Law / Prostitution in Poland, is it legal? [24]

Many years ago I worked in the Tax Office in the UK. Instructions then were that while we could tax a prostitute's earnings, we could not call them that - we had to agree a description with the lady concerned. Of course, if she was a married lady, we had to agree with the husband. So husbands got assessments on "wife's lettings income".

Life / Junk Yard / Auto Zlom in Krakow? I need BMW parts [5]

Given the huge industry in car repair using second hand parts, I doubt any car with valuable parts does not pass through a breaker's yard first so those parts with a sales value can be removed.

Life / What is Nowy Sacz like? [26]

Just to say we live 15km from Nowy Sacz and love it here!

Law / Is it possible to convert my Pakistani driving licence to a Polish one? [46]

Why on earth would Poland give you an EU driving licence purely on the strength of your Pakistani licence? Driving tests from that part of the world are a well-know joke throughout Europe.

A sworn translator is qualified and registered - not just anyone can translate

UK, Ireland / Buying an export car from UK (VAT-free) and importing it into Poland [35]

I believe that if the entity selling the lorry is VAT-registered in the UK, it/you must charge VAT as appropriate on all supplies to an EU resident. It's then for the buyer to ascertain his/its own VAT position (maybe he can reclaim the UK VAT but then pay the Polish VAT?)

Travel / Where do Polish people fly to for beach vacations in the winter? [34]

Oh, and PS, in March we are already looking forward to much better weather in April!

Travel / Where do Polish people fly to for beach vacations in the winter? [34]

I think you have not thought of the economic reality of the Polish working man and his family. The winter is a time to shut down rooms or floors of the house and focus on staying warm and keeping earning so, when the better weather comes, they can have trips to the lakes, mountains or the Baltic! If you want to swim in winter, there's always the aqua parks. In the summer, the lakes and rives come alive with swimmers, canoeists, raft riders, wind surfers, sailors. All with no need to set foot outside PL. Workers in eg Krakow will spend a LOT of weekends in the Tatry, skiing in the winter and walking in the summer.

Food / The great British baked bean in Poland [26]

tesco

Real Estate / Websites to find an apartment for rent in Poland? [30]

LOL - "cheap" and "close to the ski runs" are mutually exclusive. People stay in Myslenice to visit Zakopane (74km away).

History / Differences between Poland and Russia [43]

While Poland is moving (in many aspects HAS moved) into what I would think of as modern rights and freedoms, Russia appears to be content to move rapidly in the other direction. Whatever complaints one might have about PL is run, Russia is moving back to being a dictatorship with some pretty rotten ideas about human rights.

History / Differences between Poland and Russia [43]

History and current reality

Law / Weapon Law in Poland: what kinds of knives are legal? [35]

Wikipedia "All kind of knives are regarded as dangerous tools, but are not considered weapons under Polish law, so no restriction related to weapons apply. The exception is a blade hidden in an object that doesn't look like a weapon (a sword in an umbrella, a dagger in a shoe etc.). It is legal to sell, buy, trade and possess any knives, and Polish law does not prohibit carrying a knife in a public place. However, certain prohibitions in possession of so-called "dangerous tools" may apply during mass events."

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

"Best" is what's best for her. I once did an immersion course in France - stay with French family, classes every day, outings with the class - and absoutely loathed it. One of the best French teachers I had was with the Open University, but that would be way too slow for your g/f. I'd say classes, because that has a structure and a timetable, etc - all things to help you make yourself do the work. That pus some reading - nothing too hard, just something with a story - Enid Blyton is a bit old fashioned, but she was a very good writer for kids and her adventure books are still good form someone wanting to develop their language.

Language / Should I learn Polish or she learn English? [83]

Polish is a complete bugger to learn - 18 months in and I can only manage to read with any comfort ... get someone to translate, then I read ... I am working on vocabulary, but verbs and stuff are very had work as is anything approaching correct grammar.

Why not see how things go with this girl - you've not said how serious things are - then spend some time on alternate days learning English or Polish, so you each get to learn and you each get to teach. And nyou each see how hard it is to learn a language. Do some research into courses and books/CD/downloadable courses.

Classifieds / Random Classifieds Ads Poland [261]

Misa
You have got to be joking (or a criminal!)

UK, Ireland / Best way to get boxes from UK to Poland? [25]

I'd vote with Harry - perhaps even a card on the Polski Sklep window. There are people running commercially between the UK and Poland - that's how we gpt all our stuff out here, but you have to be careful - our original "contractor" send a sub-c who was told a smaller amount than we'd said so he could not take it all, then there was a con going on where the sub-c was supposed to get cash in PL but the cont asked the customers to wire him the money --- luckily the driver called ahead to us from the German border to explain and make sure we had some cash for him, which we did, so he could buy the fuel to get here! The rest of our stuff was brough out a couple of weeks later by the orginal driver's son, for £100, on a shared load.

