UK, Ireland / Polish wedding music/bands in the UK [10]

it will be a lot easier to bring in a Polish band that can play lady in red on the bontempi organ than try and find an English band able to play Polish tunes

either try cruising round the catholic churches and Polish community centres in the area or bite the bullet and fly in a kotlet band to stansted and pick them up

UK, Ireland / Polish wedding music/bands in the UK [10]

whereabouts in the UK are you based?

not being disrespectful I assure you but have you heard the typical 'muzyka do kotleta' that they play at Polish weddings?

Travel / Which train in Poland am I less likely to get shanked on? [30]


not really. the worst thing that can happen to you on a train is that you might get a kicking, driving on Polish roads is far more dangerous due to accidents. you can be killed relatively easiliy if you are not paying attention and driving accordingly.

when travelling on the sleeper trains the guards always advise you to keep the windows closed as thieves can climb in through the window when it stops at stations and rob you blind

in fairness this was on the Warsaw Prague route. I have never taken a sleeper anywhere else

travelling from Warsaw to Lodz by train two weeks ago with some colleagues, some drunken f*ckwits tried to roll us. they saw the suits and thought we would be an easy mark. we weren't

Real Estate / Poland: the building boom goes on [28]


you are welcome to your own opinion of course however I know lots of people who are getting on the EU gravy train
2000 euro is about the going rate for setting up as a sole trade
they are not from priority groups either

Poznan has the highest GDP per capita per head after Warsaw so hardly a deprived area

Real Estate / Poland: the building boom goes on [28]

maybe for some of them yes. however for many of them they would have the capital, skills, tools, drive, ambition, passion etc in order to get off their collective backsides and carve out a living.

particularly now as you can register as unemployed and then open a sole trader enterprise and get an EU grant for 2000 euros to spunk on vans, more tools etc

Work / The qualifications of a Polish doctor [10]


when you say general practitioner do you mean doctor of medicine or do you mean
primary care physician/family doctor?

Real Estate / Poland: the building boom goes on [28]


a lot of Polish builders have already returned to Poland. You can spot the ones who were working in the UK as they are the ones sporting new DeWalt cordless power tools.

I have met so many Polish people who came back and who had these great ideas of opening private businesses and changing the world and were just demotivated by bureaucracy and apathy back home.

However the ones who do come home will have a completely different view on life than the ones who stayed unemployed in Poland and didn't do a damn thing except moan about not being able to find work.

you are far better off riding out a recession in the UK where you have ultra cheap processed food from Iceland and where welfare covers most of your outgoings.

Polish friends of mine were given council housing in Glasgow (admittedly in the Govan) after being in Scotland for only three months.

USA, Canada / A Canadian citizen overstayed Visa in Poland [35]


oh now you have opened Pandora's box :-)

prepare to be flamed by the forum's resident racist f*ckwits

Life / Children in Krakow Apartment Playgrounds [21]

what I really love is that everytime we make a comment about maiming children with a homemade booby trap, this advertisement pops up advertising playground equipment

oh the delicious irony

Life / Children in Krakow Apartment Playgrounds [21]

the VietCong has a version of this which the American GIs christened the bouncing Betty

it used to go off at waist height with devastating effect

how about just digging a panji trap in the sand pit?
it is relatively low tech solution

5rar.asn.au/weapons/boobytraps.htm

rather than lining the hole with sharpened bamboo spikes, you could use sharpened coloured pencils so that another small child is suspected and not you

bear traps work well too, I have been told

History / The Grunwald Battle: Today is 600th anniversary of the greatest medieval battle. [66]


tunneling under the walls, packing pitch and pig carcasses around your pit props and then setting the whole lot alight before retiring to a safe distance tended to work in most cases

hurling rotten animal carcasses over the walls in order to spread disease was another option if you had the time

and don't forget leaving a huge wooden horse outside the gates as an offering from the Gods. that one works every time :-)

Life / Children in Krakow Apartment Playgrounds [21]

the forum has been very valuable for you to gauge what would be the opinion of your neighbours should you complain. they will not give a damn and they will laugh at you or worse still hold you in utter contempt for attempting to get their children to play more quietly.

short of burying doggie doo dah in the sandpit your options are limited

Life / Children in Krakow Apartment Playgrounds [21]


is there sand on the floor of the playground?

Work / International House - Kracow school - any chances of being offered a job there [59]


it is rather unrelated but still amusing

back in 94 there was a guy from New Zealand who was the DOS over at IH in Wroclaw. nice enough guy but dyslexic.
He ordered several thousand leaflets to promote the school and took responsibility for proof reading them

they all said International Horse

how I laughed

Work / Advice on Teaching English in Poland [709]


a good point. I have a friend setting up a school in Krosno where there is not much competition. I spent a weekend with the American dude who set up the schools in Nowy Targ and he was doing quite well.

not only is it easier to find work but you become some sort of local celeb. what is more business people seek you out and ask you for your advice, which is rather flattering however once they find out that you are not related to royalty and do not know dozens of would-be strategic investors then the novelty wears off

' it is big fish in a little puddle' syndrome so milk it for all you can

USA, Canada / A Canadian citizen overstayed Visa in Poland [35]


I would much rather light a candle than curse at the darkness

how are you going to support yourself whilst volunteering at a dental clinic?

have you thought about repping for a year?
you can detail dental clinics and pimp pharmaceutical products
it is well paid and you get the chance to meet lots of people
you could do it part time and still volunteer at a clinic

much better than leaning on a broom in a dental clinic for an entire year kicking yourself for screwing up

I have to admire you for flaunting the rules so brazenly for such a long time and not getting caught earlier. in fact my concern is how on earth can a medical university let you study without checking to see that you were entitled to stay in Poland legally. they probably don't give a hoot at the end of the day though

Life / Barking Dogs in Poland [57]


he said that he does not speak Polish. might this not rather give the game away?

it is infuriating.
short of poisoning the dog, there is not much else you can do I am afraid.
however if you kill the dog, the owner will just get another one so you are in the same position as you are at the moment

I have one alternative which will not result in the death of the dog nor any physical injury to the owner or his propery but you will have to PM me for details as I will not discuss this on a public forum

what gets on my nerves is when you have yuppies who move out to houses around cities and let their dogs out to roam around the fields until they come home from work. you end up with packs of dogs running around the countryside completely unchecked.

