Romania and other countries

I’ve never thought of this phrase until the weekend that has just passed.
We were in a Reception Weekend, organized by AIESEC Kielce. We had the chance to meet internationals, finally. There were 13 Romanians out of 51 people present in the RW.

It was a strange feeling to be in an international conference in Poland, with people from 17 countries and the language you heard most often to be Romanian. Maybe that’s why Piotr, the LCP Kielce, used to say “Romania and countries”.

After a 10 hours travel, we got in Checiny, in the dorm where we were accommodated. The AIESEC Party started with traditional AIESEC dances, which I so missed.

On Saturday we started visiting: Paradise Cave, Sobkow Castle, palace in Kurozwki and castle in Ujazd. It was interesting to see how the wars affected in such a way the castles that all you can see now are ruins. You might try to imagine how the castles used to look like but it’s not a easy thing to do. Despite their destroyed look, they are fabulous and inspiring. In Sobkow Castle we visited also a stable with beautiful horses that make you remember of the story of Black Beauty. A TV crew showed up and starting interviewing and filming us. We were offered a carriage trip like in the medieval times and started feeling like princes and princesses.

At night, we got in a camping and started to complain about the bad conditions where we had to spend the night: an awful room with metal beds, a dirty blanket to sleep on, just 2 showers for I don’t how many ppl (beside the 51 of us there were other tourists), 3 toilets and a lousy disco where it was a radio station playing.

After dealing with drunken people in the disco, we decided to go to our cottages and listen to some music on a laptop. No chance for any Global Village or country presentation. Most of the people went sleeping early that night. Just some Romanians and Polish people stayed to chat and dance.

On Sunday morning, after the yogurt rich breakfast, we started a discussion on “Strange Habits Observed in Poland”. Many habits came up, most of them observed by more that one different culture. There were mentioned: speeding maniacs bus drivers, no kissing or hugging (the Latin interns miss this the most), no bread on meals (the people from the Balkans are pissed of because of this), men shaking hands without addressing a word, sometimes, beggars on the streets, Polish guys touch the girl when dancing and are very passionate (for the Ukrainian and Russian girls, they are simply unbelievable), all the dishes contain either cream either yogurt, no lunch breaks at work (Asian girls starved on their first day at work), going to the bank office it’s a nightmare (everybody agreed), people don’t speak English: not in banks, international brand shops, museums, on the street (it’s a good start for using body language).

After the interesting discussion, we all left on a little mountain, climbing to the Holly Cross, an old Monastery and took pictures in front of the beautiful scenery discovered from the top of the hill.

Being in hurry for catching the train back to Olsztyn, we missed visiting Kielce, a city in a complete reconstruction with EU funds.
This was the international weekend: discovering another part of Poland, some other cultures, bounding some connections and having interesting discussions on different topics.

During these weekends with just some hours sleeping each night, the train will become my second bedroom for the next months.

Next destination: Poznan!



(for more pictures, Photo gallery is launched)