3 - 10 October 2006 Wielun, POLAND

After exhausting traveling our group arrived, without serious problems, in Poland in order to participate in youth exchange dedicated to the cultural differences. We were accommodated in a nice camp, surrounded by a little forest and a small creek. The idyllic picture suggested complete silence. But with so many young people gathered together one can expect exactly the opposite- music, dances and conversations till the middle of the night. We followed the expectations.

The people responsible for the exchange took care for us to see enough of Poland to simply fall in love with it. Except for the nearest town of Wielun we also visited Czestochowa with its beautiful monastery at Jasna Gora. Entire day of the program was dedicated to a visit to the salt mine Wieliczka and Krakow. Wieliczka made me a great impression. Judging by the faces of the others, they were also stunned. Luckily no one of the group suffered too much from fear off narrow spaces, because there were really scary places in the mine. Actually, the thought that you are 110m. bellow the surface of the ground is scary enough to cause a small panic attack.

But what about all the work we were supposed to do there, you are probably asking yourselves. Except from all the rest we did every country (Poland, Slovakia, Estonia and, naturally, Bulgaria) had about an hour and a half to lead their own workshop based on any cultural problem they would like. The program said we should be the last group. Our greatest fear was that the theme we had chosen might appear to be similar to somebody else’s. Fortunately this was not true. After we had talked over the differences in our preferences abut movies and music and had shared our thoughts about the change 1989 our turn finally came. The most notable difference between our workshop and the others was that we tried to find the individual specialty in the personalities we were facing and then to convince them we all have something in common. I believe we did well. Everybody seemed happy- that’s for sure.

The last thing I would like to share with you is that we managed to improvise a grate surprise for Patricia’s birthday- the ninth of November. We managed to collect some money and in a complete conspiration bought a beautiful (and, as lately appeared, tasty) tort. It managed to arrive safely to the place it was eaten due to the group efforts of the entire Bulgarian group. The morning of the Birthday was celebrated with an improvised little party. The evening was finished by a big official “Goodbye” party for all the wonderful people we met.

And we safely arrived home, filled with wonderful memories and desire to go visit Poland at least once more in our lives.