if so can you plz tell me what kind of country it is?About the economy?was it a good experience(living there)?and other details
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I've answered similar questions in the study abroad section and the Poland section, so I'll compile those here. I LOVED living in Poland. I'd move back in a heartbeat. In addition to what I've written below, I'd like to add that if you move to Poland, you'll be expected to learn to speak Polish -- maybe not fluently, but conversationally. A lot of younger people are fluent in English, but shopkeepers and other older people usually only speak Polish and Russian (and they don't appreciate having to speak Russian because they were forced to learn it). I spent the Fall 2006 semester studying in Krakow, Poland, and I traveled around Poland with my distant relatives that were also my hostfamily. I've been all around the world, and Poland is my favorite :) Polish people are generally helpful. If you ask someone for help on the street, they'll go out of their way to help you. It can look like they're unfriendly because they don't smile as much as we do, but don't let that fool you. They just don't put on a happy face when they don't have a specific reason to be smiling. If the salesgirl shows a Polish person a shirt that's clearly overpriced, one or both of them will say so. If you stand in a line in a grocery store or airport, you can sometimes be entertained by hearing everyone air their opinions. If the person at the counter is arguing with the salesgirl, they'll pick sides and root for their pick. It's just the Polish way. I love it. They use these little arguments and complaints as a way to make conversation with strangers. It's a reflection of the long period of communist tyranny, when people had to spend hours in line waiting to buy things and talked that way to pass the time. Also, Polish people use the word "no" the way that we use the word "yeah." I used to get worried that something was wrong when I'd hear my Polish "aunt" (host mom) talking on the phone and saying "no, no... no... NO!... no, no, no... no..." but it was really just her saying "yeah, yeah... yeah... YEAH!... yeah, yeah...", which is normal phone talk. Clothes in Poland are expensive, so don't plan on buying your whole wardrobe there. Bring an umbrella. Bring slippers, because walking around in bare feet or socks is seen as a sure way to get sick, but wearing your shoes inside the house might track in dirt. Polish people value a nice, neat appearance, and they iron everything (even jeans). I can still picture my "aunt" setting up the ironing board in the living room so that she could watch TV while ironing creases into the bath towels. Because clothes are expensive in Poland, it makes more sense for people to spend a lot of money on designer labels than spend slightly less money to be clothes that fade and stretch out after a few washings. Polish people are definitely no strangers to fashion. The standards for modesty in Poland are similar to what they are in the US, so you can wear most of what you would wear here. There are a few exceptions though. Never leave the house in anything that could pass as pajamas, including drawstring pants or pants with silly patterns. Wearing your pajamas outdoors in Poland is as unthinkable as going out wearing only your underwear. Also, don't throw your wet hair into a ponytail and leave the house. Going out in wet hair would be seen as horribly, embarrassingly sloppy (unless it is braided or in a bun) and a guaranteed way to get sick. Hooded sweatshirts are also not good because they are sloppy and associated with young troublemakers. Only wear gym clothes (such as mesh shorts or basketball shorts) if you are actually in a gym. White socks are considered gym clothes only, and believe it or not people will be able to tell you are an American just by your white socks if you wear them for anything other than exercising. Other than those things (no wet hair, no gym shorts, no drawstring pants, no silly patterns, no hooded sweatshirts, no white socks), you can dress the way you normally would in the US. A GREAT phrasebook for Polish is made by Lonely Planet. I highly recommend you buy it before you leave and take it with you EVERYWHERE in Poland. I used several times every hour of every day except when I was asleep. I also bought a Polish-English dictionary while I was in Poland and had it with me every time my relatives and I sat down to meals together and when we watched TV. I learned so many things that way, and it helped me learn so many words that I otherwise would have forgotten to look up later. The edition I used: http://www.amazon.com/lonely-planet-poli... The brand new edition: http://www.amazon.com/polish-lonely-phra... On Poland and Religion: In Poland, Catholicism is patriotic. To be Polish is to be Catholic. If you are Polish, then you typically go to mass. Why? Because you are Polish!... not because you necessarily believe in the teachings of Catholicism. Surveys have shown that Polish Catholics and American Catholics have similarly "permissive" views on issues such as condom use, premarital sex, homosexuality, etc. Their opinions do go against the official teachings of the Catholic Church. Despite this, Polish Catholics do take their Catholic identity very seriously. Some studies show that 98% of the population of Poland identifies itself as Catholic, with 75% of the Polish population attending church weekly or more. Poland used to be a hugely multicultural place, but the Germans and the Russians each had their own plans for Poland, and none of those plans were friendly toward diversity. During the period of Communist occupation following WWII, going to church was a way to practice resistance to Russia and to show that Poland was its own country with its own people, and that it would not submit and be broken and made into a Soviet satellite state. This feeling only increased when the beloved Bishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, was chosen as Pope. Imagine it -- the people in Poland could not look to their home government because it was just a tool for the Russian Communists, but they could look to the leader of the Catholic Church and say "that's a good man, and he's one of us." When Wojtyla returned to Poland for the first time as Pope John Paul II, he was greeted by huge crowds, and it's estimated that fully one-third of the population turned out to see him in person along his journey. One-third!! Even some cloistered nuns, who typically would remain within convent walls and unseen by outsiders from their vows until their deaths, were permitted to leave their convents to greet Pope JPII! When the Polish people stood together in these huge crowds to greet the Pope, they looked around and realized, "Hey! Look how many of us there are! Poland is still strong! Surely we outnumber the Communists!" This feeling only grew, and as JPII made the world more aware of the plight of Poland and the hardship of life under occupation, the Polish people stepped up the resistance. You can read about the Solidarity movement, the demand for a church to be build in the "Socialist city of Nowa Huta", etc. At any rate, Catholicism and the Polish bid for independence are tied together. Poland became the first country to free itself from the iron curtain, and it did so without foreign intervention or armed conflict. Did the Church give them strength to do this? Yes, but not all of it was of a spiritual sort. A lot of that strength just came from the way that participating in Church allowed the Polish people to see that they weren't alone. I spent a semester studying in Poland, and I took two classes on Polish culture, and we discussed this sort of thing a lot. While in Poland, I lived with distant relatives. When my "aunt" found out that I was a Protestant, she asked if I celebrated Christmas. I think I was the first Protestant that they'd met in their lives. In Poland, it seems that people are either Catholic or agnostic/atheist... and a lot of the self-proclaimed Catholics are actually not very Catholic at all, and a lot of the agnostics and atheists still go to Mass weekly.
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https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pl.html
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