Only if they are helping to turn the house :P
Another bit of weirdness that some people might not know about :)

If you see someone in Poland standing near a bus stop and waving their arm in front of them, they aren't crazy, they are simply telling the bus driver to stop there and pick them up as the bus stop may be a "by request" (na żądanie) stop and if the passenger DOESN'T do this the bus will just drive right on by :)

What I said :D

And nope - it's not a generalisation. In restaurants, if you ask for water, they will serve mineral water and Most people will also buy crates of mineral water and will serve this to you rather than offering you tap water. One interesting thing I liked about Germany was the practice of charging for bottles and cans - there's like a 15/25c charge on every bottle you buy, but this is refundable at most stores. You return the bottle and get a receipt that you can use towards a new purchase. Not only does this encourage recycling, but it also gives homeless people a means of income, so if you see people digging in rubbish bins and pulling out bottles, you'll now think better of them... Or not.

The returning of bottles happens here but so far I've only seen it with beer bottles >.>

I wondered about that since I see people digging through trash all the time >.>... I've also seen some other "interesting" homeless behaviours I'd rather unsee. Where can you return them though? I've never seen a machine in any of the shops I've visited, though shops in Germany would have machines at the entrance that handle the recycling

You can go to a local store that will take them. Most of the mom-and-pop sized stores AKA "warzywniak" will take certain beer bottles back as a "kaucja" but not all brands, though.

If you see them looking through the trash bins they're either looking for cans or unfinished cigarettes.

TIL - Cheers Judas *^_^*

What's with the author and hairdressers... We call 'em Zebra crossings in Ireland... For non-British/Irish natives, is there any other nation where J-walking is a national past-time, rather than an enforceable crime at 4 in the morning, when there' NO TRAFFIC AROUND?

Number 5 is a quite common feeling here in Poland, at least for me, as the stores have only ONE particular exit that you can go through before you leave the store and there is usually a security guard scowling at you as you leave. I make sure to look as non-threatening and hope to God that nothing in my inventory sets the alarm off for some unknown reason :D

Number 7 I know I do myself when crossing "zebra crossings" (we call them "pasy" or "stripes" here) that are NOT in front of a traffic light. I consider it a kind gesture towards the driver because I know they have to be someplace as well so why hold them up?

Number 11 seems to be a British thing as some of the CVs we've seen were a wee bit on the opposite side of modest :D

Number 12 i\would be a common occurrence here as no one eats crunchy foods at their desk as a snack :)

Number 19...oh man, I suffer that one a lot myself, not sure about other people in the office :) Do I use a smiley in this email three times or can I just leave it as-is? Oh the suffering of the written word...

Number 22...depends on how close I am to the person in question as I'm near-sighted and I would hate to have an awkward conversation with someone about how they look like someone I know :D


As for the rest, Poles seem to be a bit opposite of Brits :) They'll happily tell their hairdresser/barber that the water is too hot and they can rattle off a succession of "dzięki!" (thanks!) when it comes to having a succession of doors held open for them :)

Jaywalking will get you ticketed here...even if you are crossing the street at 4 AM and the city guard happens to catch you doing so :)