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TL;DR Wall of text, Warsaw specific info on salaries and renting flats, some cultural advice, Poland = Great.

I see there's some really good advice but usually from people outside Warsaw and Warsaw is really quite different from the rest of the country. I lived there for 10 years so I'll offer some hints.

As an American graphics designer at a decent company, you can easily make around 8000 PLN before taxes. Being an American and having experience from there will give you the upper hand if you apply for a job at an international company. I don't exactly know what tax rules apply to non-Polish citizens so you have to figure that out for yourself but it's around 5500 PLN if Polish tax laws apply. Anyway, applying for a graphics design job will get you much more money than teaching English, simply because there is a lot of people already doing that. I think you can expect somewhere around 4-5k before taxes so not really worth it in your position.

Renting a flat is quite tricky. Warsaw is big and public transport quality varies depending on the place you're at but is usually very good. Assuming your husband will be working in downtown (Śródmieście), you'd want to rent a flag in Śródmieście, Żoliborz, Ochota, Mokotów, Wola, maybe Wilanów or Praga Północ (avoid Praga Południe, they sound similar but are very different). Avoid northern and southern outskirts because you'll be stuck in traffic and overcrowded buses that will take an hour to get you to your workplace. Targówek, Bemowo, Białołęka, Bielany, Wawer should rather be out of the question. Ursynów goes both ways because metro (subway) is there so if you can rent something near a stop then it's ok but sucks otherwise.

You might be used to long commutes from the US but it's entirely possible to spend 40 minutes a day or less on commuting both ways so don't waste your time.

Someone has already mentioned gumtree.pl for renting a flat (renting a flat in Warsaw is here). szybko.pl is also very popular in Warsaw. There are two ways to rent a flat, either directly from a person owning the flat or through an agency. If you rent through an agency, you'll have to pay them a hefty amount for doing simply nothing since you yourself found the ad. It usually amounts to around 1 monthly rent. Landlords will also expect an upfront security payment of 1 monthly rent, as a sort of insurance for anything you might break in the apartment while you stay there. You also need to know that a lot of apartments are rented without the furniture, even if it's there on the photos, you need to look in the description. I assume you don't speak Polish so this might be hard for you. In this case, I would suggest contacting an agency, like metrohouse - I know this one caters to English speakers but there surely are others and asking them to find offers that might be interesting for you could be a good solution. You'll have to pay for that service of course but if you find an ad on a website yourself and it's from an agency, you'll pay either way so that's an option to consider.

Rent prices differ tremendously. You can have a big apartment in an unsafe neighborhood for dirt cheap but you won't be happy about it because it's far, far away from any civilization and well, unsafe. You should be able to rent something really comfortable for around 3000 PLN or less a month, with furniture and all the home stuff that you need (dish cleaner, fridge, sometimes a tv, also washing machine; be aware that each apartment has its own washing machine but we do not usually have dryers). Utilities are usually paid separately and will amount to ~300 PLN a month if you don't have children, this includes electricity, water, heating. You will need an Internet connection as well, in most of the places it's cable provider UPC, you can get Internet without the TV if you want. It's not expensive, 30 Mbps will cost you around 60 PLN. One more thing to remember is parking. There's a paid parking zone in downtown and extends to other places too so if you get a flat in that area (here's a map, everything in red and blue is paid parking zone), you will either need a parking garage or work something out with the landlord (it's possible to get a pass for your car if you live in the zone but it's quite some paper work to do so be clear about it with your landlord if you need it).

Overall, you'll need around 8500 PLN after taxes to live comfortably, including your student loans. That's not really that much for two people but might be a lot for only one. You said your husband got a good job offer so I'm assuming it's somewhere around that. 3000 PLN for flat and utilities, 2300 PLN for your student loan and ~3000 PLN for very comfortable living.

Now about how it's like in Poland - I'm Polish so I might be biased :) Warsaw is also quite different from the rest of Poland so I'll offer two views for you. You'll be OK in Warsaw, it's a really nice city, a lot of people speak English, even at local shops. The food is great and quite cheap, although some things might be expensive to get, like good steak. I really loved the city itself but it depends on what you like, and some people hate it. It's a fast paced, crowded (not as much as LA or NY of course, but still) but very active. If you enjoy partying, you'll find it more difficult than in other more tourist friendly cities (Cracow, Wrocław) but there are a lot of great clubs, pubs and restaurants around downtown. There's a lot of great things to see there but that's for another post, you can also get a lot of info on the Internet. One nice thing is that you're only around 6 hour drive (by car or train) from the Baltic sea to the north or Tatry mountains to the south. Even closer are the Mazurian lakes (north-east). Poland is quite a beautiful country although obviously not as diverse as US. It's only as big as New Mexico, and considerably smaller than California (Texas is twice its size). In three hours (by train, longer by car) you can get to Cracow which is a very well known tourist destination, a lot of things to see here and around the city (Auschwitz concentration camp museum, Wieliczka Salt Mine and a number of things in Cracow itself).

