Why Poland? Sietske and Jitske from the Netherlands

Why Poland? This was the question we got from a lot of people, in the Netherlands as well as here in Poland. The answer is rather simple. We were curious about it. During our travels and in the Netherlands we met Polish people and they were all warm and kind. It made us curious about the land they were living in. We wanted to see Polish cities and nature, but also meet more Polish people and learn about their way of life, so we decided to see if we could spend some time at Kasia’s language school. It was actually nice that we didn’t know too much about Poland before we came here, it made our travel a real discovery.

What did we find out? First of all: the Polish we met before weren’t an exception; most people we met were warm and friendly. Not a lot of them speak English, but they make an effort to explain us something in Polish and then smile as if we sure must have understood the bottom line of their message. Often we didn’t really, we couldn’t even pronounce the name of the city we were staying nearby, let alone understand anything of the Polish language. But we felt helped and that was nice.

We also found out that, unlike the general image in the Netherlands, it doesn’t always snow in Poland. People will be surprised about our tan when we return. Lastly we found out about the Polish kitchen. In our imagination, the Polish cuisine existed of some mashed potatoes with meat. But when the students at the advanced course told us about a thing called dumplings, we were made curious.

The next day we went to Warsaw to see if we could find some of those famous dumplings. We actually wanted to try the once with fruit, but we decided to start with salty ones. This was not a good idea. They were so delicious that we ate them all and there was no room for fruit dumplings anymore. The next time we go to Warsaw we will try not to order the delicious salty once and try the once with fruit. We’ re sure they must be delicious as well.

And what did the Polish found out about the country of Holland? Most importantly: that it doesn’t exist. What? Yes, Holland is not a country, but a province in the Netherlands. Actually, there are two Hollands in the Netherlands, South Holland and North Holland. Confusing isn’t it?

The kids were most excited about the existence of Banana Bikes, bikes that look like bananas. They made beautiful drawings of them, so they will remember the most fruity bikes in the world. The teenagers found out that their names were quite difficult to pronounce for Dutchies, but that their hangman skills weren’t too bad. It was nice playing it with them as a bonus at the end of the lesson. It was also nice to see a lot of very motivated English-learners and talk with them about a whole range of subjects.

We sure enjoyed our time out in Kasia and Marcos little Polish paradise.

Written by: Sietske Broekhuizen