I have been here for a little over ten weeks now, and although it has been a complete emotional roller-coaster, Poland is amazing.
Before language camp, I visited the wonderful city of Torun, where I was able to experience the breathtaking festival of lights.
Language camp introduced me to friends not only for the nest few months, but for a lifetime.
School at first was a huge challenge for me. I had never had to change high schools before, and having to make new friends was a completely new experience for me. Lucky for me, my whole class speaks pretty good English, and I begun to make new friends with time.
The days go slow but the time goes fast. I have been busy each weekend that I have been here so far. I have gone hiking, visited my exchange student friends in nearby Wroclaw, and visited many of the stunning palaces of the region.
The food (as I suspected) has been by far my favorite part of exchange. Everyone always asks me if pierogi is my favorite, but to be honest my favorite is by far, gałumpki. Even when I am not hungry, I am always hungry for gałumpki. Milka chocolate has become a severe addiction, leaving me afraid that I might return to the States still hooked, and I will have to return with an absurd amount of chocolate. Seriously I eat it almost every day. My favorite kind is Oreo kind, with crunchy bits of goodness inside that satisfy both my chocolate and Oreo withdrawals.
Jelenia Góra is a beautiful city. I am extemely happy with where I have been placed. Although I am the only exchange student, I am very happy here. It is an adorable little city with enough activities to do after school. There are many places to go hiking, many palaces to see, castle ruins practically in my backyard, and I have a favorite kawiarnia that I go to with my friend Róza. It is a lovely town.
Emotionally I am holding strong. I get sad from time to time, as all exchange students tend to get. I decided that I needed a new way to see how much time that I had left here. Sure I have a countdown app, but I felt like I needed a way to physically see how much time I had left. So I went and bought a couple of notebooks. Each page, front and back, stood for one day that I had left until the week that I am going back home. I went through each page, and wrote the date of each day leading up to that point, as well as the number of days left. I was left with a little bit over two 96 page notebooks. This was a stack of paper only a few centimeters high. I was a bit in shock. This is not an awful lot of time left here. This let me see how fast time is going to go, and not wish it away. I am now filling in each page as I go along, not with everthing that I am up to, but with what I am sad about and what i am going to do about it. Ever since, I have been feeling significantly better.