Days 2-3. Arrival in Torun!

Well, I'm finally grounded. (Whew!)

The flight from Amsterdam to Warsaw was delayed of course, but a 25 minute delay felt pretty minor compared to the 4 hours in Minneapolis plus a 10 hour layover in Amsterdam. By the time the plane landed, it was around 10 o'clock Warsaw time and the airport was pretty dead. The Warsaw Airport seemed kind of weird and Orwellian compared to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, there are signs and pictures everywhere trying to get you to buy stuff. In Warsaw, everything was white and silver and orange, with harsh light and signs that were mostly just pictures. Actually, it might have just seemed that way because it was nighttime and I was just getting in from about 30 hours of traveling because now that I look at pictures and illustrations of the airport online it looks pretty nice:


Anyway, we then piled into a big bus/van thingy and headed off for the 3 1/2 hour drive from Warsaw to Torun. I wish I could have taken some pictures, but it was pretty dark out. From what I could see, Warsaw looked pretty cool. We drove past an enormous soccer stadium and a lot of car dealerships. Most of the rest of the ride outside of Warsaw was through dark woods and small towns, and the driver was driving really fast and the roads were bumpy. Every hour or so he pulled into a gas station for a cigarette so we could get out to buy mineral water or go to the bathroom. I was exhausted at this point and I had been wearing the same clothes for about 30-35 hours and had been sleeping only for a couple hours at a time.

Finally we pulled into the courtyard of the school. There was some confusion about the rooms but finally I settled into one. I get a room all to myself and I'm pretty sure it was made to be shared by three people so I have three beds and three desks. The room has nice big windows.

Here's the entryway to the dorm building. How welcoming!


Here's one side of my room:

And the other side with the extra beds and desks. Any ideas what I should do with the extra space?

This morning we ate breakfast, although I was still feeling weird from the trip so I just had tea and cornflakes. They also put out these rolls with cream on the inside that looked really good and some eggs and other stuff. I'll be looking forward to a breakfast when I'm really hungry! After breakfast we got a tour of the school's campus. Here's the view of a church you can see from the campus:

Here's what my dorm looks like from the outside:

Here's the building that has the classrooms:

And here's the building that has the gymnasium and the cafeteria:

Then we went to the classroom building and we got to pick out our rooms! The room I got seems like it will work really well. My grandma will be happy to know that during the school year it's the German room so it's full of Germany posters and maps.



After that I went into town to poke around and buy some things I needed (a soap holder, an ethernet cable, and some flip flops). Wanna see some pictures of the town? I thought so!

Another view of the church.

Mary statue outside of the church.

The town is very charming and European.

There was some sort of performance going on for children in one of the squares and I wanted to take a picture but then this guy got in my shot.

I think the town's central road is closed to cars. I don't have any independent verification of this, but there were no cars driving around and people were walking in the middle of the street.

I'm not quite sure what this building is yet but it has the statue of Copernicus out front.

Copernicus: the man, the myth, the legend.

Hey it's me! Proof that I am alive and not just some imposter blogger. Can you tell that I still hadn't showered yet in this picture? (Don't worry, I'm all clean now!)


I think the ad is for some kind of music festival that's going on in Torun.


Fiddler in the fountain.


I don't know why these frogs are spitting on a fiddler, but they are.

I'm not sure if this is a house or some other type of building. I'll try to get more information on Torun and post it when I get more time.


I saw this in a drugstore. I guess in Poland they can call a hair gel "Taft" without making people think of the jolliest of US presidents.

Can you believe I got time to take all these pictures before lunchtime? For lunch we had barszcz (which is how you say borscht in Polish) with dumplings in it, mashed potatoes, cucumber salad with a creamy sauce, and what I think was schnitzel. It was delish and I was pretty hungry by this point.

And here's the group!


Well that's it for now! Tomorrow the students arrive and Monday we start classes so I've got a lot to prepare for! Thanks for reading if you got this far.