I hate Warsaw. The worst part about living here is the people who move here from small towns, villages..

The description of Warsaw in the first post seems is GOLD!
Honestly though, it's kind of just a concentrated description of a good chunk of Poland and Poles in general...on some days:/

Pip, if you give someone the finger with your child in the car, you can be offended when that same someone swears at you later but your taking offense does seem to be rather unjustified. Keep being yourself.

It's interesting that you said Poznań was your favourite city and yet many of the things you listed are quite prevalent here, too. Staring, certainly, is high on my list of things that irritate me here, but I've learned that if you stare back for long enough, they'll break the contact. Continue to stare and you'll make them uncomfortable :) I have found that actually most people seem to be very 'accepting' of trying to speak Polish to them (although, in very 'busy' places, I tend to avoid it). That said, I've had terrible experiences with PKS drivers, apparently being unable to understand simple phrases (when I know for an absolute fact that what I say is understandable).

Dodging drunks is an all too familiar thing here also. Though I don't live in the best neighborhood, I experience it a lot in more affluent areas too. Ye olde drunken chavs with their hoods up in the doorway whether it's +30 or -30. Case in point: I was taking the trash out this morning. It was 4c and raining, yet four of them were blocking the entrance to my apartment building. So what did I do? I pushed the door open, pushed right through them with two ponging bags and laughed as they muttered a few comments. On the way back I smiled at them as I pushed through them again to get into the building. Most here tend to be all bark and no bite, show them you're not intimidated and they'll typically ignore you.

But hey, what can I say. We are the outsiders here, so we accept it or bugger off (that isn't to say we can't disagree or even hate some aspects, though).

I wasn't telling the whole story- just a synopsis. I have told it before. I gave the guy the finger after he motioned for me to open my eyes and use my brain because I didn't turn first at a right of way turn that had no sign. Then I gave him the finger as I turned a corner, then he chased me down and pulled up beside me as I was going over a speed bump.

But whatever you say. clearly, I was in the wrong.


so because you were baptized at this church it is now sacred ground? Religion should be inclusive of all people no matter what their gender or sexual preference. This situation just shows how narrow minded Poles can be.

Do explain why you advocates of "freedom of artistic expression" prefer to **** on Christianity but never on Judaism or Islam. Do you think Julita Wojcik would dare to put a "gas chamber of Love" in front of the synagogue in Warsaw or attach hairy balls to the nose of Mahomed and place her "art" in front of the mosque in Wilanow, all at the expense of Varsovians?

Julita Wójcik rainbow of flowers was created as a piece for Brussels during the presidency of Poland. The permanent home on Plac Zbawiciela was chosen as it is the super trendy, hipsterville of Warszawa, it was not an affront to the church. I have not driven passed Plac Zbawiciela in a while so if you say it was destroyed by vandals, then it was wrong to do so, those people against the ' rainbow' should have taken it to HGW.

Compared with atrocious smolenkist painting in that Bielany church, I think it is great.
Besides it offended nobody - it was really nice.

I thought it was great. I saw it, took a picture and thought it was a fantastic location for such a thing. I didn't stop and think "ooo, homosexuals", I thought "ooo, interesting rainbow". If a simple rainbow makes you think and obsess over homosexuals, then you need treatment.

The only thought which came to my mind was, did she get the idea from the kids TV show ' Rainbow' ?

I think that it's a very nice rainbow. I also think that the church is very nice. I am greatly saddened that vandals destroyed the rainbow, they are clearly scum, just like the traitors who were ready to destroy the church any time their American masters gave the order to do so.

Even many people from Warsaw don't like Warsaw. But it's a matter of taste. Personally I prefer Kraków and Trójmiasto.

It's easier to make money in Warsaw. And the cost of living is not so much higher in Warsaw than in Kraków. However, comparing to the rest of Poland, the cost of living in Warsaw is quite high.

now I don't know the age of 1jola, though I do know the church at


was the place of baptism for the local schools, during the period of communism the only people living in that specific area was the intelegentsia.

I am making a point about the history of Plac Zbawiciela in Warszawa.

Which is a bit odd, given that intelligentsia are normally not homophobic and tend not to betray their country for a fistful of dollars.

There's always a black sheep to prove the rule, or something like that.

Especially as ' Plac Zbawiciela ' in english means ' Savior square ' ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holiest_Saviour

I can't figure out what you're trying to prove here.

