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WELCOME TO POLAND!
Poland covers an area of 312,700 sq.km (120,700 sq. miles) and has about 40 million inhabitants. From east to west it stretches a distance of 690 km and 650 km from north to south in Central Europe. In the east it has a frontier 1244 km long with Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine In the south, Poland borders with Czech and Slovakia across and in the west, its frontier of 460 km with Germany runs along the Lusatian Nysa and Odra rivers. In the north Poland’s Baltic littoral covers a distance of 524 km. Thanks to its central position, Poland for centuries has formed a bridge between the Eastern and Western part of the Continent, as well as between Scandinavia and the Danubian countries.
PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE
The Poles are Slavic people. The core of the country was established in the 10th century by Slavic tribes called Polanie, who lived along the bend of Warta River. Gradually the Poles spread across Vistula river (Wisła).
Contemporary Poland has a homogeneous population. Poles form over 98 per cent of the population. Polish language, which belongs to Slavic languages, is spoken all over the country. Younger generation can speak English, German or French languages quite well. You will easily learn basic phrases in Polish language after living for a few days with Polish family.
"Cześć" is the word you will learn very fast when you're in Poland. It's the way how (especially young) people great each other. Don't worry, because it might look very Polish and very difficult, but as you will say it many times a day, it will become really easy!
Anyway, I'm Katinka, 18 years old, straight from the Netherlands and... I decided to live a year in Poland! Why? Well, Poland is a really interesting country, the people are "w porządku" (allright/ok) and the language is amazing: just try to pronounce "Szczecin" or "chrząszcz" ;-) But seriously spoken, Polish is a difficult, but beautiful language! If you're finally able to pronounce these weird looking orders of cz, sz and rz, and people actually understand you, it feels fabulous!" (Katinka, 2006/2007)
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A YEAR IN POLAND WITH YFU
August – international students arrive to Poznań or at the airport in Warsaw. Students are met by YFU volunteers and taken to Poznań, a city situated 300 kilometers west of Warsaw, where they spend 3 weeks at orientation and Polish language course. At the last day of the orientation the students will travel to
their permanent host families.
HOST FAMILY
During the year students will live with their host families in various cities around Poland.
Your Host Family will be a typical Polish family with teenagers of approximately your age.
In Polish family both parents work professionally and come back home from work about 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. Teenagers are used to close family life and parent’s control.
The family usually meets during meals. Since most of people in Poland live in blocks of flats (apartments) teenagers are used to sharing rooms with brothers or sisters.
"The thing which really caught my eye over here, is Polish hospitality. It's great! It doesn't matter if you're arriving somewhere at 3 pm or at midnight, it doesn't matter if you're hungry or not, you will always get the offer to eat something.
Talking about food, you should really try pierogi, bigos, placek, drożdżówka and.. I can go on for hours! Bigos, for example, is a kind of mix of (sour) cabbage, meat, mushrooms, herbs, and sometimes tomatoes or sausages as well. The first time I ate it, I was like: 'Iewh.. what is this?' But now I absolutely love it! Bigos is in one word delicious!"
(Katinka, 2006/2007)
TRIPS AND ACTIVITIES:
Educational excursion to Krakow and Auschwitz/Mid-term seminar (autumn).
Sightseeing excursion to Gdansk/seminar (spring).
"I want to say that generally Poland is a beautiful country. Kraków (also kwown as Cracow/Krakau) is just amazing! I'm not really into old buildings and stuff, but Kraków really interested me, and will interest everybody!! (and you will certainly be able to see it, as a YFU-seminar is held over there)" (Katinka, 2006/2007)
SCHOOL
School starts on the 1st of September, so the students can enjoy living with their families before going to school and starting to experience Polish school life. Exchange students attend high schools of academic type. This kind of school prepares teenagers to study at the university. Every Polish or exchange student takes about 10-12 courses/subjects during a school year.
School is over around 24-26 of June.
"By now, I'm quite used to Polish school, because there are not so many big differences between my school in the Netherlands and this one in Szamotuły, the town where I live at the moment. What do differs, is that there are no lockers on my school, so you just have to carry your jacket and bag all day. The subjects at school are quite the same, although the level of (for example) chemistry is way higher and the level of English a bit lower. A new subject for me is Religion, quite special considering the fact I don't believe at all! But sometimes really interesting though. Poland is known as a very religious country; but if you don't believe, but do respect people who are believing, you won't find any problems.
I want to wish good luck to everybody who's thinking about living a year abroad and:
Do widzenia / Na razie (the more, and less official version of "goodbye")."
(Katinka, 2006/2007)
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