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American student in Krakow |
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| 10/05/2007, Friday | ||
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HHi everyone! The past week has been pretty eventful, and I'm actually looking forward to a weekend with nothing to do. I mean, I have some homework...but I'm enjoying the prospect of just sitting around the dorms and taking it easy. So maybe I'll explain a little about the past week or so:  Last Friday, our group of students were forced to switch dorms. Because
Polish students begin school at the beginning of October, we were only
living in temporary dorm housing. And well...it may seem strange, but I
really sort of wish I was still living in the temporary dorm. Our new
room - though it's cleaner and a bit newer - is smaller and doesn't have
a balcony (which is something I really enjoyed about the old room). We
also have community bathrooms now, which is actually fine with
me...seeing as I lived in a dorm with community baths for 2 years at AU.
It's just pretty strange that they moved us into a new, smaller
dorm...for which i have to pay about $3 more a month. haha! In any case,
I only have to live here for 2 1/2 months, so it's really no big deal.
As long as it keeps me warm, it's fine in my book.So after we moved into our new dorm, some friends and I went to the train station to buy tickets to Berlin...as you may remember, we were going to visit my friend Christoph. But when we got there, they told us that tickets were almost 200 Euros. So naturally, we canceled those plans. But we found that they had a really good student fare on a night train to Budapest, Hungary, so we just decided we'd go there instead. And that was a really great decision! Of all of the cities I've ever visited, I can undoubtedly say that Budapest is my favorite thus far. It's got massive monuments, broad boulevards, nice parks, amazing bath-houses, and pretty great food. It actually reminds me a lot of Washington, DC because of how big and monumental everything feels. And yet, it still has a lot of recreational type places, which is really nice (The Danube River at night is something that everyone ought to see). So overall, my trip to Hungary was really nice (even with some minor mishaps along the way). Finally, some of you have asked about this experience as a whole...and I have to say that it's been pretty strange for me...but I don't mean strange in a negative way. I guess what I'm trying to say is that living here is really odd for emotions. Most of that is due to culture shock, I'm sure...and being away from the people I care about. For example, when I first arrived here, I had to learn to deal with the fact that I got frustrated and sad every so often. Usually, at home, I'm almost always generally happy and pretty positive about life...so it was really strange for me to feel sad from time to time. I'm sure those of you who live or have lived away from family and friends for a while know that it's simply harder to be positive at first when you don't have those people around you. (This isn't me trying to be deep or anything...just saying how I felt sometimes). But I think I've got a pretty good grasp of things now, and I feel much more positive in general now. There aren't nearly as many ups and downs as there were at the beginning, and that's definitely a good thing. And because I've taken classes that dealt with culture shock, I was expecting it...so that was also helpful in keeping spirits up. Alright...so enough of this existential-emotional nonsense. I'm really glad because I feel as though I've finally settled in, and I'm still very much excited about living here! And I also enjoy the fact that I'm sort of assimilating into the culture a bit. Obviously, a Pole would never think of me as one of them...but I no longer feel like a tourist! As always, I hope that everything is going well with you guys. Let me hear from you soon! Cheers, Kent |
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8/31/07 9/11/07 9/20/07 9/27/07 10/5/07 10/14/07 3/22/08 3/30/08 |
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