Thank you, and you're right. I don't come from a chłopsko-robotniczej family. Because of our background, and my parents unwillingness to join PZPR, which would have amounted to treason in our circles, the communists made it very difficult for us to live in communist Poland. In case you are confused what intelligentsia means though( look up spelling when you learn a new word), here is something you can compare. The first is Polish intelligentsia and the second communist "intelligentsia":

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_August_Fieldorf
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grzegorz_Korczy%C5%84ski




You clowns follow me like lost puppies. Now, go and look up the definition of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch

Although these days it is better described as plac Hipstera. Every time I go there I thank god that it's quite hard to buy firearms in Poland: if I could walk into a shop and walk out with a pump-action shotgun and several boxes of ammunition, there is a very high chance that I would have long ago done just that and then gone to pl Zbawi to do my bit to rid Wawa of the hipster plague.

Oh, you poor poor thing. My parents would have also been classed as inteligencja, and did not join the PZPR, and we lived in communist Poland, and queued for bread and sugar just like everyone else. Nobody made it "difficult" just for us. You can put your justifications where they belong. ;->

That's just an aside, but I couldn't resist.

Touche


I expected you to figure it out Mags, people are motivated by their historical attachment to a place. Julita Wójcik rainbow of flowers was created as a show piece for Brussels during the presidency of Poland, it was then returned to PL. finally it was agreed to rest it at Plac Zbawiciela aka Plac Hipstera for the forceable future. Some people see it as art others see it as a sign of moral decline. The fact the rainbow sits on a square in close proximity to Warsaw's number 1 hangout for the fashionable lefties is not coincidence. It still does not give people the right to vandalise city art. It is just politics at a lower level.


I am familiar with the difference.

If by any chance you could manage to load a weapon, you should get ready. The "artist" and her 1,600 hipster volunteers will be making paper flowers to rebuild the "Hipster Rainbow." You will recognize them by immediately by matted hair, pierced faces, and Che Guevara T-shirts. They might be holding balloons and chanting anti-fascist slogans. You should load birdshot to blast a hipster and balloon at the same time. Have fun.


For you, but you are aware that THEY did for others.

With hindsight I am sure your parents wish they had left Poland for a better life, just like their daughter. 20-20 and all that.

Did you also react to that treatment by betraying Poland and signing up to nuke the country any time your Yankee paymasters told you too?


And no surprise to see which side is reacting with violence and intolerance. I wonder how they would have reacted if somebody from the other side had solved the problem of the 'Smolensk cross' cross with a jerry can of petrol and a zippo lighter.


My time in the army wasn't completely wasted, I'm sure I still remember a few things of the things I learned.

For the last time: I did not leave Poland for a "better life", my life in PL was much easier than here and I had nothing to complain about, economics-wise.

I came to the UK out of curiosity, mainly. I had never lived abroad before (except in India as a child, and the Czech Rep. doesn't count because it's my second homeland).

So no, they never wished they had left Poland. Some people don't see everything in terms of money and material possessions, you know.

I made the mistake of going into one hipster cafe near there. The hot chocolate was fantastic, the clientele...not. Many of them were sitting around with laptops looking thoroughly antisocial - really, haven't these guys watched even a single episode of Friends?


No self respecting hipster would be seen dead with pierced faces and Che Guevara t-shirts. Wrong subculture.


Out of interest - do you think it did anything for your English skills?

Shows how people's insecurities play on their minds though - a nice rainbow is a nice rainbow. What rational person associates a rainbow with homosexuals instantly?

I'm sure it did, definitely. Before coming here, my English was "international" - grammatically correct and bland, if you know what I mean. I see this most in my work - I phrase things differently, I have much more of a "native feel" for the language, if you will. I think I have gained something much more valuable than money by staying in the UK for a bit.

Quite possibly, I know it's a common complaint about people in your line of work that they don't have a "feel" for what's right when translating into English.


Certainly him and his family must have valued money over everything else, otherwise he wouldn't have signed up to drop the bomb on his own people.

Nobody in the place I'm from cares what or where I eat, but thanks for the heads up.


I didn't want to say it's the only city I felt safe in because that wouldn't be true.


I thought it was cool. But then again, I'm not some uptight Polish homophobic b-tch.

A bit OT: It's the difference between saying something in perfectly good English, and saying it the English way. Both sentences might be considered absolutely correct and the translation accurate - but there will be this little difference, like saying "as well" instead of "too", for example. Using one and not the other of two widely accepted technical terms. Etc. It's really pretty hard to explain. But it does seem to be taking place, and if I can upgrade my internal linguistic software this way, I'm all for it! :-)

I still wonder why a rainbow is offending. Anybody automatically reading "gay" into that has a problem.
You might as well do not like the palm tree because it was anti-globalist during Euro 2012.
For some people the only acceptable mementos in Warsaw are crosses.

It just shows that they spend their lives thinking about homosexuals and other such topics whereas we...don't :)

Clearly his time in a foreign air force with all those men must have taught him a thing or two about man to man love.