Study / Medicine study - good Polish University for international students; study in English? [38]


You will need to check to see which country you want to work in once qualified. many non Poles study medicine in English in Polish medical universities, the going rate is about 9000 euros per year in course fees.

there is a certain amount of jealousy from Polish students studying medicine but this usually revolves around foreign students being given the freshest corpses during pathology

because you are Indian, you may still have to take PLAB before practicing medicine in the UK. again, you are better off checking this before starting the course

good luck

USA, Canada / A Canadian citizen overstayed Visa in Poland [35]

what are your options in Canada?
what were you studying in Poland?
would you be able to get a year's practical experience in your field of study?

lots of students take courses with a gap year where they have to work in industry in order to get some practical experience before completing their studies

if you treat the next 12 months as an opportunity to develop your career and knowledge rather than berating yourself for screwing up, the time will just fly by

Eye of the tiger, Mr Ruff Ryder, eye of the tiger

Work / Whats the job and school market like in Warsaw? [27]

please contact them directly. they can only say no, but as it is no win, no fee they would be silly to do so. particularly if you call from their offices and they can keep an eye on what you are saying. no publisher wants someone misrepresenting their product.

it is a great start out job in Poland, you meet loads of people and no one takes themselves too seriously. the underlying thing to remember is that not many Poles can sell. they either undersell or they try and ram the bl**dy product down your throat.

as for commission, I am not sure but I would have thought 12,5% would be acceptable.
you are never going to get rich doing this but it is a proven stepping stone in building a career in Poland

Work / Whats the job and school market like in Warsaw? [27]

contacts are quite important in Warsaw too. the nice thing about teaching is that you have a bid wedge of time in the middle of the day to dedicate to other things.

the warsaw voice, the warsaw insider, warsaw in your pocket all need content and you could create content for them. this is how friends of mine who work for Reuters started out. every magazine is desperate for ad sales people, all your prospective clients speak English. You would get commission only however i have met many people who started this way then landed jobs at advertising agencies.

it makes your CV look far more marketable. early hours teaching business English and afternoon/evening work teaching students will stop you from starving to death.

UK, Ireland / Moving from Ireland to Poland [29]

Hi

I do not want to sound unwelcoming but can your fiance and her family not explain this to you?

Travel / Pawiak Museum in Warsaw [14]

Mila 18 is simply a mound where the rubble was overgrown after the bunker containing Mordacai Anieliewicz and colleagues was blown up. I used to live just round the corner on Andersa. there is not much to see apart from a mound. For a afternoon stroll go to the Jewish cemetary and walk around. it is very moving. There used to be a really good WWII section in the history museum in the old town. haven't been there in years though

News / Decoded talks inside Poland's president's plane are released in Internet [337]

due to Kaczynski's habit of attempting to prosecute pilots who refuse to land irrespective of the circumstances, these two young pilots would have been willing to risk landing the plane in far from ideal conditions. their folly caused the deaths of the passengers on the plane along with their own. Kaczynski was instrumental in his own death and that of his wife and cabinet by choosing pilots who could be manipulated by him.

I cannot conceive a worse time to 'off' the Polish president than whilst he was commemorating the murder of thousands of Poles during WWII by the Russians.

It does rather draw worldwide attention to the antics of the Soviets during the war

naturally Grassy Knoll conspiracy theorists will be disappointed by this rather mundane interpretation of events, however, I do not believe the Russians to be stupid enough to murder a Polish President who was on the way out in any case and bring world attention to Katyn.

just my two cents worth

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [682]

any how our friends to the East appear to be showing a great deal of compassion

focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n216317

A quick note for the conspiracy theorists, if you were going to wipe out the Polish President and his entourage, you couldn't really pick a worse time to do it, could you?

It does rather draw attention to the murders at Katyn during the second world war.

Reports from the Independent appear to confirm that the flight recorders were working fine and that they are being carefully examined as we speak, so hopefully we will soon know whether the pilot was being forced to land against his will.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]


it is over a million euros and the waiting list is full

History / Future of Kaliningrad Oblast - is it possible to annex by Poland or will it become an independent country? [137]

Hitler's syphallatic dream only became a reality because he could control the press and here you all are condemning freedom of speech

the irony is amusing to say the least

as for Kalingrad, I cannot see the Ruskies giving up sovereign territory

if they have any sense they will organise a public referendum, spin it off as a seperate country and apply for EU membership.

News / Illegal drugs in the EU - Polish gangs are top sellers [56]

28 grams to an ounce
so an eighth is 3.5 grams

History / Polish armored trains form I and II World War [32]


well said Sir

News / Illegal drugs in the EU - Polish gangs are top sellers [56]


in that case it is about two and a half times more expensive in Poland than in the UK