Leaving Warsaw!

The last week was been quite a strange week for me and I guess for all my friends from the Erasmus Exchange programme in Warsaw. We have seen our friends leave knowing that we will probably will never see some of them again - like leaving school again but I am going to be hundreds or in some cases thousands of miles from these people instead of a few miles up the road at university.
The exams are at least over, which is always a good thing, although they took place much later than in the UK, leaving me only couple of days between the last exam and returning home. . . much of which was spent cleaning up my apartment and returning all those empty bottles!!!.
I have been trying to think what I will miss or have enjoyed the most in my 10 month stay in the capital of Poland and have come up with my top 5:
1. Of course the amazing people I have met from Germany, Austria, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Denmark, Hungary, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, USA, Canada and of course Poland.





2. Monday night Schnitzel!
For less than 25zlt a huge schnitzel and a litre of beer was the best possible start to the week!




3. The German football final that we watched live at the Bradenburg Gate on our visit to Berlin, as well as an amazing weekend in one of my favourite European cities.



4. Parties!!! Just wanted to say that I have also working not just enjoying the company.



5. Trip to Cracow
Our first trip of the second semester was to Cracow which was an amazing city and a welcome change from Warsaw as it had buildings that were not just made out of grey concrete!


This concludes my 10 month exchange away from home and Salford. I have been able to survive living on my own in a country where i spoke almost nothing of the language before I arrived, i have made some great friends from all over the world and would recommend the experience to anyone. Having packed all my bags, said my final goodbyes my flight home was cancelled and had to return the following day via Doncaster! instead of Liverpool.
Now i can say:
"Euramus exchange in Warsaw . . . .
Been there . . . . .
Done that . . . . .
Got the T-Shirt . . . . ."

Trip to Krakow

At the beginning of March the Erasmus organisation (ESN) put on a trip for its students to the famous city of Krakow in Southern Poland. Having missed a similar trip due to having a flight booked to return home for the weekend at the beginning of the first semester I was really excited to attend this one. After the scariest five hour bus journey -we nicknamed the driver “Kamikaze”, as he was determined to overtake anything regardless of whether there was traffic coming in the other direction or not - we started our trip with a visit to the world famous salt mines, which was both interesting and dare I say salty. I had so much fun in the mine as I was determined to make a salt related joke at each stage of the tour (and after 5 minutes these had very tenuous links to salt). I have to say that the underground cathedral made entirely of salt 330ft below ground was absolutely amazing.

I have to say that Krakow then welcomed us to the city centre with Manchester style weather that lasted all weekend, near constant wind and rain. After finding our hostel and sorting out rooms we went for some food in a local restaurant which was pretty average and I keep getting told that English food is bad! .

After the meal there was some time to get ready and “warm up” ready to hit the clubs, the “warming up” parties (where you have a few pre-club drinks) were great fun and usually consisted of us getting funny looks in the supermarket on the booze run buying beer, vodka, apple juice, Redbull and a range of other mixers.

I really enjoyed Krakow which is a very different city to Warsaw although there still a fair number of concrete buildings around the city, the city centre was not bombed like Warsaw, so there are many old buildings and what seems to be more churches, chapels and cathedrals than people! The main square is really beautiful with old buildings all around although when we went it was amazingly windy which let to the highly amusing picture below, see how many umbrellas are in the bin.

The last day of the trip was a visit to the former Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Berkenau this wasn’t something I was particularly looking forward to although it was an opportunity I was not going to miss and after visiting I would recommend to anyone if you are near. The camp at Aushwitz is actually a work camp based in a former Polish military barracks hence the buildings look actually quite nice being built out of smart red bricks although the place is so empty it is really eerie. The interiors of the buildings are now used to house exhibits telling the story of the camp from 1939 to 1945 some exhibits are rather horrific such as a room about the size of my living room full - floor to near ceiling - of human hair saved from the victims of the camp, there are four rooms of shoes and a glass exhibition case of spectacles and a display of absolutely hundreds of empty Kyklon B gas canisters. I learnt a lot over the 3 hours we were there, although there were some things I didn’t really want to know and some things that I didn’t realise such as the fact that Auschwitz, the original camp was a work camp with hardly any Jews being held there, mostly local resistance fighters. It was at Berkenau; the second camp that the holocaust, where millions of Jews where murdered. Below are a few photos of Auschwitz and Berkenau including a picture of the famous gate “Arbeit Macht Frei” which means “Work Sets (one) Free” the other pictures are of Berkenau and the view from the control room above the main gate. Berkenau is mainly empty as the Nazis destroyed what they could to hide evidence of what took place there but the scale of the camp is evident.

