Well I've kept y'all waiting long enough so it is time for me to tell y'all about what Polish school is like. There are many similarities and many differences.
First I should explain how my schedule works. My classes are different every day and I start and end school at different times. Monday I start school at 9 o'clock and end at 3:45, Tuesday at 8 o'clock and end at 2:45, Wednesday at 10 o'clock and end at 2:45 (Yes Wednesday is my favorite day of the week.), Thursday is my longed starting at 8 o'clock and ending at 3:45, and Friday I start at 9 o'clock and end at 2:45. My classes are 45 minutes apiece and have 15 minutes between them. Unlike in the US there is no lunch break because Polish meals are at different times. I just have one class after another after another until I leave. But the fifteen minute breaks are actually pretty long and the classes fly by most of the time. Oh and I almost forgot to mention, other than language classes, the same students are in all of the same classes. When I don't know where the next class is I usually just follow my classmates and I can find it.
Though I should mention I didn't start school until 10 my first Monday, and I got out at about 12:45. For most schools the first day of school is kind of like an orientation. We started out going to this big Catholic church. I was following around my host sister's friend who goes to my school because my host sister had her own school to attend. Aga introduced me to some of her friends while we waited to enter the church and I got to meet some of my first normal Polish kids, who I would be going to school with. When we got into the church I had to stand in the back behind a column so I couldn't see what was going on. I did this for an hour, listening to a very long sermon in Polish that I didn't understand and mumbling gibberish when everyone else said prayers, at least I think they were prayers. Occasionally we had to kneel down for some reason, but for the most part I was standing there bored out of my mind for a hour. After that we had an assembly in a conference hall with I think the Freshman class only, they put me into the Freshman class her :'(, I was given one of my classmates to translate important parts while the Headmaster gave his speech. Then we went to our homerooms where our teacher read out the schedule for the class. I had barely any idea what she was saying, so at the end when all of the students came to greet the new foreign kid one of them was nice enough to help translate my schedule. Then we toured the school for about ten minutes and everyone else either went home or went to take proficiency tests in their foreign languages. I didn't really know if school was over though so I went to find my homeroom teacher, an English teacher, and asked her if school was over. When she stopped laughing she told me yes and that I could go home.
For the rest of the week I basically did the same thing, go to classes, pay attention for the first five minutes long enough for me to correct the teacher when she called roll and pronounced my name Dallas Vells and then say "Nie mowie po polsku." Which means "I don't speak polish." Then the teacher would laugh or look confused, my classmates would say something in Polish and I got to ignore the teacher for the rest of the lesson. I really just sit in class with my nook reading while everyone else does the work because the other students are studying and there really isn't anything to do. Between classes I talk to my classmates because Polish kids start learning English in 1st grade and so all but a couple of my classmates are pretty fluent. Though when I really want to practice my Polish there is one student in my class who doesn't understand almost any English so I can talk to him, though not very well. Still my whole class is very nice and most of them enjoy listening to my accent or think it is really cute when I butcher the Polish language. And of course I'm already starting to learn how to cuss in Polish.
One day last week I managed to go out with some of my friends from my class. For the most part they took the whole class I we mostly just walked around Krakow for about two hours. We walked through the Krakow main square which is right near our school and then we walked to the Jewish Ghetto to pick up some Zapiekankas which were really really good. The ones we had were special too because you can only get ones like them in Krakow. And in case you're wondering a zapiekanka is a half a loaf of toasted bread with some kind of vegetables under cheese. On top of that you can get a lot of things, but I just had salami and garlic sauce on mine. It was absolutely delicious. Along the way people had left when we got near bus stops that led to their homes so there were only a handful of us left at that point. We walked a little ways to a fountain to eat our food and when we sat down I decided I should go find my train home before I was completely lost. I'm not really sure how I did it, but without getting too lost I found a train leading home.
Oh and I just wanted to add something that I found interesting about Polish schools. Here I have a religion class. I found it kind of interesting that something that is illegal to even talk about in the US has an entire class dedicated to it in Poland. Though I still don't understand anything so for me the only difference between it an a normal class is that I have a priest for a teacher.
And while I'm sure you are all looking forward to seeing what pictures I have taken this week, I didn't take any of my school because while I take my camera everywhere with me I'm not a tourist. It would be creepy to walk around me school taking random pictures so I didn't. But if y'all really want to see the inside of my school and my classmates leave a comment saying so and if enough people ask I'll swallow my pride and creep around my school with a camera. Until next time, see ya.
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