limited than in the West.

Whether you should move to Kraków or not depends, more than anything, on whether you are offered a well paid job BEFORE you come. Other considerations are your qualifications and experience, and the demand for them on the job market; how long you plan to stay in Poland; what you expect to get out of your stay in Poland; the generosity of the offer in comparison to what you can make in your home country or in the West; and your plans for your future life and career.

Where are you from (citizenship), and why exactly do you want to come to Poland?

Travel / Is Poland safe for non white women to visit? [7]


Generally, yes. As long as you avoid drunks, which is a lot easier to do in Poland than in Russia.

Work / What salaries are for IT specialists (Senior QA Engineer) in Poland? [59]


Salaries that high are for project and regional managers, high-level administrators and high-level consultants, or for experienced high-level specialists in areas that are in especially high demand. Non-managerial non-specialist positions are unlikely to pay more much more than 5000 PLN net.


Yes, you could raise a child as a single parent on 5000 PLN a month. It might seem a lot when compared to what you make in Belarus, but you can do a lot better in the West. In any case, don't move until you have a well-paying job already secured, and don't simply take the first job you are offered. Take the time to do your research, and shop around. Cast your net wide, not only in Poland.

Work / Moving to Poland to work at a company (Warsaw or Lodz). Average expense per month? [57]


I'm sure it will. Good luck with everything!


That's going to be difficult, if not impossible, for you to do without knowing Polish, either on-line or in person. You will definitely need the assistance of a native Pole. Better yet, ask one of your future Polish colleagues to find an apartment for you before you come. The alternative is relying on an agency to find one for you, but that will cost you about one month's rent, so about 1500 PLN, give or take.

Work / Moving to Poland to work at a company (Warsaw or Lodz). Average expense per month? [57]

That can be arranged between you (or your representative) and your landlord. Some landlords are more flexible than others. Others want only long-term tenants. To negotiate, you will need the help of a native Pole.

Food / Christmas cookies for boyfriends Polish parents [8]

Try Welsh cookies. I often make them and my Polish friends just love them. They're also easy to stack for shipment, and pretty durable.

Oatmeal cookies are another possibility, but they may be too delicate to survive shipment. Remember that any package you send is going to get tossed around like a basketball.

Food / Christmas cookies for boyfriends Polish parents [8]

Welsh cookies are small flat cookies baked not in the oven, but on the stovetop on a cast iron skillet. Type "Welsh cookies" into Google images.

Here's my recipe:

WELSH COOKIES

5 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups butter
1 box dried currants

Sift together dry ingredients. Cream together butter and sugar.

Stir in eggs. Add dry ingredients and milk. Add currants.

Roll dough out on a lightly floured work surface and cut with a glass into rounds.

Bake on a very lightly greased cast iron skillet or griddle over medium high heat until cooked through, adjusting heat as necessary.

Take's a little practice, but you'll catch on pretty quick.

Polonia / Do you know any Polish Language teachers in India? [44]


Not at all. German is no more closely related to Polish than Kannada is. Same for French and English.

Polonia / Do you know any Polish Language teachers in India? [44]

Like I said, German is not more closely related to Polish than Kannada, Albanian. Armenian or Persian are, so the answer is no. Apart from all of the above being Indo-European languages, they all diverged many thousands of years ago.

Food / Cheese in Poland is too bland [37]


There is only one decent Polish cheese that I have found. It's called "Bursztyn", and it's a hard cheese for grating and serving with, for example, pasta. On par with any foreign cheeses of that type. Sorta kinda tastes a little like Norwegian brunnost, oddly, but of a much better quality, harder and not quite as sweet. A decent substitute for Italian hard cheeses. The same company makes two other cheeses, "Rubin" and "Safir", that I haven't tried yet because they never seem to have it in stock when I am in cheese buying mode. Based on the quality of "Bursztyn", they might be worth a try.

There is only one cheese of the type you mention that is OK. Not great, but edible. It's a Polish knock-off of Maasdammer. Pretty much OK for sandwiches, pasta, lasagna and pizza.

All of the rest I've tried were horribly bland and lifeless, including all Polish knock-offs of Gouda and Emmentaler. Just plain inedible, and yes, they all taste more or less the same, which is, like nothing at all.

If you want great cheeses, go to the Czech Republic. They make some truly incredible cheeses that are worth writing home about. There's a great cheese shop right across the border from Polish Cieszyn, on the right about 50 meters after you cross the old international exit point (which I think is called Most Pokoju or Most Jedności, or something like that). Worth checking out if your in the area.

Work / Teaching English in Krakow - where to start looking and the process? [21]

Agree. The market is super saturated with native speaking wannabe teachers, and this is the wrong time of the year to be looking. The only teaching jobs your likely to find in Kraków are at lousy schools for lousy pay under lousy conditions. The good jobs are already taken. You're about 15 years to late to cash in on the Polish market for English teachers. That ship has long since sailed, and the market has contracted because of the financial crisis.

The same is also true for Warsaw and Wrocław, and to a large extent for the other cities that are attractive to westerners, like Poznań and Gdańsk. There still may be some opportunities out there in small provincial towns, but you're going to have to look really hard for them, especially at this time of year.

Also, Kraków, Warsaw and Wrocław are wonderful cities to live in if you've got cash. They are not much better than £ódź or Katowice if you don't. Unless you're bringing in a guaranteed 4000 PLN a month, including in the summer months, which is difficult, it's probably not worth taking a teaching job in Kraków, Warsaw or Wrocław. You're better off trying your luck in the States.

Work / Is it possible for a street musician to make a living in Warsaw? [6]

Definitely without bills, and maybe not including czynsz. If so, it's not such a good deal.


