Background: I started off my exchange adventure with Paris (Bonjour!) then joined Divya in London where she began her journey and we made our way to Poland together.
And to be honest, upon landing in Poland, I think I fell in love again. That happened only in Singapore, Philippines and Australia so far. Well, it has been a good week in Warsaw thus far so i guess we can give a pretty decent update on how it has been.
1. Falling in love with our home in Poland
Not kidding AT ALL . It's gorgeous, homely and a big plus for me is that it is just 10 mins walk (or 5 mins bus ride) to Warsaw School of Economics, where I will be starting at from tomorrow onwards :-) For a peek at our house tour (if you did not see our instagram/snapchat) take a look at a vlog of our house tour below. P/S: My favourite part of the home is our kitchen.
2. Having pretty good breakfast
The slower pace of life has got us making breakfast and making me look forward to making breakfast. In Singapore I seldom eat breakfast and here I am allowing time for making breakfast - Grilling my bread, cooking a perfect sunny side up and sipping on hot tea every morning.
Pancakes with sunny side up
Grilled bread with sunny side up
You might be thinking WHY DOES EVERY BREAKFAST HAVE A SUNNY SIDE UP (like what Divya is questioning me now). It is a sunny side up, who can resist??
3. Having great home-cooked dinners
I miss my Chinese food so so so much (everything about it - the look of it, taste, smell, everything lol) and I doubt I can live for like a few months without Chinese food. Somehow Chinese food places overseas isn't as satisfying or maybe Singapore pampered me too much with its good food. So, the first dinner we made was Chinese and it was so damn satisfying. The first mouth and i was like "Woah." The second dinner we made was amazing as well (and easy to clean?) thanks FB page "Tasty" for it ;-)
Onion omelette, stir-fry cai xin, sweet and sour fish
One pan dinner - Grilled salmon, sunny side up, broccoli, potatoes
4. Meeting new people
I had my orientation in SGH ( Szkola Glowna Handlowa) aka my school. And it was really fun meeting new people from all over the world (learning that at 21, others are already on their paths to obtaining a Masters while I am struggling with my bachelor's degree - don't fret Singaporeans, we spend more time studying that's all) and of course it was pretty homely meeting Singaporeans from other universities as well.
5. Getting sick of snow
It was so exciting in the beginning - peeking out of the window in the morning and seeing snow on top of cars / walking in the snow, collecting them on books as they fall / basically even breathing while snowing. But now, it is the cringe every time we see dirty snow.
6. Scrimping on everything
Being in Poland, it was already an ease on our tight budget but we are counting every single zloty difference within the same product category. So if we can save 1 zloty YES we will save it which is ridiculous now that we think back (Divya even wanted to buy a 1.99 zloty one-litre body soap which looks dubious) - Well-trained from Paris / London where 1 pound is like 2sgd?!
But things in Poland are really relatively affordable. We could get a decent dinner for 3$SGD - and students get further discount at more shops? Which is awesome.
On the same note, we ventured to almost ALL the supermarket brands in Warsaw and have a rough gauge of the prices of products in the supermarts - Yes, we are that extreme.
We even spent 3 hours in Tesco alone, today. Yupp.
Tesco our love
7. Learning about Poland's history
It is very evident that Poland's history and culture are very important to all Poles. And rightfully so. For a Singaporean to learn about another country's history dating back to even before WW1, it was rather intriguing and the pride you see in the lecturer's eyes as she talks about the history of Poland with so much pride, I myself feel honoured to be learning about their rich history.
8. Attempting (or butchering) Polish
Armed with the limited Polish we learnt on Duolingo and videos, we braved into Poland but only to realise how fast they spoke and our inability to catch what they say. Yet somehow, the elderly in Poland always seem to begin long conversations with us in Polish, despite our limited vocabulary of "Yes", "No", "Excuse Me" and "Thank you". We are still trying hard though especially when all the supermarkets' labels and products are in Polish and are openly happy when we can read and understand Polish words on advertisements. Thankful for the existence of offline google translator nonetheless. T h a n k y o u !
9. Tried to yolo our way into another Polish town
But failed miserably. That is after countless rejections from ticket vendors that couldn't understand us (or they may have secretly thought that we were cheapos for asking "What is the cheapest ticket out of Warsaw?"). But we understand the system better now aka figure out where you wanna go first then ask for the price. Oops. And a step further, we could even go on the intercity app to find out on our own.
With that plan foiled, we just took a metro to the furtherest stop "Kabaty" and turns out it was a residential area with nothing much for tourists like us. So guess what we did - we got into the whole grocery shopping mood.
P/S: Tickets are cheapest one or two days before intended departure date or so the intercity agent told us. Yes, we can't resist but throw in a hack or two when we can (:
10. Realising we are not prepared for the nightlife
Or maybe it was just me with my measly few set of clothes. Thanks to reading previous exchange blogs/ Rick Steves book on travelling in Europe etc, i brought minimum amount of luggage and clothes as they advised only to realise i shouldn't have listen so intently with regards to the clothes portion. Struggled to find something to wear in my closet to explore the night scene in Warsaw.
Decided to go shopping thereafter. Looks like more shopping to come?
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