Week 2 (First week of work)

In some ways, it's been a busy week. In others, not so much. This week was my first at Warsaw 306 with the lovely Beata (I couldn't ask for a better mentor!). Truthfully, I didn't start until Wednesday and of course I don't work Fridays so it was quite a short week for me. That being said, on Wednesday and Thursday I had the opportunity to meet the wonderful staff and students of my new school. The range of English abilities at the school is wide, and I must admit I was really impressed by how strong some of the Third Graders are. I was interested to see that students quite often left out the articles in their English, but of course articles don't exist in Polish so it's to be expected!

On the social front, I've been seeing various friends most days and on Friday all of the Warsaw volunteers caught up which was brilliant. Unfortunately, I came down sick over the weekend so didn't do anything particularly interesting on Saturday or Sunday. Nonetheless, I'll be back on my feet soon, ready to work with the kids this week and then head off the Krakow this weekend where I'll be staying in a twelve-bed mixed dorm room for the first time (little bit nervous!).

Jessica:)

Week 1 (Orientation week)

My first week in Poland as a Lattitude volunteer has easily been one of the best of my life. Along with the twenty other young people who will be staying in Poland for the next five months, I attended at introductory TEFL course at the British Council in Warsaw from Monday to Friday. It may sound a bit dull but when you're part of such an enthusiastic and friendly group, everything is exciting. That's not to say the program at the BC was in any way boring. Spending our mornings trialling TEFL games and activities, then having the opportunity to practise teaching to a real class was a motivating kick-start to our placements.

While not at the BC, our group was spending time getting to know each other, either doing things in Warsaw with Beata or at the hostel. Certainly one of the highlights for me was the night we went ice skating at the National Stadium. Despite the odd tumble (I still have the bruises), we all had an amazing night doing something you hardly get the chance to at home. Of course, the night wouldn't have been the same without Sebastian, the plastic seal we hired that you could sit on while someone pushes you around. Admittedly, the only other person using one was two years old. but age is just a number, right?

On Saturday, we were all sad to say goodbye to the new friends we'd made and head off to our placements and host families. It's amazing to think how close we all became in just one week. For me (like a few others), the weekend meant settling into a suburb of Warsaw with an incredibly open and welcoming family who gave me a tour of the beautiful Old Town on Sunday. For others, however, the week ended with a train ride to another area of Poland. Regardless, I think we're all excited to begin teaching and I'm sure we'll see each other very soon.

Jessica

For the Christmas holidays I went (for my first time) to England with another volunteer, and stayed with one of her family friends. It was quite close to London, and we went there by train several times to see some famous attractions. My favourites that we visited include Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station (from the Harry Potter books), the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, and Westminster Abbey (although we didn’t go inside the Abbey, because the queue to get in was enormous!) It was also exciting for me to walk on the streets that are on the Monopoly board! We had a very traditional English Christmas, which was a lot of fun for me, because it was quite different to my Australian Christmases back home!

This weekend I went to Berlin with another Lattitude volunteer. Due to a mix-up with booking train tickets, we took a bus, which was a pretty long and boring experience, but it was worth it to get to Berlin for a reasonable cost! We stayed at a nice hostel recommended to us by another volunteer, and visited several attractions around the city. We took a free guided tour that left from the Brandenburg Gate on the first day, which showed us a the Jewish Memorial, the site of Hitler’s Bunker, the SS Headquarters,  the Berlin Wall, and a few other places. On the second day we visited the places we wanted to see that were not included in the tour, including the East Side Gallery, an art museum, and a few Christmas Markets. I really loved going to the Christmas Markets, where I tried currywurst for the first time, and we went on a carousel! I was also distracted by an amazing bookstore, which had a great selection of English books (and ended up buying a few!) Berlin has definitely been one of my favourite places to visit so far, it really is a beautiful city.

Last weekend I visited Budapest with two of the other volunteers, which was a great experience! We had a lot of fun visiting several castles, as well as the Basilica, Parliament, and a bathhouse. We saw a band called Triggerfinger play at the A38, which is a performance venue on a boat! They were a lot of fun to watch! We also went to see a ballet performance at the Erkel Theatre, which was incredible, and a really good way to spend an evening. 

Today I visited the Old Town in Warsaw, for the second time. It was quite festive, with many flags and other decorations in the streets for the upcoming Independence Day. There were a lot of performance artists as well, including dancers and musicians. My favourites were a band of Romanian gypsies, who played very well, and very loudly!

I also love seeing all the old buildings in the Old Town, as well as those that have been rebuilt. It looks very different to where I live! It was strange to think that some of the older buildings are older than Australia as a country! It was also exciting to see the birthplace of Marie Skłodowska Curie.

Elinor

This week at school we made boomerangs with the first and third grade classes. We made them from coloured card, and the kids decorated them. It was great to see the kids try to use a dot painting style to decorate their boomerangs, after the pictures I showed them. A few were a bit creative with their decorations, using card scraps from another person, or even plasticine. The boomerangs didn’t return when thrown, although several kids did try!