After living in Warsaw, Poland for three years, Jay Martin moves back home to Oz. She bids farewell to her adopted home and reviews how successful her expat life was.
Poland
Summer reading: 
So long, and thanks for all the sour cream
travel Close encounters of the rural Polish kind
Jay Martin goes off in search for UFOs and crop circles in the tiny Polish town of Wylatowo. She doesn’t find any aliens but she does feel like she’s from another planet.
travel A matter of (Polish) perspective
Polish resident Jay Martin gets easily fed up travelling in Poland, thanks to the traffic and pessimistic attitudes. But entertaining tourists from home made her realise what a curious country she lives in.
travel An expat opinion: pleasures, perils, perplexities of Poland
Dogs in restaurants, more sausages than one could ever dream of, drinking beer with ginger syrup and being frowned upon for having tea with milk — these are just some of the strange things Jay Martin has observed while living in Poland.
travel Should you visit Auschwitz?
People planning to visit us in Poland usually run their draft itinerary past Jay Martin. At some point they inevitably pause and sigh. “I suppose I should visit Auschwitz, shouldn’t I?” they ask.
travel Spotting the train lovers in Poland
Wolsztyn, Poland remains one of the most famous cities in the world for trainspotters, thanks to its regular commuter train service pulled by steam trains. Jay Martin went to meet the train fanatics.
Australia day with a twist: anyone for snow cricket?
There there snags, beers, a game of backyard cricket and an argument over the merits of the Triple J Hottest 100. It was an average Australia Day but with one slight difference: Jay Martin was in Warsaw, Poland, where the temperature was minus 25 and the ground was covered in a metre of snow.
travel An Expat Opinion: the opening line
“I’m high on the bridge, looking over the hill, to the MCG…”, sings Paul Kelly. And I’m surprised to find tears pricking my eyes, writes Jay Martin, an Aussie expat living in Poland. This is the first of a regular column.
Poland says: my Jesus is bigger than yours
Australia has a Thing for Big Things (think the Big Banana, Big Pineapple etc). So Jay Martin had to drive five hours for the opening of the World’s Biggest Jesus in Swiebodzin, western Poland, which rises from a field of cabbages, across the road from a Tesco.
Letter from...: Letter from Warsaw: a cross for all sides of politics to bear
At first glance the scenes from the Polish capital Warsaw in recent days resembles those iconic images from the 1980s of a country under martial law, writes Vince Chadwick from Warsaw.
Voters looking for a liberal choice
It’s always risky to bet against the sympathy vote, and sure enough, it seems to have given a boost to Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski in the Polish election.
After the plane crash, Poland heads to more political catastrophe
As Poles prepare to go to the polling booths this Sunday, any hopes of having an election resting on questions about Poland’s future are quickly fading, writes Paulina Olszanka from Poland.
Post-Smoleńsk, Poland eyes a calmer diplomacy
Although the official week of mourning in Poland came to a close more than 10 days ago, it is only today that the Polish people have started to move on from the death of their leaders, writes Paulina Olszanka.
Poland: a week later and it’s moments like these you need a Monty
Here is something to think about as you sit down to watch the coverage of the funeral of Polish president — grief is not a monolith, flags do grow underground and Monty Python still has a place in Warsaw, writes Vince Chadwick from Warsaw.
PHOTO GALLERY: Poland mourns its president
The sorry sight of a nation forced to bury its president, with the coffins of Polish president Lech Kaczynski and his wife being led through the packed streets of Krakow, filled with flag waving mourners.
Crikey Says: Small plane crash, not many dead
The Western media’s condescending attitude towards events in second and third world countries is unbelievable. Does that count even if the president and dozens of top political and military is dead? Sadly, yes.
A few words about Russian jets
The crash of a Polish government jet, which killed the country’s president, has brought out the usual cliches about dodgy Russian airliners. But the real problem is much more about how badly they are flown than design limitations, explains Ben Sandilands.
Warsaw mourns by the blaze of thousands of candles
The past two days in Poland have been a lesson in private and public mourning, as sirens wail and the street fill with thousands of candles, writes Vince Chadwick and Paulina Olszanka from Warsaw.
A timeline of Presidential plane crashes
Poland’s Lech Kaczynski isn’t the first world leader to plummet to his death a plane crash. Esquire looks at six other heads of state who met their makers mid-air, and the what Poland can learn from the subsequent fallouts.
Could the Polish Presidential plane crash actually help Russian relations?
Poland’s leaders were on their way to commemorate the 1940 massacre of Polish soldiers by the Soviet Union, when their plane crashed in Russia on Saturday. But historians say the tragedy may help the two countries finally move on.
Why Obama shot down Star Wars
Obama’s decision to junk Bush-era plans for a missile defence shield in Europe isn’t a capitulation to Russia, says Mark Ambinder.
Poland sells off its stock exchange
The Warsaw Stock Exchange, a leading symbol of the country’s transformation from communism to capitalism, is being sold by the government to ensure its continued viability.
Rooted: Australian silence at UN climate change talks
You have to wonder why the Australian Government paid for 30 people to go on this Christmas junket if they weren’t going to discuss the issues on the agenda, writes John Hepburn.