Life / Symbols of Poland's culture abroad [5]

As a resident, there are too many to mention - but as a previously living in the UK Brit ... it would have to be the cars, OMG the cars! Until Soildarity I dont think most of us had heard of anything Polish except the cars.

History / Polish and German Borders-Justice for Both Countries or not? [37]

LOL, too true..

History / Polish and German Borders-Justice for Both Countries or not? [37]

Sorry, but if this is how you spend your time, you need to get a hobby. Nothing is going to change. During and after the war there were huge movements of population as ethnic Germans and ethnic Poles were forced to go west and Ukranians were forced east, so populations and borders sort of match.

Living in the past - or trying to re-invent the past - never does anyone any good. Or do you think Britain should take back America, while at the same time returing Scotland to the Scottish?

Poland was a huge country, a very advanced one, but things changed. Get over it.

Life / Typical Polish house and family [46]


FWIW -
- agreed - our walk in large shower and wetroom is one of the most extravagant things we did to the house when we bought it.

- thankfully we do not hear bells and we've scared the priest away
- cities or country? Do Poles have lunch breaks at 3pm?
- we DO have fly screens on all our windows
- we have a log stove in the kitchen and a fire in the bedroom
- we have a small cellar and a bg shed in the garden
- our garden is .27ha, or about 2/3 of an acre.
- we have three cats and two dogs
- we neither have nor want children

Life / Taking my Right hand drive car to Poland - is it allowed by the Polish authorities? [17]

I've driven through Paris, Munich, Innsbruk, Salzburg, Karlsruhe, Lyon, Strasbourg, Lille, Brussels, Essen, Dreseden, Warsaw, Poznan and Krakow, for starters. All in RHD and yes, some of them in rush hour. But I bought an LHD car when we decided to move to Poland - I'm brave, not stupid!

Life / Taking my Right hand drive car to Poland - is it allowed by the Polish authorities? [17]

Personally, I am quite happy driving in Poland. It's perfectly possible to cover thousands of miles in Europe in an RHD car - I know, I've done it - but nevertheless once we'd decided to move over here a LHD car went straight to the top of my to do list. It's simply vastly better to be sitting on the correct side of the car!

Life / Taking my Right hand drive car to Poland - is it allowed by the Polish authorities? [17]

Under Polish law - contested by the EU, but it IS Polish law - you cannot register a RHD car here. That means you MUST keep the car road-legal where it IS registered - so, for the UK, you have to pay RFL, get UK/Euro insurance (a bit of a bugger!) and get the car MOTd every year. You'll need to do whatever it takes to keep YOUR car road-legal in Ireland, even if you have no reason to return there (ie, you might have to return to Ireland every year just to get the car tested).

Genealogy / Want to find a person [762]

Sorry Ed, that's just the post code for Wroclaw.

Law / Registering for military service in Poland. Is it mandatory? [34]

From wiki "Poland suspended compulsory military service on 5 December 2008 by the order of the Minister of Defence. Compulsory military service was formally abolished when the Polish parliament amended the conscription law on 9 January 2009; the law came into effect on 11 February 2009".

The CIA has it that "18-28 years of age for male voluntary or compulsory military service; conscription suspended in 2009; reserve obligation to age 50 (2009) " so one possibility is to remind or record the reserve?

Travel / Greatest Old Towns in Poland [74]


What I meant was there's no need to specifically look for an OLD town - modern homes in Norway are every bit as colourful

Travel / Greatest Old Towns in Poland [74]

Actually, I think they're Longyearbyen, Bergen and Honningsvag

Travel / Greatest Old Towns in Poland [74]

You don't need to search for an old town in Norway - but here are a couple of shots

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  houses_in_honnisvag_.jpg
  

Travel / Greatest Old Towns in Poland [74]

Think, too, of the palette of Norwegian house colours.

Wasn't the original selection restricted to colours whose chemicals in the paint would resist weather and fading? So composition of the paint governs durability governs choices available?

Travel / Greatest Old Towns in Poland [74]

Being British, it never occurred to me that so much that was old had disappeared from our towns and cities in the name of "progress", until I started to travel and discovered that in some other countries the ethos was more "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I think it was in France that I first saw "compete" old towns and fell in love with their character and the feeling of really being in a place where people had walked for hundreds of years before me. In the UK, so much has been lost to "improvements", books have been written about "lost cities". Great houses have been lost to taxes - grand mansions and castles lost their roofs and deteriorated to shells, as the familes could not afford death duties - often moving into much smaller homes on the land and seeing their ancestral homes disolve before them. Whole swathes of housing in cities throughout the UK were demolished and replaced with blocks of flats, the people hated the loss of their communities and in time the blocks have often become high-rise slums and places where local councils dump their worst tenants.

There are exceptions, and some exceptional places to visit in the UK, but in terms of large areas, like the "old towns" in Poland, they are few. You're much more likely to see a 1,000 year-old cathedral next to a 1960s office block, sadly.