it's been a while i lived somewhere else and even when i did i did not have that many bills to pay
but let me think...
DR wins in many ways in comparison to poland. poland is a f**king bureaucratic nightmare. to get passport you need to apply in person and pick up in person. waiting time? three f**king months. it used to be that there was an express 24hr service but with new biometric passports it is more difficult since they are all made in one place in the whole damn country. strangely when i did my passport via polish embassy in bogota it took less time (a month) and i received it by the courier. still had to apply personally because they need fingerprints. here in DR you can get the passport withing 3 days or in 24hrs if you want VIP.
banking is the whole new story. i could write about polish banking fro three days straight and the only uncensored words would be
and, or, but. here in DR we have god damn drive through banking. gee. it takes less time to do the thing than it would in poland to find the parking space in front of any bank...
paying bills. we pay lots by phone. i go to pay power bill personally because it's fun. they take cc. i pay water personally too, very close to home and no one is ever there. they take cc too but only if there is power
in poland you can have a direct debit setting when all your bills are paid automatically, every month, from your bank account. i guess the land of ancestors wins here.
but in general poland does not do all that well for one major reason. corruption. god, i love me some good, old fashioned corruption and bribery like in DR. you pay up and things get done faster. who would not want that back home?
