(03-22-2019 10:36 PM)_Samo_ Wrote: I was having an interesting conversation with a friend the other day who's also active on the forum about Poland. We both agreed that although things are getting worse here its still a much better option than our home countries and there are many things in Poland that are not mentioned in this thread that are very much positives about the country. To name a few things and for once post something positive about the place.
. Cheap, ok things are more expensive than a few years ago but its still a cheap place to live for guys coming from western countries, you get far more bang for your buck.
. Decent infrastructure, you can find pretty much the same facilities as you can find in most western countries, there is really nothing I can't get in Poland that I would really want that I could in the UK. It is not a 3rd world shithole like some other countries close by.
. Girls are AT LEAST 1 point better than in the UK on average, the same can apply to most other western countries I'm sure.
. Obesity is nowhere near the levels in the west despite what some posters here are suggesting, I very rarely see obese people in the supermarket whereas in the UK there have been several occasions Ive seen several in one visit, same goes for the streets.
. No presence of rapefugees or other 3rd world immigration.
. Very safe. I never have once felt threatened or had any bad incident in Poland in 5 years of visiting/living there. I've walked around at all hours in many cities and been to many so called dangerous areas. Statistically its also one of the safest countries in the world.
. English levels are decent enough amongst young people, I know some Polish which helps allot but even without that you will not be stuck in a big Polish city with only English.
. In my experience Polish people are pretty helpful and respectful towards foreigners. Although me and my friend both agreed it is indeed very difficult to penetrate social circles and people will always view a foreigner as an outsider no matter what.
We also talked about this thread and how many of the comments on it these days seem like borderline trolling to us. The amount of negativity is insane. its obvious that Poland is not what it was a few years ago but the same can be said for most place in the world but Poland seems to get more hate than others.
I will say that if all you care about is girls and nothing else matters than I wouldn't recommend Poland as there are places with better looking girls in Europe and also places where its easier to get laid. But I think as a package in terms of cost of living, safety, infrastructure etc its still hard to beat Poland comparing to the other slavic/ee countries. Girls are also not that bad as this thread would allow you to believe. If you're coming from the UK/US then you will not be disappointed with how the girls look here.
I think that's a bit too rosy a description. Let's take food shopping. Food in Lidl will cost pretty much the same for most items in Poland, UK, and Germany. Interestingly,
the same food items are of lower quality in Poland (google it up, it's hilarious but true). Hotels/apartments are cheaper but not
that cheaper. Infrastructure is decent, unless you travel by car around Poland, it can get really bumpy. There is hell of a red tape. I have an American friend living in Poznan and he began to hate it - as long as you just visit the country and have not that much to deal with the bureaucracy, or it is a foreign business, that's ok - once you need to go to a state office, or to see a doctor, or to a court, or to an embassy and deal with really important and pressing matters, you'll enter a circle of hell. And in most of these places English will not be spoken or poorly spoken and the documents only in Polish. And I really mean it, it will be a hell, in terms of duration, money and willingness to help. Of course, this is not happening all the time but much, much more often than tolerable.
Example.
Simple, as it may seemed, my friend had to mail an important letter a soon as possible to the US. A triviality in the UK, a major operation in Poland, as it transpired. These days, in Poland you have franchises (such as Zabka) accepting parcels, there are no companies' shipping offices.
First try, DHL. You go online, print out the label, then pop into Zabka. Seemed easy. No, they don't ship outside EU. Why? The lady doesn't, of course, know why (in the meantime, you have a sea of people angrily waiting to be served), when you try to communicate in your broken Polish.
Next, GLS. We go to the location A, no, you can only
collect from there but you can go to location B to mail it, and, yes, you can absolutely mail your letter to the US address, I was told. So we merrily went. At the location B, they tell us no, it's not possible via GLS to mail anything to the US. Thanks very much.
What about tried and tested UPS? Two offices only, one on the other side of town, the other well on the outskirts.
OK, Poczta Polska (equivalent of UK Post Office), notoriously unreliable company but they have their EMS fast shipping service. A whopping $32 for a fucking A4 thin-envelope letter. Call it cheap. The lady, of course, didn't speak a word in English, though finally managed it. The amount of paperwork and stamps involved was insane. In the UK, they just print out electronic label, done and dusted in 1/10 of a time at Poczta Polska.
So there you have it - over a couple hours just to mail a letter. And don't even get me started on dealing with major issues.
Not to mention Poles still like to stand on both lines on the escalator and don't respect queues. On a daily basis I see some bastard sneaking in ahead of me without saying a word. And the art of small talk is unheard of.
Poland is getting fatter. Fast. In fact, it's one if not the top country in terms of fattening speed. But yes, comparatively, statistical Polish girl still beats the shit out of English, German or Scottish one. But the number of girls with whacky haircuts and weird hair colours, piercings, shitty tats and strange clothing (the hobo style of dirty and oversized clothing so prevalent in major English towns) is on the rise.
This is not to trash the country - thanks to joining EU and major EU subsidies (well, there's a reason to that, far from benevolence but that's a different story), the facilities and services and professional standards improved a lot but it still is and will likely stay a second-class EU country.
Why? Most businesses, banks, corporations and factories are owned by foreign business, hence all the money is continuously siphoned off abroad. Example: all major banks but one are private and foreign. All major food stores are or became foreign. Poland doesn't manufacture any kind of automobiles (apart from Solars, a pride of Poznan that been bought out by, yes you guessed it, a foreign business) or electronics or other world-class commodities. The housing estates are dull and new developments way overpriced and thus targeted at foreigners, pricing most Poles out of the market. Architecture is abysmal. What and how is built in central Warsaw is awful, ugly and makes no sense. Cheap and cheerful and obnoxious.
Poland will almost certainly stay forever a cheap labour, second-class EU country. What it means, if you come from a wealthy EU country to live in Poland, then your experienced standards of living, services and products in Poland will be in most cases lower or much lower. If you come from a poor country, though, it may be pretty good. However, if you don't demand too much, can keep a western salary, choose the right city and neighbourhood in Krakow, Wroclaw or Gdansk, speak some Polish and have patience in spades when dealing with bureaucracy, it can be, comparatively the world over, pretty good. Just don't expect you can have your cake and eat it.