1. Can you tell us your adventure with Poland? Why you chose to came here and how do you like our city?

I chose Poland because it’s not a common country that people travel to. It was under the scholarship for unusual destinations, so I was curious: why it would be an unusual destination. And I guess that was the reason for me to to choose Poland and I’m actually the only American who did.
My trip to Poland has been a really great experience I love it here. I have a lot more freedom than at home because I live in a small town and I have to rely on my parents to take me places and here? I can just take a tram or bus and go wherever I want.

I also love Poznań, it is a really beautiful country. Before I came to Poland this was the city that I wanted to be in. But we can’t request a city or anything so i just got super lucky that I have the chance to be here.

I’m not really a city person but Poznań is small enough, so I feel great here. I’ve also gotten to know so many great people here. I’m really close to my friends from exchange, we even  went to Italy together. I also love the people here.

2. How do you use your time in school? What differences do you see between this school and your school in the US?

I’m taking classes online so the time I spend in school here I’m trying to advance in things you don’t learn in school. I’m reading a lot, studying philosophy and theology.  I’m listening a lot of podcasts about this kind of stuff. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can about things that we aren’t taught in school before aia hsvr yo go back to real school for me.
The differences between this school and my school? My school in the US is outdoor. It’s not all one building, but all the classrooms are individual rooms randomly sited all over the campus. There are separate mini buildings of just a classroom. Because before my school burned down, because California has a lot of wildfires, it was all next to each other, it was never one building it was always outdoor but it's just completely different now. Also, another difference is that we don’t choose one category of classes that we want to take, we just choose the classes that we want to take like dance, art or just whatever we want. We also don’t have to choose one profile to get advanced lessons from that subject. If you are more advanced in for example maths you just take into the class that is more advanced. So that’s why we just have a lot of different kids in classes, we don’t have set groups that we are with. Another thing is that we have such a big emphasis on sports. And in P.E. we don’t play sports. We have things like for example weightlifting and running long distances.

3. Have you lerned something new here?

The thing I learned is actually nothing. I know it might sound weird but I learned that Poland is really not that much different from the US.
I was expecting Poland to be so different from the USA, because everyone told me: „you’ll have such a culture shock”, and they were making such a big deal out of it, so I was expecting something really different and of course Poland is different, but because of all that talking and the fact that Poland was under the scholarship for unusual destinations, I was just expecting it to be much more different than it is. And i guess the thing I understood was the fact that so long as the countries are rooted in the same values, they can be only different on the Surface. The US and most of Europe have similar systems of govermment and the same values for example independent rights.

4. What are the three things that you’ll remeber?

The first thing is old people — when i first got here and i really didn’t know how to speak and I didn’t understand a lot of things  and they would speak polish to me and if I told them, in Polish, that I don’t understand what they are saying they would say the same thing but louder, until the situation was over.
Another thing is how Polish people look — I know that it might sound weird but there is such a clear polish face. Not everybody has it, but some people just look so polish, and not everyone but a lot of them. I think it is hilarious to me and my friends from exchange, because you know we are from different countries,  when we see the polish face we all know right away. And I don’t know how it works but there it is.

The last thing that I will remember is how easy it is to travel and go see other places, because Europe is really close together. And if I drive twelve hours from here I would probably get to France and if I travel twelve hours from where I live I can get to San Diego or my grandmas house in Idaho and I can get only one state over, because the US is so big.

5. The last question: Do you think you learned Polish?

I think i learned as much as i kinda expected I would learn. I can say anything and get my point across but not necessary using good vocabulary or the right grammar. When I’m describing an idea can get people to understand what I mean, but it might take a long time of explanations and bad grammar for us to get there. And about understanding — I can understand pretty much anything but with context. At lessons when I pay attention I can understand what is going on, I don’t understand every word or even every sentence but with context I can get everything. I mean it’s difficult but if I could stay for longer than a year I would get more. And I think that it takes about six months to start understanding, so if could stay for more than a year I could get the hang of it really well. The hardest part is transitioning from speaking English to people, because I can speak polish normally in my everyday life but people just start talking English to me and I start speak English back and somehow we transition into English and it’s just really easy to stop speaking Polish.

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