There are a lot better places to try your luck than Poland. You're going to run up against a tremendous amount of competition here, both in music and in teaching. Highly unlikely that you will be able to "make a living" at it.

Food / Christmas cookies for boyfriends Polish parents [8]

In the States, they're called Welsh cookies (cake means something different in American English). They're often sold for fundraisers at Welsh-American churches, especially for St. David's day.

Travel / Poznan - the best time to visit? [6]

If Poznań is anything like Wrocław, there are precious few students in the city in July, August and September, as they all return to their hometowns. And in June, they're busy studying for exams. So the best time to come is late May or early June.

Work / Teaching English in Krakow - where to start looking and the process? [21]


That e-mail address really inspires confidence.

Polonia / Procedure for obtaining a student visa at the Polish embassy in New Delhi? [26]


It's an essential skill for any graduate student.


Your graduate studies are going to be an awful experience if you do not know English well. How do you think you are going to do your research? And write up your thesis? And communicate with your professors and fellow students?

Food / Polish Christmas Eve Dinner recipes [69]

That's a German custom for St. Martin's Day (Nov. 11), and it's not practiced widely in Poland except in and near Poznań. In Germany, the custom has now spread or been transferred to Christmas Day, as well. MAYBE some Polish families eat goose on Christmas day, but it is not by any means a widespread tradition, at least nowadays. Poles are not big goose eaters, by and large, and the overwhelming bulk of geese raised in Poland end up on the German market (87% in 2010), with the overwhelming bulk of the rest ending up in other western countries like Holland, Belgium, Denmark and the UK. The livers end up in France.

Food / Cheese in Poland is too bland [37]


Yesterday, I made schabowy for my guests. They were a bit shocked when I slathered and marinated the pounded schabs before I breaded them with plenty of garlic and lemon juice, and spiced up the flour and bread crumbs with lots of black pepper, papryka ostra, ginger, basil, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, tarragon, cumin and coriander. They tasted the final product with a little trepidation, but were pleasantly surprised and impressed. I'm pretty sure that that one meal represented the overwhelming majority of their herb and spice consumption for the whole year.

Another time, I made REAL Hungarian pörkölt (similar to gulyas, but less liquid) for some other guests. With REAL Hungarian papryka, black pepper, caraway seeds, juniper berries, bay leaves, garlic, marjoram and REAL smoked bacon from the village. And a good dallop of REAL village sour cream and a good sprinkling of chopped dill, parsley and green onion. The older folk thought it was "very spicy" (not exactly a word I would use to describe my pörkölt, which is about one-tenth as spicy as my chili, which I consider only moderately spicy). I later visited them, and they made lecso for me, or rather the Polish version of it. Tasted just like oatmeal. Not a hint of spices, not even black pepper.

However, all in all, Polish food is no blander than any other northern European cuisine. Except, as mentioned above, for cheese, which is atrociously bland. Perhaps the most annoying habit I've come across is adding sugar where it simply doesn't belong, like in potato salad, tzatziki, hummus and tomato sauce. Without a doubt, though, the blandest food I've ever eaten was in the UK.

Travel / Christmas Fairs in Poland [9]


It is. And it's getting bigger every year. Definitely worth checking out.

Language / Please help me understand Polish adverbs [30]


Czuć means "smell" in the sense of "sense, perceive or detect". As in "I detect an odor of gas", or "I can smell the flowers". It's more passive than "wąchać", which is a deliberate action. Czuć also works with tastes. And with emotions and moods (as with "feel" in English), which is the reason why Poles often mistranslate it as "to feel", as in "I feel garlic". Probably because this is the only definition given in smaller dictionaries.

Czuć never means to physically feel with the hand, as in "feel my forehead. Do I have a fever?".

Travel / A traditional Thanksgiving Dinner in Wroclaw? [16]


Actually, a pretty wise move. Start small and gradually develop your skills. A full-blown Thanksgiving dinner is a pretty hectic affair for an experienced cook who knows what they're doing.


Sadly, for too many people on this earth, a simple bowl of rice is a feast they can only dream of. More reason for us to be thankful.

Law / Do I need a work visa before moving to Poland? [29]

I wouldn't get on the plane unless I had already in my hands 1) a REAL contract (not a "garbage contract") guaranteeing me an income of at the very least 4000 PLN NET a month; 2) a copy of the work permit to submit to the Polish embassy in the States; and 3) a temporary residence for one year pasted in my passport. Your senses are right; whoever told you that you could apply at the American embassy in Poland is talking nonsense.

Second, a Berlitz school is very unlikely to pay you enough to live on. They are notoriously stingy, and have a very poor reputation among language teachers. Generally considered a lousy place to work.

All in all, there's no good reason for you to even consider buying a plane ticket at the moment.

Law / Do I need a work visa before moving to Poland? [29]


You will not be able to survive on that in Kraków. Not by a long shot. No matter how frugally you live. Forget about it. That's far less than you could possibly survive on. Never mind about diamonds and flashy things, you won't be able to afford potatoes and cabbage.

Sorry to burst your bubble, kiddo, but your plan is totally unrealistic and will certainly not end well. Definitely. Not a hint of "maybe".

Your situation is totally hopeless. Best advice is to forget about the girlfriend and concentrate on studying to get some salable qualifications. Otherwise, your life is going to suck big time.

One more thing: your girlfriends parents are not going to help you out, and are not going to give you a place to stay unless you can contribute your fair share to the household expenses (expect to pay at least 1000 PLN). If your girlfriend is telling you otherwise, she's full of baloney, or just as delusional as you are.