As I said, Warsaw is quite different from the rest of the country. In small towns and villages it's possible you won't find anyone speaking English so if you're lost and want to ask for directions - tough luck (less of a problem now with GPS and Google Maps). They will be also far less tolerant. You didn't mention race but it can be a problem if you're not white, even in Warsaw but obviously less so than in smaller cities or towns. But generally everyone are quite friendly, unless they do not look friendly and first impression won't usually fail you here. Even if they don't speak English, everyone will try to help you out, maybe they know someone who speaks it and they'll call them and pass you the phone so that you can ask questions or something.

Someone else mentioned the weather so you should know already. It's way colder in winter but around the same in the summer as LA, here's temperature and humidity comparison between Warsaw and LA for the past 5 years.

One more thing I wanted to tell you is to be aware of cultural differences. Americans are often seen as obnoxious and for a good reason. Yelling at restaurants and laughing loudly so that the people in the pub across the street can hear you will make other people want to stab you with a blunt fork multiple times. Keep your voice down around other people. "Customer is always right" is not always the rule, just because you're paying for something doesn't mean you get to boss or badmouth the clerk. Be polite. Sorry if this offends you but I have really seen numerous Americans behave this way. Also, tipping rules are not as strict as in the US, you should tip waiters, pizza delivery guys and taxi drivers but not hairdressers and in general, it's not 100% mandatory. If you're not happy with the service, you don't tip. I generally suggest this book, it's about business interactions but a lot of it translates great to everyday life. It's not about Poland specifically so you might find it interesting for other reasons.

In general - the opinions I've heard about Poland, and Warsaw in particular, are almost always positive, including from Americans. Not only from tourist point of view, also expats claim Poland is great. If you want to try something else, it can be a great experience for you. If you both get jobs, you will live very comfortably with a lot of expendable income (for Polish standards) but you won't save any substantial amount in USD simply because we don't make nearly enough here ($30k a year is a good salary in Warsaw and great elsewhere). Our beer is cheap and girls are beautiful (though that may, or may not, be relevant to you) so come along!

lol don't be ridiculous, American Jews are even proud of their over-representation in socially liberal, left-wing causes.

From US presidential approval ratings in 2009 (Obama’s approval in the Jewish community is holding steady at 62 percent. Gallup reported 64 percent
approval rating in an October 2009 poll. Obama’s approval rating among Jews is 15 points higher than
among all Americans) http://jstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JStreetMarch2010PollRelease_FINAL.pdf to 2016 (According to exit polls, 71% of American Jews voted Democrat during the 2016 US Presidential election), the affinity of Jews in the USA for the left is well-noted

here, even is a nice book for you by well-known american jewish politologue Norman Podhoretz on 'Why are Jews liberal?' - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Jews-Liberals-Norman-Podhoretz-x/dp/0307456250

However, worth noting that the opposite is the case in Israel since the 1980's as being in the pressure cooker has encouraged patriotism and national identity to naturally assert itself - https://www.timesofisrael.com/young-israeli-jews-are-mostly-right-wing-increasingly-religious-survey/

For sure, I have met many Israelis who sympathise with right-wing patriot parties in Europe, even of the ethnic variety as long as not literal Nazi of course. But very few of those people around any more. What leftists take for Nazis are just people with a strong sense of tribalism, which exists everywhere from China to India to Kenya to Serbia

I came to this thread to post her name but you beat me to it. Tokarczuk has a Man Booker International Prize winning book called Flights that I plan to read this fall as well as another great work called Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead which English readers can only get in the UK at this time:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1910695718/

If he liked the story of Wojtek, check out also these, they're WWII but more adventure than martyrological gloom:

• "Dywizjon 303" (English edition here ) and "Dziękuję ci, kapitanie" (English ) by Arkady Fiedler
  
  
• basically anything by Janusz Meissner
  
  He could also give a try to the Pan Samochodzik series by Zbigniew Nienacki (starts with "Wyspa złoczyńców"). It's aimed at younger teens, but the protagonist is adult. Quests for precious historical artifacts with James Bond vibe.
  
  Greetings for your grandpa! :)

May I recommend Uprising and The Pianist for films.