Overall the whole trip was amazing and was a good bonding experience for all the new international students that have been here just a few weeks now. But its back to studying now as the classes get going and more and more work is to be done.

Phew . . . First Semester Exams Are Over!

Firstly my apologies for the delay in compositing this first blog of the year. It has been a very busy time since I returned on the second of January (such a short Christmas holiday!) and have mostly been preparing for and sitting the end of Semester 1 exams and writing write on my course topics – I guess this is the downside of being a student. However I am pleased to say that the exams went ok although I’m still waiting on a few results but the good news and big relief is that I have passed the ones that I found the hardest.
I now have time to tidy up my flat and to write again as things have slowed down here as all the students who came over for just the first semester have left and the new students who will join the University and courses for the second semester have yet to arrive. I think that they should be here in a few days time, so I hope that normal student life of daytime studying and nighttime parties will resume asap. As its semester break the city has become very quiet, a lot of my Polish friends have taken this opportunity to go on holiday or visit family, unfortunately leaving me all alone in my now clean apartment! So I have to say that the past weeks have been quite boring for me - I hope that its the quiet before the storm. Having said all of that it has been quite nice to explore the city on my own, mainly by trying different routes to run which I’ve been doing every other day, until last Friday that is when I’ve done something to my ankle so I’m going to take a few days off. Other than that I’ve caught up with some TV shows I had missed during the exam period and carried on teaching myself guitar - although I’m still pretty rubbish at it.
It’s slowly getting warmer here but not to the same extent as I have heard back home; a few weeks ago it was very cold and the wind made it even worse and very unpleasant even when running. As most days are now above zero it’s nice to think that Spring is just around the corner, although I have to say that when out running I do still feel like the only person in the city in shorts and t-shirt being watched by people in fur coats, hats, scarves and gloves! I think that the warmer weather will also be good for the evenings as there are a number of eating and drinking places which will be great to visit and sample their offerings – purely in the interests of UK-Polish economic research you understand!

Whilst it’s quiet I plan to visit the Russian market at some point this week, so I will have information on that for my next blog, plus all the news of the new people about to join us in Warsaw.

I am looking forward to Easter as I have some flights booked to return home for the weekend - just from Good Friday till Easter Monday.

Well I guess that’s about all from me so until the next one - Cheers Alex

Party Time in Warsaw!

Party time in Warsaw!

Having previously described the city and something of the course as the first semester comes almost to an end I thought it necessary to comment on the nightlife of Warsaw, as it is a big part of going on exchange! In Warsaw, and I guess all over Europe, the ERASMUS Student Network (ESN) plays a big part in organising events, parties and nights out every week. It’s a great way of meeting people from other nations, not just Polish, as all the international students have the opportunity to take part in these events. Warsaw has a fantastic nightlife with a large club and bar scene spread all over the city although most are near to the centre. The driving force of the music here is dance music, which isn’t really my thing, but the occasional good tune does creep in, along with quite a few more RnB style clubs emerging. Jazz is also a big part of Polish music and there are many jazz bars and concerts around the city and the live jazz in small bars as defiantly something to go and visit.

Of course you can’t talk about partying in Poland without the mention of alcohol, which is amazingly cheap compared to UK prices, in the supermarket the price for a can of beer costs around 50p or around 80p for a 750ml bottle! The big brands of beer here are mostly Polish such as Tyskie, Okocim, Lech and Zywiec but the well known brands of Carlsberg, Hieneken and Becks are widely available. In clubs these are priced at no more the £2 a glass (500ml). The main drink of Poland is of course vodka, with the afore mentioned in the first blog Zubrowka made with bison grass for flavour, as well as hundreds of brands of different vodka. The prices of vodka (per 500ml) range from £2 to 20 in supermarkets with the better ones around the £4 to £5. In most local bars it is around £1 a shot - normally less – and I guess evn this is expensive when compared to other parts of the country away from the capital/

Aside from the clubs, student life in Warsaw is like student life everywhere - there is always a party on somewhere. In the University’s dormitory there is always a party somewhere no-matter the time, night or day, which is brilliant especially if you don’t live there because at night it is very loud and sleeping or studying become very difficult. The Polish students favour the concept of “pre-partys”, where they drink together with friends in the dormitory or go to a small quite cheap bar before going to a club as this also saves on more expensive drinks in the club. It is normal to often arrive in the club at around 1am and stay until around 4am. This is quite strange to me as in Salford on a night out we will go to the clubs around 11 and leave when they close at 2am or 3am! Generally Warsaw has a great social life and the ERASMUS organisation has been brilliant here in terms of helping everyone get to know each other.

