teaching in Warsaw Poland?
teaching in Warsaw Poland?
Hi, ISR users! Does anyone know about teaching in Poland and their living condition? :)
I lived there for a few years up to 2000, so I imagine a fair amount is different. That has been a big theme in Poland for awhile now: change. It has been rapidly modernizing from a mostly agrarian, former Soviet bitch to one of the fastest developing Central European countries.
Tough language, but doable. Big transition in the last 30-40 years from everyone speaking Russian as their second language (or German ) to English. The youngish will speak it, especially in Warsaw. Less so out in the countryside. The countryside is a part of the heart of most Poles. And it is a nice thing.
Warsaw is a modern, bustling city. Lots of gray, Soviet style buildings all built in the fifties, as the entire city was leveled in WW II. Even their old town is new.
Poles are generally pretty nice. Attractive ladies. Pretty bland food: cabbage, potatoes, and pork cutlets are the norm, but Warsaw will have restaurants from other cultures. A great soup you gotta get: zurek. Sausage, boiled eggs, and other stuff. Very delicious.
Cold and dark for much of the year, like November-April. Glorious spring and summer, as those colder countries know how to enjoy the good weather.
Good enough train system and fairly affordable. Lots of great places to visit in country, including Gdansk on the Baltic and especially Krakow in the south. Amazing city. Tatry mountains in the south for hiking, camping and skiing too. Great jumping off point for Europe.
Tough language, but doable. Big transition in the last 30-40 years from everyone speaking Russian as their second language (or German ) to English. The youngish will speak it, especially in Warsaw. Less so out in the countryside. The countryside is a part of the heart of most Poles. And it is a nice thing.
Warsaw is a modern, bustling city. Lots of gray, Soviet style buildings all built in the fifties, as the entire city was leveled in WW II. Even their old town is new.
Poles are generally pretty nice. Attractive ladies. Pretty bland food: cabbage, potatoes, and pork cutlets are the norm, but Warsaw will have restaurants from other cultures. A great soup you gotta get: zurek. Sausage, boiled eggs, and other stuff. Very delicious.
Cold and dark for much of the year, like November-April. Glorious spring and summer, as those colder countries know how to enjoy the good weather.
Good enough train system and fairly affordable. Lots of great places to visit in country, including Gdansk on the Baltic and especially Krakow in the south. Amazing city. Tatry mountains in the south for hiking, camping and skiing too. Great jumping off point for Europe.
Reply
I would agree with much of Trojans post, though my experience is limited to Warsaw, i never got out of the city into the country. The local culinary fare is pretty uninspired, meat and potatos basically. There is a local soup called Chinina which is a duck blood soup with dried fruit that tastes amazing. The icecream is also very heavy, its almost no air and eats like a frozen custard, its richer in some flavors (hazelnut) then even Gelato.
The woman are pretty high on the hotness scale, tall, long hair, blonde (natural or bottle), they have that eastern european look and sophistication (though they arent italian or french girls). Polish girls really now how to . and . hard.
On the architecture we differ there are some beautiful building and some very recent modern european buildings, that look like they were inspired by Ikea, but a lot of the commercial building in the last 50 years or so do look like the grey utilitarian concrete of soviet era russia.
English wasnt a problem for me, but again in Warsaw anyone on the younger side of 50 either studied english in school or has learned conversational english for business purposes. Out in the country I cant say. Few country people venture in Warsaw, or when they do, they take care of their business and leave.
It is cold, and not just cold, but dry as well. I can do cold, but I needed to moisturize a lot there. people dont linger in Poland like they do in some where more tropical with an island culture. A lot of casual socializing is centralized to coffee houses and pubs, which makes planing socializing pretty easy. the days are pretty short in fall and winter and thats one of the hardest things to get used too. School get out and its already dusk time. You have to like night time, and having a residence with lots of windows tends to be a waste. You wont be home to enjoy the "natural light".
Transportation in the city works well enough, and the metro runs pretty late. Taxies are available 24 hours a day, but many parts of warsaw have their own little conclaves, such as near the university etc. There always seems to be local stores pretty close where most housing and residential areas are, so assuming you dont need anything very specific, you can usually get what you need pretty close by.
Poles tend to impress by how they dress. So everyone especially woman tend to dress fashionable, and being taken seriously, socially means doing the same thing. People are generally friendly, but its a superficial friendly, building real relationships takes a lot more work and time then in other western countries. Poles are inherently distrustful, but they dont want to offend, breaking through that takes real effort.
The woman are pretty high on the hotness scale, tall, long hair, blonde (natural or bottle), they have that eastern european look and sophistication (though they arent italian or french girls). Polish girls really now how to . and . hard.
On the architecture we differ there are some beautiful building and some very recent modern european buildings, that look like they were inspired by Ikea, but a lot of the commercial building in the last 50 years or so do look like the grey utilitarian concrete of soviet era russia.
English wasnt a problem for me, but again in Warsaw anyone on the younger side of 50 either studied english in school or has learned conversational english for business purposes. Out in the country I cant say. Few country people venture in Warsaw, or when they do, they take care of their business and leave.
It is cold, and not just cold, but dry as well. I can do cold, but I needed to moisturize a lot there. people dont linger in Poland like they do in some where more tropical with an island culture. A lot of casual socializing is centralized to coffee houses and pubs, which makes planing socializing pretty easy. the days are pretty short in fall and winter and thats one of the hardest things to get used too. School get out and its already dusk time. You have to like night time, and having a residence with lots of windows tends to be a waste. You wont be home to enjoy the "natural light".
Transportation in the city works well enough, and the metro runs pretty late. Taxies are available 24 hours a day, but many parts of warsaw have their own little conclaves, such as near the university etc. There always seems to be local stores pretty close where most housing and residential areas are, so assuming you dont need anything very specific, you can usually get what you need pretty close by.
Poles tend to impress by how they dress. So everyone especially woman tend to dress fashionable, and being taken seriously, socially means doing the same thing. People are generally friendly, but its a superficial friendly, building real relationships takes a lot more work and time then in other western countries. Poles are inherently distrustful, but they dont want to offend, breaking through that takes real effort.
-
BookshelfAmy
- Posts: 120
- Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:21 pm
warsaw
Had some friends who worked at the American School of Warsaw and loved it. Teachers stay there a long time, great tax free salary, much lower cost of living compared to west EU, good PD support, good technology, as diverse of geography as neighbor Germany. So I this sounds like this is the tier 1 school for that city.