Zsuzsi Abroad pt.I

'If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.'


I was asked to write a bit about my studies abroad, and I would really be more than deligted to do so. As there is a lot of things to write about, and a lot of lovely places to describe, I have decided to make a short series, consisting of a total of six posts.
 
First off: Lublin, Poland.
 
The spring of 2003 was something of a hellish nightmare. Not only did I have to pass the Finnish matriculation exams (i.e. the national exams that are pre-requisite for getting out of high school and entering university), but other aspects of my life were a mess as well. I had already applied to several universities in the UK, and knew that the unlikelihood of not being accepted was zero. However, going to university right after high school seemed too much at the time. The best option for me was to take a gap year and do something useful. Useful = languages. I made up my mind one bright morning when sitting in a bus, feeling frustrated about life.
 
Now, the next step was deciding where to go. The most interesting options were Hungary and Prague. Croatia was also an alternative, but at the end I settled for Poland. Not Warsaw or Cracow, but a town named Lublin. Basically, they were the ones with the best webpages. I will write more about Lublin in a separate post, but I can tell you that it is a small town south-east of Warsaw, quite near the Belarussian and Ukrainian borders.
 
I enrolled to an intensive course of the Polish language and culture at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). An interesting piece of trivia is that Karol Wojtyla (also known as John Paul II) used to teach at the university. For someone coming from Finland, it was almost impossible to grasp how catholic it would be before seeing it with my own eyes
 
Studying & uni
I did 25 hours (a week) of Polish, it was very intensive, but also very useful. Our teachers were nice and the classes were good. We did speaking, pronounciation, writing, grammar, translation... everything. The best part, however, were the trips. In the autumn we went to a precious little town called Kazimierz Dolny and in February we spent a week skiing in Zakopane.
 
Living Arrangements
The living arrangements were confusing to say the least. Staying in halls of residence sounded like a good idea (and it was cheap), little did I know that it would be ran by nuns. No boys were allowed to visit, the doors were locked at midnight, no cleaning on Sundays... you get the point. At the time it seemed ridiculous, but it was a good experience and I learnt a lot.
 
Life
Poland in 2004 was cheap, at least for foreign students, so we could allow ourselves a lot of luxuries. Every Thursday we would go out to a shady bar, to sing karaoke and drink vodka. We tried all the restaurants, went out clubbing. Travelling was fairly cheap as well, I don't think I've ever travelled as much during one year as I did then. Some of the places I visited include Warsaw, Lodz. Wroclaw, Gdansk, Sandomierz, Zamosc, Kielce and Zakopane. Lovely places.
 
"Funny" Moments
My first impression of Poland was quite bad: on my first day I was robbed (and had to live on coins for a week), and I spent my first night sleeping under the tree in the rain (the nuns had locked the door). After that everything went quite smoothly. The best thing is that I still keep in touch with a lot of people I met that year and I can't wait to go back there