Last night I held a wicked party in my flat, I decided to cook a full traditional English Christmas dinner with turkey and all the trimmings followed by Christmas Pudding complete with flames. This was shared with my friends, as one of these from Denmark had cooked us Christmas dinner Danish style a few weeks ago. All the food turned out great, with much relief. It was really interesting learning all these different ways of celebrating the same event, for instance here in Poland they open their presents on Christmas Eve and the Danish have pork for Christmas dinner instead of turkey. Hopefully I will have some good photos to put online soon.

I fly back home for Christmas on Wednesday but I’m back shortly after New Year for the final few weeks of the semester and the exams. So I will end this blog by saying Wesołych Świąt i Szczesliwego Nowego Roku and will post my next one upon returning to Warsaw. In the meantime Happy Christmas to you all and good luck to all those taking exam- let’s hope 2008 will be bring us all success.

If it’s not the cold of Warsaw then it’s UK fog!!

Firstly let me explain the above title before my main text . . I had the chance to return home for a weekend at the end of October due to public holidays here described below, I attended the University Graduate recruitment fair at Salford and of course caught up with friends and the city of Manchester. My low-cost carrier flight to Warsaw was due to leave Liverpool at 0815 on Sunday morning, so after managing to get up at 5am, get to the airport in thick fog, check-in, pass through security into departures and see the incoming aircraft arrive you can imagine the scene at Liverpool to be told that the flight was cancelled as it could not take-off with this level of fog. I managed to get on the next flight to Warsaw . . . on Wednesday!! Did I manage to have a few days extra holiday, seeing friends, out late at night, and not surfacing until mid-afternoon you may ask - the simple answer is no as my academic Dad insisted that I did some research work for my Economics presentations due next month. Of course I told him that I was going to do this anyway!!!

I guess that having now been here since September I should report something on student life – not in the content of my lectures but in just being here as the first Salford University student to do so. As I have previously said the language is very difficult but once the phonetically based alphabet is mastered that any word can be pronounced and the School provides language lessons every Monday afternoon. In this group are some German students and a guy from New Zealand also studying at the University for this first semester. I am the only British student on campus.

Compared to the life at Salford it is much quieter here perhaps because it’s not Manchester but also because there are not the same type of students to share free time with. Talking about sharing the standard University accommodation is all shared, including four people to a bedroom and as such offers no privacy or “own space”, whilst this accommodation is remarkably cheap I have decided to rent a small apartment in walking distance to the University or just one stop on the metro. The cost of this is the same as my room in Eddie Coleman at Salford and comprises a small kitchen, lounge with bed /settee and bathroom within a Soviet style apartment.

When it comes to books for the course it is really difficult to get the ones I need in English language and so use Amazon via the internet for them. At the end of October was a two-day National Holiday, Poland has 12 public holidays throughout the year with this one having a main focus on All Saints’ day when people visit their family gravestones to tidy them up before the Winter period, this holiday is also known here as the Day of the Dead . . . now that’s more spooky than Halloween masks and pumpkins!!

To return to the title the temperature as dropped significantly, from the early September days of people in shorts and tee shirts to now everyone is wearing hats, gloves, scarfs and layers of clothing, typical day temperature are around 2 to 3 deg c reducing to below freezing at night.

Dzien Dobry!

Okay, so I've been in Warsaw for about a month now, so this blog is a catch up of my experiences thus far. As we are now in October the weather is getting noticeably colder, in the summer it can get very hot; now though is the time for hat, scarf, gloves and a few layers of clothing.

Moving around Warsaw is amazingly easy and I have to say cheap, its not a huge city and most things are within walking distance of where I live. My university student card also doubles as a top-up card for use of public transport, which is remarkably efficient. It cost me 133PLN (about £23) to top-up my card for 90 days use of the underground metro, trams and buses within the city limits of Warsaw, this is amazing compared to UK prices and my taxi trips into Manchester from Salford. I use the metro almost every day, it is modern, clean and simple as there is only one North- South line. The longest I've had to wait is about 8 minutes for the train to come!



