Third Month in Poland email

Third Month in Poland

Hi everyone! So... it's three months in Poland now and this last month's just been FULL of travelling, so much that I am truly looking forward to staying in good ole' Wroclaw this weekend!

I made an important decision in the weekend and that's to.... stay in Wroclaw to teach for one more semester! :) It's been three months here and I just couldn't bear the thought of having only one more month to go! So, I'll still travel around Europe during the summer, I can take my time now, maybe find some sort of summer job, then teach the second semester from October to January. So glad I won't have to say goodbye to Poland/Europe just yet :) But sad that I won't be seeing some of you sooner :(


Highlights

Communication
I think I'm getting more and more comfortable with the whole Polish lingo. Sure, I still can't construct proper sentences but with a bit of guess work, body language and observation skills, I can get by here. Sooo happy that I managed to hold a semi conversation with this old man cleaning outside the flat the other day. I was able to say I don't understand Polish very well, that no, I'm not a student and that I'm a teacher and there are three of us in my flat! I'd say that's some communication :P

Another proof of getting more comfortable with the language is how relieved I was when I got back to Poland from Czech Republic - it's like 'thank goodness everything's in Polish again!' Go figure. I think I've come a long way from freaking out whenever someone speaks Polish to me.

Juwenania
Wow, what a night that night with Juwenania. Bascially Juwenania is a day to celebrate university students. They get a day off that day so the night before there were huge parties everywhere. There were MEGA grills/BBQ parties and one of my students invited me to this Pyjamas Party! so my flatmates and I went and had an extremely warm welcome (ie: lots of vodka offers). The partying atmosphere was infectious! On the way back home on the bus, there were crowds of excited students, periodically breaking into songs and laughs. Such a shame I had to teach at 8am the next morning! ><" Interesting observation that people usually buy cans of beer one by one (ie: not like half/a dozen) at shops, and bring a few cans of beer for their own consumption to parties! Travels

Poznan
Seemed like a long time ago now but went to Poznan for a weekend, visited Johnny and met some of his mates. Impressions of Poznan - clean, modern, fast trams/public transport, awesome shopping - not a bad place to live but if for just a visit, one weekend was probably enough :P An amusing story now, we ended up going to this high school party on Saturday night! (as if hanging around uni students didn't make me feel old already!) The kids were a real friendly bunch, very inviting and everyone of them so amazed to meet someone from another country. The top question, as always, "WHY Poland?!?! Why choose Poland to go to?" and I always reply - "why not?" ;)

Krakow
For our May looong weekend (that's what they call it even though it's a week off, so that meant nine days of travelling!) We headed to Krakow first and this time, we were able to take our time strolling around the city. We had a day trip to Zakopane, to see the famous Tatras Mountains and Virginia and I were totally unprepared! We heard that Zakopane is great for hiking in the summer, skiing in the winter so thinking we were in for some hiking but it was absolutely freezing there and yes, even snow up on the mountain... in May... So, we waited 2 hours in our thin summer clothes, to get the cable car/gondola up to the mountatins, had a peek out the door to see actual snow, had some nice bean soup, then promptly headed back down!

Krakow also has the famous Wieliczka salt mines, underground passages with magnificently carved chambers including monuments, chapel, all carved from salt (yes the walls were all salty from a personal taste test). The amazing thing was that these carvings were all made by the miners voluntarily in their spare time. Apparently these miners used to earn bucket loads since salt had such high value in those days.

We also visited Auschwitz, the old Jewish concentration camp. It was actually a nice sunny day that day but it almost seemed unbefitting, with the sombre atmosphere there. We walked around the camp ourselves, it was a huge camp, and we were taking our time trying to let these unthinkable facts sink in. The exhibit that struck me the most was seeing the mountain of human hair (7 tonnes worth I think) they removed from prisoners and it is just simply unimaginable stuff. No one has the right to take away the rights of others - the right of dignity, the right of life and surely we have had enough history to learn from our past mistakes. But things like this, though not at the same scale, is still happening these days with wars still happening around the world. When will we ever learn? Will we ever learn??

Czestochowa
On the way from Krakow to Warsaw, we stopped by Czestochowa to see the famous Black Madonna. We got to the chapel and were surprised to find thousands of people outside the chapel in an open-air mass. We figured we probably wouldn't get a chance to go in with all these people but after the mass, we went with the flow of the swarm of people, thinking we were just exiting the chapel and then suddenly we got in this room and realised we were in the room of the Black Madonna! So, we took our touristy shots, were satisfied and then headed back to continue our journey to Warsaw.

Warsaw
Warsaw, the city everyone has told me to skip, not worth going and wondered why we needed two days there! (A bit like the Auckland vs rest of NZ mentality I think) but I really liked Warsaw!! It's modern, finally see a few real skyscrapers, they have a metro, lots of cafes, beautiful parks and in Warsaw you can fully appreciate the magnitude of utter destruction WWII caused. After the Uprising, Warsaw was 85% destroyed - three months as a dynamited, burning furnace - Hitler wanted Warsaw to merely exist as a name on the map. After the war, the people of Warsaw picked themselves up, and managed to rebuild the whole city. Sure, it doesn't seem to have the same sense of historical and charming presence such as Krakow, but it's still a city definitely well worth visiting.

Prague
Managed to get Friday off work to spend more time in Prague but even spending a longer weekend there, it wasn't enough time in Prague! We probably saw most of the famous sights in Prague (thanks for Vendula's excellent tour guide skills!) but I would really like to go back to Prague one day and just enjoy BEING in the city. I just feel there's so much more around each corner, so many streets, alleyways, passages to explore. Highlights include getting tickets to the ballet at the beautiful Estate Theatre (for only 30 KC = about NZD$2!!!) and it was really special being able to meet up with Vendula and Marketa! That's why you should always bid farewell with a 'See you later' instead of 'Good bye' ;). We stayed at Sandy's place, nominee for best host of the year! Will see you later, Prague...

Berlin
It's exciting to finally be able to properly say I've been to Germany - with only my Munich and Frankfurt airport transit experiences previously. We were greeted by Berlin's super duper modern train station and it was so good seeing Jens! He showed us around Berlin for the weekend and because of that, we were able to see most of the things we wanted to in the weekend. After my travels in Poland, and then being in Berlin, it's interesting to see the other side of the story, and the effects of the war on Berlin. The Checkpoint Charlie museum was particularly interesting with stories of East Berliners trying to escape west - the lengths people would go through because of their suppressed rights. I really like Berlin and I plan to visit other German cities in my future travels too.


Wow, that took a while to write, it's hard to summarise everything in one email and there are so much more I can say, but have a look at my photos with captions instead :)

April and May in Poland Apr 20, 2007 by Whiter Poznan, May trip to Krakow, Czestochowa and Warsaw, Prague and Berlin View Album

If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser:
http://picasaweb.google.com/whiter.tang/AprilAndMayInPoland?authkey=ERe4qMYzbIU