Volunteering in Poland With Angloville

On the 11th August, we travelled from Kraków to the Angloville venue, Modrzewiowe Wzgórze. I have to admit I was surprised by the place. All the information I'd received beforehand gave me the impression that it was a fancy 4* hotel. I did not expect to be staying in a cabin in the woods that seemed suspiciously like a haunted house!

On the first evening, I went to use the bathroom next to my room and found massive wasp-coloured bugs crawling out of the plughole! The only solution was to put a mug over the sink, close the door and never set foot in that bathroom again. Shortly after that, a massive spider appeared on the stairs. I'm really not good with insects, so I was seriously questioning whether I could complete the programme.

Luckily, as the week went on, I got used to staying there, despite finding out that someone who'd previously stayed in my room had supposedly been possessed by ghosts!

On the whole, the hotel was quite a weird place. The location was beautiful, but the following picture is kind of spoiled when you realise that the swimming pools were full of dirt and dead mice!

The food was also strange. One night there was a pasta dish that I avoided because I thought it wasn't vegetarian. It turns out it was vegetarian, but apparently the sauce was apple and cinnamon flavoured!

However, there were some things that I liked a lot about the hotel...

The dog (who we called Franek) was just adorable and so friendly. The family of kittens and their mum lived in an abandoned building near the cabin. They were more timid than Franek, but still very cute!

Finally, I will write a bit about the actual volunteering. We (the Native Speakers) did not have to formally teach the participants (Polish kids between 11-17 years old). The programme is based around conversation, rather than reading, writing and learning grammar. At first I found having to talk so much quite difficult, as I'm a relatively introverted person. But as the week went on, I found things got easier and more fun. The participants were a great group of kids, and I will miss speaking with them!

I also really enjoyed getting to know the other Native Speakers and the coordinators of the programme. I (sort of!) learned how to play the card game Mao, and had an amazing time singing and dancing at the talent show and the disco! I made lots of new friends, and I laughed more than I had in ages.

I only took part in one Angloville programme, because I didn't want to commit myself to more, in case I hated it. However, by the end of the week, I actually wished I had signed up to do another couple of weeks. All in all, it was just a brilliant experience!

My time volunteering with Angloville has given me more confidence and a bit more direction in my life. It made me realise that teaching English abroad as a foreign language is something I would like to do more of. So my plan is to become TEFL qualified and hopefully find some work in the near future. 😊

Ciężkowice

Halfway through the Angloville programme, we had a field trip to the town of Ciężkowice. A typically hard Polish name to pronounce! We were meant to go to a city of ancient rocks, but because it was tipping it down with rain, the plan was changed.

First of all, we went to a museum of natural history with an array of stuffed animals, just like in Wollaton Hall. Here we listened to a very robotic "English" voice telling us about the different wildlife that can be found in Poland. It turns out that there's quite a variety of creatures to be found there compared to the UK. This is something I'd already found out from my time at the Angloville venue!

Afterwards, we went to the town centre, where we could finally visit a shop and buy some food, after three days of surviving mostly on Nutella and stale bread! I picked up some snacks that looked uniquely Polish, or that at least couldn't be found in England!

Afterwards, I went for a bit of a walk around the town, which I found very charming.

The most famous sight is the statue of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a Polish pianist and composer. If you press a button, the piano plays one of his compositions!

I think my favourite place was the church, which was surprisingly big and impressive given the size of the town.

It was really nice to escape from the venue and return to civilisation for a little while! It was also great to see a place that felt very authentic and untouched by mass tourism.

A cool thing I realised is that Ciężkowice is the furthest east I've ever travelled! So that was another reason why I enjoyed the field trip.

Next I will be posting about my time volunteering with Angloville in the venue of Modrzewiowe Wzgórze (try saying that)! It was a very varied but truly amazing experience, and I have a lot to write about it!

Kraków

The last ten days have been quite something! I just got back to England yesterday after volunteering in Poland with Angloville, helping young people learn English. It was such a fun and crazy time which I will remember forever.

I will write a few posts about my time in Poland in order to cover everything. Today I will start by writing about the city of Kraków, where my Angloville experience started and ended. The day before the programme officially began, there was a free tour of the city and a meal in a restaurant for any volunteers who were able to attend. The tour was a great way to meet some of the other volunteers coming to the same venue as me and to see the main sites of the city.

I liked Kraków even more than I thought I would. My favourite part was the main square, Rynek Główny, which is one of the largest market squares in Europe and includes St. Mary's Basilica, the Cloth Hall and the Town Hall Tower. It was really impressive to see in real life.

Every day at 13:00, someone plays a tune on a trumpet from the top window of the basilica. We were there at the right time to hear it!

The tour started at the Kraków Barbican, part of the historical defense network of the city. From there, we went on towards the city centre and then Wawel Hill.

