Polish Blog A daily dose of Polish life

Travelling on the train in Poland can be a great experience, it can also be terrifying! You may of heard stories about trains full of skinheads stealing your belongings or appearing threating and this can be true, in any country there can be problems with train travel but with a bit of precaution you can avoid the trouble and have a safe, enjoyable journey.

If you have a train journey in Poland try to travel by day and avoid sitting in empty compartments, don’t get out your iphone, expensive laptop, fancy watch and try to avoid the carriages with football fans or soldiers (both tend to get rather drunk).

I’d recommend always travelling 1st class where possible, it’s usually not much more expensive, a 1st class upgrade from Poznan to Gorzow cost me an extra 4zl, the standard class was full of soldiers and I shared a 1st class apartment with a couple of friendly University students.

Watch out for pickpockets, espcecially around tourist hot-spots such as Warsaw and Krakow. Avoid hanging around train stations at night, you tend to get a few unsavoury characters.

I’ve never had a problem travelling on a train in Poland, I’ve always been careful and have probably experienced more trouble from drunken youths in places like New York, London and Manchester.

Here are some handy phrases in Polish for travelling by train:

Train station – dworzec kolejowy pronounced ‘dvozhetz koleyovy’.
Ticket office – kasa biletowa pronounced ‘kasa beeletova’.
One ticket to (Krakow) – bilet do (Krakowa) pronounced ‘beelet doh (Krakova)’.
Booking – rezerwacja pronounced ‘rezervatzya’.
Return ticket – bilet powrotny pronounced ‘beelet povrotny’.
Sleeping car – wagon sypialny pronounced ‘vakon sipialny’.
First / second class – pierwsza / druga klasa pronounced ‘pyervsha / druka klasa’.

I mentioned Nasza Klasa in the previous post, unlike Facebook you don’t need to be someones friend to see their profile, news and pictures. When I’m not too busy with my charity work or signing autographs for fans I occasionally have a little erotic stroking browse through the pictures of some of the sexy girls on Nasza Klasa.

So because no one fucking reads my posts about other stuff I love my dear readers I’m going to introduce you to a couple of Poland’s sexiest ladies courtesy of Nasza Klasa.

First up we have Ola from Katowice:

I’ve requested Ola’s friendship and sent her the following virtual gift (which appears to be a potato crisp with flowers).

Hopefully she will respond by sending me her phone number and inviting me around for pierogi and some bedroom gymnastics.

Next up is Joanna from Poznan, at just 18 years old it’s a bit of an age gap but I’d most likely make an exception in her case (but she better be grateful).

I’ll be adding some more girls from Nasza Klasa in the next week.

Us here in the Western world have been using Myspace, Facebook, Bebo and messengers like MSN, Google Messenger and AIM.

So what do they use in Poland? Well, the younger population may already be using some of those mentioned above but by far the biggest social network is Nasza Klasa – www.nasza-klasa.pl

Nasza Klasa is kind of a cross between Facebook and FriendsReunited. You can upload pictures, add your school history, leave wall posts and send messages. You will need to know some Polish to navigate around the site and create a profile, once created you can search for people you know or do a random search e.g. Name: Kasia, Location: Sopot and then you can view all the girls names Kasia in Sopot (Sopot is a good location to choose as lots of girls on the beach = sexy photos!)

So what do Polish people use as an instant messenger? heard of GG or Gadu Gadu? It’s by far the most popular instant messenger in Poland but unheard of here. There is an English version called Javu Javu so if you don’t know Polish you will find this version easy to download.

Quality wise Gadu Gadu is pretty rubbish but it’s what all the Polish girls/boys use so if you want to date a Polish girl/boy you need to download it! It’s quite similar to ICQ and has over 8 million registered accounts in Poland

Where I come from when someone passes away we stick them in a box, heat for an hour at 2000 degrees and sprinkle the ashes around their favourite park/beach/tree.

Not so in Poland. Cremations are rare in Poaland and funerals tend to be a tradional coffin burial. Polish cemetaries have a rich variety of graves and the care that goes into looking after graves is astounding. Being Roman Catholic they believe death does not end human life and since everyone has an eternal spirit we will all meet up in the afterlife.

Many families visit graves frequently to pay respects, lay flowers, lantens and sweep away any dust. Many stones have the face of the deceased engraved into it which I find a bit chilling.

An important day in the Polish calender is All Saints Day (Wszystkich Swietych) where families visit the graves of loved ones to place candles to help the departed souls find their way through the darkness. It’s quite a spectacular sight if you get to see it.

Apologies for the brief haitus, normal service will now resume.

In my time away I’ve been spending a lot of time in Warsaw library, this has nothing to do with the new librarians… well it might of had something to do with it. I didn’t really get much reading done.

Patrycja

Justyna

Paulina

The folks at Xbox decided the best way to promote the console in Poland was to get some busty Polish girls in white bikinis demonstrating some of the games on the beach, they also decided to have a bar serving chilled Zywiec.

The marketing man at Xbox has been given a well deserved medal.

The beach in question is in Pobierowo (about 100km north of Szczecin) which is a lovely place to visit should you be in the area.

In the UK there is TV program called ‘Eastenders’, it’s watched by millions and the program is basically about a bunch of poor gypsies trying to out-depress each other. Storylines range from kidnap, abuse, murder and illicit affairs with friends/business partners/sisters etc. See what I mean? You tend to watch an episode and then want to kill yourself.

Unfortunately this program only airs in the UK, but luckily for those in Poland a new series by TVP1 started recently, titled ‘Londynczycy’.

The series does remain fictional; however it is based on real life stories of Poles who went to the UK:

“We were inspired by real life events which happened to the latest emigration of Poles on the islands: these stories were a starting point which we elaborated upon. This is important because the series is not a documentary on the real lives of Poles; it is a work of fiction, although the script writers did spend a few months in London doing research,” said Maciek Kubicki.

What may be seen as a novel approach to Polish television is the bilingualism that is present throughout the series, with both Polish and English being used simultaneously:

“Poles speak English with the British, they speak Polish amongst themselves, but the English they speak varies depending on their education and background. There has never been such a kind of show on Polish television where this bilingualism is so prominent. We have Polish, Polish-English or just English dialogues. It’s a new and interesting perspective for this series,” said Maciej Kubicki, story editor of ‘Londoners’.

With scenes set in Boroughs such as Ealing, coined one of the original Polish districts, Soho as well as The City and Canary Wharf, the series will provide an insight for Poles who stayed at home about what their lives may have looked like had they gone to the Big Smoke, London’s infamous nickname. For Poles who have already come back from the UK, many of the scenes may seem all too familiar…

Check it out: