Dislike about Poland - paying for water
Coming from London, I took it for granted that I could drink as much water as I wanted from the tap without fear of any water-borne nasties infecting me or equally nasty chemicals. I try and drink as much water as possible as it is healthy and I done that here too for a month until I got a stern warning from my adopted babcja (grandmother) that scared me despite not understanding a word! Now it pisses me off every time I have to buy a 6 litre bottle of water which usually only lasts me 2 days at most. You can see from the photo it can cost about 5-6 zloty and that is the same as a packet of cigs and although I do not smoke anymore I still have a habit of judging prices by how they relate to the price of a pack of 20 in England (which is way overpriced in relation to other prices due to tax). I know that being unable to drink tap water is not unique to Poland and I had problems with tap water in Ireland because it tastes like a sheep had bathed in it, but it is the first time I have had to deal with it for an extended amount of time. The expense is not the major issue, but inconvenience because running out with the local shop already closed means no water for me. Furthermore it is a pain to decant water from the huge bottle into smaller ones to put them in the fridge so mostly the water is warm. Lastly we accumulate armies of blue tinted plastic bottles which are a real pain to get rid of.
Looking on the bright side I have increased my spoken Polish in shops a great deal because I am in there all the time to buy more water, I can order a large bottle of still mineral water like a native Pole. Also I have tasted many different brands of Polish mountain mineral water (One called Zywiec which the famous beer uses to it's brew) and I'm sure I am all the healthier for it.
12 comments:
If you are in Warsaw, in a newer construction building, then it's probably ok to drink the tap water. I've been doing so in small amounts.
I also don't like having to buy tons of bottled water because I think it's a waste of plastic. So what I do is boil the tap water, let it cool to room temp, refill my 1.5L bottles and put those back in the fridge. And now I only buy woda gazowana from the shop.
Just a suggetion :)
--Another Ex-Pat in Poland
Thanks for your suggestion :)
but I think the water tastes different after boiling (maybe it's psychological). Furthermore since boiling only removes microbes and not chemicals I try not to drink much of this water (only in tea/coffee) because who knows what chemicals Polish water treaters use.
Thanks for the comment
I wish I was having drinking water dilemmas. Hilarious! I haven't been following your blog closely, but wish I was there with you. Not sure if you've been following the news but Oxford has been underwater this week.
Who's the weirdo with the boiling water suggestion? A good samaritan trawling the blogs for people's mundane problems? Cynical I know.
Send me an email, reading your blogs is impersonal. Bloody hell I'm high maintenance, maybe this is why I'm still single.
I'm not sure why I'm a weirdo for making a suggestion to do what probably millions of people around the world do on a daily basis. Or am I just a weirdo for commenting in a stranger's blog?
As it happens, the blog was linked to in a Polish news round-up and I happened across it. I also don't see how that makes me weird. But whatever.
a I apoloise you sound like a really nice guy, the kind of person who jumps at every opportunity to pass on useful knowledge, no matter how mundane, but very useful nonetheless.
I was too quick to judge. Me, as the cynic, thought you'd come across this blog on a news round-up by accident and thought our Englishman in Poland had never thought of boiling water as a solution. I'm sure you yourself would think such a person was weird?
I too have used the boiling water method, but found the limescale in the kettle gave the water a strange taste. I tried a couple of methods to avoid this and found boiling the water with a handful of fresh basil gave the most taplike freshness. You'll go through a lot of basil though, but growing in a herb garden or window box will reduce the number of walks to the shop. Hope that helps.
just buy small bottles of mineral water !!! is cheaper anyway . them you dont have the hassle to move the water from a big 5 liters to a small one just buy the 1.5 littles back of 5 of them got that ??
I worried about drinking the water at first too, but unlike you I am too tight to pay for bottled water (in my British mentality only "posh people" buy bottled water). Our house has a well as we don't have the council network where we live, so I feel better about drinking water we have pulled out of the ground untreated - whether that's a good thing or not I don't know! Anyway I haven't become ill yet, and the colour looks OK, so hopefully I won't die young from it.
Interesting thing about that water, the problem is is it true or not....I mean you should ask someone local that does have some clue about the real state of the water...Especialy since some of the bottled water sold in shops is actualy worse than tap water, and some is just filtered tap water.
I have been living in Zawiercie for 5 months and have been drinking bottled water for the most part. Until recently, I had been using boiled tap water when drinking tea and coffee. A couple of days ago I happened to look into my teapot and saw a thick white substance caked on the walls of the pot. When I turned it over and shook the pot, a significant amount of hard-white chunks came out. I then boiled some water in a regular cooking pot and watched as a faint-white cloud crystallized into little white floatys. I immediately went to the store to buy a Brita filter. I then boiled some tap water, and ran it through the filter. I boiled it again to see if the white stuff would appear, and it didnt. I then compared the boiled/filtered water with boiled bottled water and they were both just as clear and free of whatever that white shit is. So, this could be a way to replace bottled water, saving money and the environment. You can also recycle plastic here in Poland if you dont want to do this.
Does anyone know what the white deposits are?
Limescale. It's not dangerous at all. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/limescale)
I am concerned about the drinking water situation when I head over there...
Could be worse though....
Please don't be afraid to drink tap water in Poland! It's a popular myth in this country, Poles believe that there are some dangerous chemicals in this water, but it is not true! Tap water meets all the needed requirements and standards - the same requirements, that water in bottles have to meet!
People in Poland are afraid to drink it, because over 20 years ago, in the communist system it was true - the water was very contaminated and you've never known what's in it :) But now it's OK!
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