It was cool to see that Kraków has a bridge just like the bridge of sighs in Venice.

An unexpectedly beautiful place was the courtyard of the Collegium Maius, the oldest building of the Jagiellonian University.

The final part of the tour was on Wawel Hill, where there is both a castle and a cathedral. This is one of the most famous parts of Kraków, and it was another really beautiful place.

After the tour, we had a three-course meal in a restaurant. It was the first time I'd had Polish food, and I really liked it. However, I wasn't as impressed with some of the other Polish food I tried during the programme!

I saw a few other nice sights during my first couple of days in Kraków, such as the opera house...

...this palace, which is now a Pizza Hut(!)...

...and this square in front of the railway station.

After the programme ended, I had one more day in Kraków before going back to England, which I spent hanging out with all the friends I made during the week. I definitely wish I could have had an extra day or two there, as it's a great city!

The majority of the programme took place at a hotel in the countryside. However, we did have a field trip to a small town nearby, Ciężkowice. I will write a small post about that next!

The Next Adventure...

The last month or so has been a difficult time for me and my family. However, I do have something to look forward to, and it involves travelling...

Next month, I will be going to Poland to take part in the Angloville volunteer programme. It will be my first time visiting the country and I'm excited to see what it's like. (I did a language course in Berlin in 2016, and a trip to Poland was offered by the language school, but unfortunately, it took place on the day I went home! So it's great to have the opportunity to go now.) I mentioned on my Year Abroad blog that I have a bucket list goal of visiting every country in Europe (as well as visiting every continent on Earth). I'm also trying to visit at least one new country (in any continent) every year, which is something I've done since 2014. I'm glad I can continue the streak for another year!

I originally applied to do the programme in Malta, but there weren't any spaces left. However, it's just as exciting to be going to Poland instead, especially as the programme will start in Kraków, which looks like an amazing city to visit. I'm interested to see how it compares to cities I've visited in neighbouring countries, such as Prague in Czechia, where I spent a family holiday when I was ten, and Bratislava in Slovakia, which I took a day trip to during my Year Abroad.

The day after I arrive in Kraków, I will attend a city tour with some of the other Angloville volunteers. The following day, we will travel to the venue where we will be volunteering, a hotel in the countryside in the same province as Kraków: the Lesser Poland Voivodeship, also known as Małopolska Voivodeship. Here we will spend a week conversing with Polish teenagers learning English, before heading back to Kraków on the final day. The day after that, I will return to England. I'm looking forward to helping young people gain more confidence speaking English, and teaching them a bit about the culture of the United Kingdom. It should be a very valuable experience, especially because I'm considering teaching English as a foreign language again in the near future.

Only English is allowed to be spoken at the venue, because Angloville is a language immersion programme. However, I have started learning some Polish on Duolingo, which will hopefully come in useful during the few days I'll have in Kraków. As a lover of languages, I always find it fun to learn a bit of the local language every time I visit a new country! Since finishing my languages degree, I've been able to have a more fun and relaxed time learning languages. I've restarted Italian, which I started learning on the Year Abroad, and have also learnt a little bit of Russian. However, both of these have been put on hold for the time being since I found out I was going to Poland! Polish is quite a difficult language and all the words seem to have lots of consonants, but I'm enjoying getting to grips with the basics.

To sum up, I'm really pleased that I got my wish I made in my previous post: to go abroad again soon! There's definitely going to be lots for me to write about on this blog...

Do zobaczenia wkrótce!

Image by Kaboompics.com from pexels.com

Bournemouth and the Surrounding Area

This week I spent a couple of days in Bournemouth and the surrounding area with my parents. I actually liked the area more than I thought I would, mostly because of the beaches. The weather was quite warm, so it felt like we were on holiday abroad.

On Thursday morning, we went to Bournemouth beach, which was really impressive to see. When I showed the pictures to my boyfriend, he said it looked like Viña del Mar in Chile!

Later that day, we went to Wimborne Minster, a market town best known for its church, which is also called Wimborne Minster.

Yesterday was quite exciting as we got the car ferry across to Studland Bay. The views from the boat were spectacular.

Then my mum and I swam in the sea at Middle Beach. Although the water was freezing when we first got in, it was actually really nice once we got used to it!

My parents are thinking about possibly moving to the area in the future, which is why we went there. I think it's a very nice place, but we'll see what happens!

This was the last bit of travelling I had planned for the time being. At the moment, I'm getting on with some tasks I need to do, as well as thinking about my future, which hopefully will involve going abroad sometime soon. I don't know when I'll next be writing on this blog, but I've enjoyed updating it over the last couple of months. It's been interesting to focus more on places around the UK. Who knows where I'll be going next... 😁