Welcome to Poland

Carli Newman
Sep 2, 2017
2 min read

Hello, everyone! I have been in Poland for nearly two weeks and I am just now finding time to write a blog post. Already, a lot has happened so I will try to recap.

I arrived at Warsaw-Chopin airport on Sunday, August 20th after about 17 hours of travel. My first flight was from Seattle to Toronto. While waiting in Toronto for four hours I met up with a fellow exchange student I already knew from Idaho. On our nine hour flight to Warsaw, we hardly slept. After meeting our host parent we went our separate ways. I then had a 40-minute car ride from Warsaw to Lodz, the city I am staying in. After showering and eating I went to sleep. It took me two days and some coffee to get over the jet lag.

On my third day in Poland, I traveled north to Bydgoszcz for a nine-day Polish language and culture camp. This was the first of five times all the RYE students that came to Poland would be together. There were over 60 students from all over the world. They came from Canada, Taiwan, Venezuela, Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, Brazil and of course the US. In the mornings we had Polish language classes taught by three wonderful teachers from Bydgoszcz. In the afternoon we had sport, music, and history classes. On two days we were able to walk around Bydgoszcz in our groups. The city is incredibly beautiful and I am very glad one of my new friends lives there so I may be able to visit again. In some evenings we visited the store near the hotel and of course, all we bought was chocolate, ice cream, candy, and soda. I am starting to worry I may gain quite a bit of weight while I'm here.

One day we all went on a trip to Malbork Castle- the largest brick castle in the world. The history of the castle is incredible and extensive as it was built in the 13th and 14th centuries. Most notably, the castle was an important symbol of the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 when Polish people reclaimed their land from the ruling Teutonic Order. Since then, much damage was done to the castle especially during WWII. Projects to restore the castle continued throughout the last 70 years. Only last year, the eight-meter tall mosaic statue of St. Mary was restored. Although ownership of the castle changed hands many times through history, not once was the castle successfully taken by force.