Sitting in my new room in the Jagienka dormitory in Poznań, it is still hard to believe that this is now going to be my home until the summer. My last few days at home were filled with emotional goodbyes and a lot of mixed feelings on my behalf. While nervous and excited to find out what lay ahead for me in Poznań, it was difficult to say goodbye to loved ones and leave behind my life in Northern Ireland.
Home sweet home
Upon arrival at the airport in Poznań, Anna, Michael and I were greeted by our mentor, Natalia (the president of the Erasmus Student Network at our university) who has proved extremely beneficial in helping us adjust to life here. Without the help of Natalia we would have struggled a lot more than we did to deal with the numerous and often unexpected things which have needed sorted out during our first week here. One of the main challenges for me has been the language barrier, which I had not expected to be so prominent. While I had preconceptions about struggling to communicate effectively with Polish people in shops and restaurants, I had assumed that people working in the student dormitories and universities would be able to speak English. This has proved not to be the case, with the receptionists in our dormitory not speaking a single word of English. Thankfully, Natalia was able to help us get our keys and sign our contracts, but I am conscious that should issues arise throughout the next five months we may struggle to communicate these effectively. Natalia also took us to our university building which is about fifteen minutes away from our halls by tram. Here we were able to pick up our student cards and sort out our travel passes which cost 40 Zloty (about £8) for one month and can be used on all forms of transport in Poznań. Unfortunately while at the university we discovered that we have not been registered for any classes as students are expected to email each individual lecturer in advance and ask to attend their classes, something which we had been unaware of. We have now emailed some of the lecturers and have so far been accepted in a class entitled ‘Teaching strategies in early childhood studies’ as well as a Polish language class. We are also expected to organise our placement in the International School of Poznań ourselves and will hopefully get this sorted within the next few weeks. This all came as quite a shock to me as at home registration at university is much more straightforward – perhaps we have been spoiled at Stranmillis!
Michael, me and Natalia in the snow!
I have found this week to be quite challenging as I have been feeling quite homesick, but I am hopeful that as time goes on I will begin to settle in more and become accustomed to life here. Towards the end of the week I was able to feel myself becoming a bit happier, particularly as after an afternoon spent ice skating with the other Erasmus students, we found a large shopping centre (Galeria Malta) where I was able to purchase things such as blankets and pillows to make my room feel a bit more homely. We are still trying to get used to the Polish currency, Zlotys, so at times it can be difficult to actually work out how much money we are spending. I am still undecided as to whether Poland is actually as cheap as many people believe it to be.
Being a native English speaker has made it easy when getting to know the other Erasmus students at Adam Mickiewicz University and many of them seem keen to meet ‘the Irish students’ which may be down to them wanting to improve their own English. Although this works out well for me, it makes me quite embarrassed at how arrogant we can be, comfortable in the knowledge that we do not need to try and learn other languages, assuming that others will simply speak English to us. I am looking forward to beginning classes next week which should hopefully help me feel more settled, as well as improving my currently non-existent Polish.
It is safe to say I am definitely not in my comfort zone anymore!
A welcome sight!
The only place where you can find your comfort is your parents or your personal home. I work at affordable ghostwriting agency and I went to Maryland once for a work that's the same problems I was facing and even hard to find the inspiration to write about anything.
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