I arrived at the Łódź airport on 18/08 near the 17h (local time), my Host Family – Agnieszka, Rafał and Dorota Zawiślak – with the exchange student from Brazil – Renato Mendes – were waiting for me. It was waiting for me a traditional Polish dish and after it, a cake and toast for my birthday that was last week. The next day we went to the city, cause in this first family, I live in a small village – Bukowiec – to know and see my school. Bukowiec is a quiet and pleasant town to live in, it takes about 40 minutes to get into town, depending on traffic. My Host Parents speak very good English, and my Host Sister too, and also Portuguese because she did exchange in Brazil in the previous year.
The first Rotary meeting – Language Camp – was during 10 days and most purpose was to teach us the basics of Polish and of course also know all the exchange students and form friendships, we also visited museums, castle and the city. With these ten days, many friendships have formed and so train returned to my city with the other exchange students who are in town.
In Łódź, there are five exchange students in total: I, Renato, Adrian Andonovski from Australia, Ryan from Taiwan and William Eberhardt from United States.
On September 1, started the classes, very different from Brazil, in the first day and on important days, students go socially with white clothes and black, normally. The school is normal, already made new friends, I’m able to interact well with them, better than imagined, and the good is that we have everyday English classes. On Monday, September 5, had the first meeting with Rotary Łódź – 4 Kultury, made a brief presentation in Polish, as well as others. On 8th until the 12th, went to the mountains with my family, we visited several places and also a mountain of Slovakia, all very beautiful (and very tiring), 5 hours, sometimes more, climbing mountains, but worth it!
One more meeting, this time at Toruń and only during the weekend, which was sad, because we all like staying together and having fun. It’s a very beautiful city, where we went to some museums, for example The Gingerbread Museum, and also had a boat ride.