During my first week my girlfriend flew out to see me and we explored the city together, mainly the tourist spots such as Old Town and the Palace of Culture and Science. The Old Town isn’t actually that old as Warsaw was bombed heavily in World War Two leaving only 15% of the original buildings standing. Old Town was built in the late 1940s and 1950s to resemble how it was before the war and has a more European feel about it than the rest of the city, which is influenced, heavily by communist architecture as most buildings are large, tall and made of grey concrete. The Palace of Culture and Science was the second tallest building in Europe when it was completed in 1955 and at 750 feet high remains the tallest building in Poland. For a small amount of money you can travel, in the fastest elevators in Europe, to the viewing gallery at the top, which provide spectacular views of the city. The building was a gift from Soviet Russia to the people of Poland and was probably designed to be as dominant as possible. It houses a wide variety of things inside, from businesses to museums, art galleries, the government debating hall, a cinema, swimming pool and space for concerts. It is the venue for the three-day jazz event held in June each year. Jazz music in very popular here.


My University site is only one stop on the metro from where I live and is also an impressive building with a square dome on the top. I have been told and assured that it is the best university in Poland for Economics, finance and business and has an impressive collection of top teaching and research professors. It was once called the ‘Central School for Statistics and Planning’ but has now reverted back to the name of The Warsaw School of Economics although it is known as ‘SGH’ in Polish. At the other end of the metro line is a new Tesco supermarket so at least I can buy most of the things that I am used to. The main difference in the food between here and the UK is the different cuts of meat and the amount of fat that most of it contains, and I can't get decent bacon!!! In Warsaw itself are many International / British stores such as H&M, Marks and Spencer, KFC, MacDonalds etc not forgetting the Hard Rock Café!



One of my university courses is Polish for foreigners, which aims to provide visiting students with a basic level of spoken and written Polish. I am finding this very hard because the language is completely different to anything I have experienced before and I am finding it hard to get into the right study technique to learn languages as I stopped my German studies more than 4 years ago! . . . but I will persist and hopefully pick some more up.

So until Blog number 3, all for now, “Do widzenia”

The Story So Far... 1-Arriving in Warsaw

Hi, My name is Alex and im an Economics student at University of Salford, im currently doing my second year of studies at Warsaw School of Economics (Szkoła Główna Handlowa in Polish refered to by everyone in Warsaw as SGH. Ive been here for just over two weeks now and thought id start off my blog by filling in the gaps about what ive been up to over the past couple of weeks.

I arrived in Warsaw on the 20th September flying from Liverpool Airport to Warsaw Airport. I manged to get some cheap flights from the low-cost carrier Wizzair, but i did not realise, as you can see in the picture, that i would be getting aboard the brightest plane i have ever seen!! it burns one's retinas especialy as the flight was 8a.m. which of course meant a bleary eyed start to the day waking up at 5a.m.

Upon arriving in Warsaw i was met at the airport by my landlords, this was the part of the day i was fearing the most has i had arranged my accomodation privately (the University dorms are a dive!) mostly by email, as i was lucky that my father knew someone in Warsaw through his work and she was able to put me in touch with some of her friends who own property, but i still didnt know if they were going to turn up or not! I was glad they did and my flat is everything i could ask for, living room/bedroom, large kitchen (well everythings big to me i lived in Eddie Colman Court in Salford last year and got used to it) and hallway with wardrobe and a bathroom. Location wise im 2 minuets walk from the Metro and one stop south take me to SGH and one stop north in the centre, one minuets walk in either direction takes me to a corner shop and if it all goes wrong down the street is the British Embassy, so i cant fault anything with my place!


After unpacking and getting settled i took a walk around the city thats home for the next 10 months, i decided not to take the metro and walk to the centre to establish landmarks and so fond myself in the centre where i walked to one of the newest shopping malls in Warsaw, opened in november last year, it houses pretty much everything, even Marks and Spencers! Also Warsaw's if not Poland's only Burger King, i got my shopping done in the supermarket below and the th essentials (bread, milk, mince, pasta sauce, Beer and Vodka). Most things are really cheap, good vodka is only about £3.50-4 for half litre! Polish speciality vodka is called Żubrówka, its vokda with a blade of two of Bison grass in the bottle turning the vodka a pale shade of green and adding flavour, best drank with apple juice in a drink called Sharlotka, it actualy tastes like apple pie!! Honest give it a try!
I stayed home that eveing and had quite an early night i was really tired from the travelling and in preporation for my girlfriend, Sarah, coming to visit the next day, explained in Part Two....