Anyone made a move against the norm and relocated to Poland or perhaps knows someone who has?
drew128:
Anyone made a move against the norm and relocated to Poland or perhaps knows someone who has?
Yes you 
Pretty decent country Poland, especially now most of the undesirables are in England scrounging off the taxpayers 
Some fit birds out there too 
…and one more guy I found, although he stopped because of driving in winter, but interesting talking to him all the same. The papers and internet job sites appear to have a steady number of LGV jobs advertised, the wage quite high if you do international work, probably twice as much as say a factory worker here and the added bonus of not being seen doing some form of demeaning job, it seems driving in the UK is akin to to toilet cleaning for a job by the great British public, bless them.
I guess a few undesirables make it to the UK, its not like its made very hard for them to do to. Short working hours, good wages, no hard work to do, I might consider coming back actually 
On an average wage here Poland is actually a very expensive country to live in, so even to a Pole in work here, the UK will look attractive, so the UK will be of interest to the undesirables, people with jobs and those without. The Polish forums here, those who are still in the UK write they enjoy the easy, stress free life and most of them are staying long term.
Indeed some very fit birds here, our duck is outside now doing press ups and the chickens are out on a power walk in the village. Anyhow the car is off for its MOT today, I wonder how that compares to the UK version, but until then I am back out into the sun, summers not let go yet here.
The common thing we seem to share Drew is that we are embracing our adopted country’s ways, it makes life so much more enjoyable, of course it’s easier for me as I don’t have the language problems, although I do get the blank deer in the headlights look at times, but then McDonalds is not known for employing people because of their intelligence
Trucking over here is different to what I had become accustomed to in England, the job is done differently, no point in me moaning about it & telling them it should be done the way I’m used to doing it, learn the ways of the locals & you’ll be accepted, it also makes the job easier, a lesson some of the immigrants in Britain should learn. We, as immigrant workers in Canada do attract the odd negative comment from the natives, but as soon as they do I remind them that they are the children of immigrants themselves, that coupled with the threat of a punch in the eye seems to do the trick
I went to Poland 20 or so times when driving in Europe & found it to be a nice place, friendly enough people, ok so it was a bit ‘poorer’ than Western European countries, but it was never a problem for me, on the contrary, it was nice to see a totally different way of living. I can’t blame the Polish, or any other nationality for that matter, searching for a better life for themselves & their families, along with the good hardworking kind, there will always be some who move with the sole purpose of exploiting the system, even then it’s not their fault as such, the system that allows it is the problem.
good points mark, couldn’t agree more
steve
Bang on Mr Newmercman, I lived in Denmark for 7 years I think it was, the shift from living in England in quite small, certainly easy to be there. The traditions are still in place, which I do like. In the UK it seems traditions have to be kept alive, why? if they were any good then they would be alive all by themselves, so to see a country say celebrating Christmas like Denmark does is actually a lot of what I don’t like about the UK. In my line of work we get around a bit, I have toured in the USA many times, its a long flight and stupid country to do rock n roll in, so I actually enjoyed in the late 80’s and 90’s the opportunities to visit nearby countries that had been closed off for many years, Russia, Belarus, Poland and I liked touring there, rough and technically obsolete. More of a challenge to get a gig going than in the west, but I found the people much more excited and happy that a band from the west might come and visit, its were I first met the future wife.
Roll on 15 years and my good friend from those times offers me a visit to Poland to visit her. I drive to Poland, Denmark, Germany all the same, reach Poland and cross the border into a different world, nothing I am used to, crazy drivers bah bah bah. I will say I like to visit her is how I viewed my trips to Poland. She lived in a house with an outside toilet. They had a horse, I said “ahh you ride” er no it pulls a cart and a plough. I would fill up the DK car with stuff and go home. 8 months later I came during summer to visit, boy it was hot, The future wife offers a bath, There is no bathroom, there is a room with a bucket of water in and we wash with that, this is basic Polish village stuff, I could never live like this, okay to visit. Anyway I am taken outside to a tin bath and half way through something clicked and I felt this is not so bad, infact its perfect. At this point I thought my future wife would want to come back to the west with me to live, we talked about this and decided to build a home in Poland, she does not want to leave Poland and I have become uninterested with the lifestyle in the west, too much focus on having stuff and more stuff. We both actually arrived back in the Uk for 3 years which financed the house build and we arrived early this year.
It would be impossible to live as an Englishman here, not possible and totally pointless. I eat, do, drive as a Pole. If you required to retain being English, the red tape, the banking system would drive you insane. I am self employed here, that took 2 months to set up, protracted endless meetings, endless visits to countless government buildings who all want something else from someone else before they will give you the bit of paper you need from them. I go to a fuel station and now I need a VAT receipt. To get this I have to register with the fuel station. I give them my tax number, my name, my address my company name, it takes about 10 minutes to input this stuff and then at the end you get a huge sheet of paper that has the fuel stations tax number, they stamp it and I have to stamp it with a rubber stamp I carry. This is Poland, so I have to accept the bad, the stupid and good, I do that and life is fine, take the rough with the smooth, I love living here even with the downsides, I love the culture, the traditions, the people, its a beautiful country.
There is a forum here were Brits post on, a lot of them complain about this and that, one last night asked if there was a market for Fish and Chips 
as the food in Poland is not very good. The food in Poland is very good by the way, but I am not going to get Yorkshire pudding here, what I do get is great, if I go back to visit the homeland then I will eat this stuff. The best benefit you will get is living as the natives do, embrace the whole thing.
Good post Drew. I understand it as I sold up and moved to Africa, only for a short time, a life changing period for 2 years, but it taught me a lot about myself, the simple things in life.
If I wanted to eat chicken. I had to attempt to catch one, wring its neck and knock the weevils out of the rice bag. I did teach the 14 year old maid how to make batter, so when I came home with any large fish, she would make batter as I gutted the fish on a rock, surrounded by screeching feral cats. After that we ate deep fried chicken, catfish, pet rabbit, and shrimps left over from the fishing bait. As well as battered fruit we were eating the local delicacies, from monkey nuts, we made peanut stew, yoghurt from goats milk and had goat stew when it stopped producing milk.
Most of the time we didn’t have running water but we had plenty of plastic bottles and drums, so we could always grab a bush taxi and go out to another family compound to get water. Our electric supply was intermittent the say the least, about 4 hours per day, but the generator was used for the old music centre to play the single Bob Marley CD constantly at full volume.
Many of the locals were OK with the Toubab, although some did abuse my friendship by stealing anything they could, even my car, though they were treated like family. It was due to a medical problem that I came home, already having many years of pain and problems with my hips. We had a friend in high places who could resolve most corruption issues (for a price of course) although he was since murdered, (supposed to be a mystery illness) whilst in prison.
It was an interesting time in my life and one which I can look back upon with fond memories.