As for books, I recommend The Eagle Unbowed, When God Looked the Other Way, and No Greater Ally.

I'm a bit late, but this book is fantastic: https://www.amazon.com/Iron-Curtain-Crushing-Eastern-1944-1956/dp/140009593X

The main center of attention focuses on Poland, but also talks about all of the other countries that were under the Soviet sphere of influence. I highly recommend it.

I saw a free translated version on Amazon. Does anyone have any comment about how good this translation is? Or is there a particularly well regarded English translation?

I have a good book edited by Czesław Miłosz that is a collection of a shit ton of Polish Poetry (with some of Miłosz's poetry in it as well). I put an amazon link to it at the end of my post.

Also I really suggest Wisława Szymborska. She and Miłosz are the two most known in western culture - both received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and Miłosz taught at UC Berkeley.

One other great one is Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.

Also Bruno Schulz if you're looking for some prose.

https://www.amazon.com/Postwar-Polish-Poetry-Czeslaw-Milosz/dp/0520044762/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499014974&sr=8-1&keywords=post-war+polish+poetry

One idea I have is to get a set of NFL shot glasses, we like to drink (in general), you like football (in general) BAM! One gift down.

thank you for your attempts to do further research and not simply following what others say, write. I recommend you double check and verify the facts and sources that Gross and Grabowski have used, this might be quite an enlightening excercise, at least see what other authors had to say on the matter. I also recommend the book Polish-Jewish relations 1939-1945. Beyond the limits of solidarity.

I'd recommend Huawei over Xiaomi, as they've got a much more established presence in Poland if you need something repaired.

For instance, this: https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-Lite-WAS-LX3-International-Version/dp/B06ZYMMXVW

It's a good, solid phone.

Well, if you play Witcher and are into comic books, you can look for this. It's from the authors of Funky Koval. It's in Polish. Not many people outside of Polish fantasy geeks know about it, so bonus points for "I'm a Witcher hipster" ;)

> I mean we were so supportive of their independence and in the middle ages we were very close.

From the nationalist Lithuanian point of view, the Poles conspired with Lithuanian elites to subdue Lithuania to the Polish Crown in return for giving the Lithuanian nobles a freer hand to run the show within Lithuania. Those centuries of being "very close" are interpreted as a belligerent occupation by determined Lithuanian nationalists. The conflict over Wilno/Vilnius was seen as an existential threat to Lithuanian nationalists: the entirety of what is now Belarus had already been stripped away from Lithuania, so losing the capital to Poland would doom the project of national independence to failure.

The tension is almost entirely one-sided precisely because Poland and Lithuania were historically so close. The Lithuanian nationalist movement was starting with basically nothing: the Lithuanian middle and upper classes, if they even identified as "Lithuanian," were overwhelmingly Polonized. The language of education and religion throughout Lithuania was Polish. In order to establish a "Lithuanian" nation outside of a Polish superidentity, they had to demonize Polish and Polonization. That's why Lithuanian nationalists were willing to use German and Russian invaders against the local Poles: Lithuanians weren't assimilating to German or Russian culture, so those peoples weren't threats. Lithuanians had for centuries assimilated to Polish culture, so that Polish culture had to be made the enemy, and a lot of Lithuanian behavior post-independence can be explained by the nationalists' need to set themselves opposite Poland in order to encourage a burgeoning Lithuanian middle class to continue to identify as Lithuanians and not become Poles.

Also, at the time of independence, Poles were still having an internal discussion about whether or not the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth should be revived in a federation between Poland and Lithuania. The assumption among Poles, obviously, was that Poland would be the leader of this federation. Lithuanian nationalists trying to carve out independence resented this assumption and saw any Polish support for Lithuanian independence as support for a quasi-independent Lithuanian vassal for Poland.

Edit: This book, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999, by Timothy Snyder, has a great history of Vilnius (as well as Lvov).

Just a heads up chap, the eBook is now on Amazon :)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Illustrated-History-Slavic-Misery-delicious-ebook/dp/B074H6SRYG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501752518&sr=8-1&keywords=an+illustrated+history+of+slavic+misery

Norman Davies is a very good historian, and an author. I reccomend a book God's Playground
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Playground-History-Poland-Origins/dp/0231128177

Very nice, although slightly over designed, site. I rather enjooyed this box set:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Polish-Cinema-Classics-Roman-Polanski/dp/B006T35UKC/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1469044671&sr=1-2&keywords=polish+cinema+classics

https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Poland-Cambridge-Histories/dp/0521618576/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542455395&sr=8-1&keywords=a+concise+history+of+poland

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Kind of a dry read, but if you want to learn about Poland, this is the book.