Welcome to Warszawa...

...the city where the old town is really the new town, the most impressive building is a gift from Stalin, the beer is almost cheaper than water, the bureaucracy is the worst I've ever encountered, and where I'm freezing my butt off!!!!

It's been a very slow process getting to know Warsaw, the culture, and the people. Above experiences are defenitely the top of the iceberg, there's much more to come the years ahead. As opposed to a slow introduction to culture, geography, and language of the area, I have been thrown into a whirlwind of information concerning the school, classes, students, and much more... There's only one word: confusion.

Lucklily, I managed to find a place to live the day before orientation and it only took about half a day to clean, move furniture around, unpack my 23 kilos of packing, and add my "personal touch". Haha! With 23 kilos of personal belonging there's not much you can do and I have to admit my room looks quite grey.

Once orientation day came, the confusion was inevitable. I'm not sure what the people in the administrative offices at WUM (Warszawski Uniwersytet Medyczny or Medical University of Warsaw) are doing but it sure can't be working! However, I survived the day, got enough information for the following week, and most importantly; I met my fellow students! There are students from around the world at the school and the 20 something students in my class represent countries such as the US, Canada, Finland, Norway, Australia, Great Britain, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia. About half of them have polish origin and thus speak the language, which helps a lot during times of confusion.

When classes started last Monday, I was happy to learn that the confusion stays within the walls of the administration. The professors and their assistants are extremely organized, professional, strict, but also friendly and approachable. Students from above years have tried to scare us a little bit by mentioning exactly how strict they can be and also how tough the 4-year program is (most people do the 6-year program). According to some, not a single 4-year student last year passed the final anatomy exam the first time but had to retake the exam. After a few comments like that I stopped listening. I'm defenitely not saying it's an easy class as I'm already drowning in readings after only a week. However, it would be suicide to let comments like that one haunt me. For what would be worse than walking into the exam room thinking I'm going to fail already before I take the pen into my hand...!?

Before school started, and before the books and readings piled up on my desk, I did have time to explore a bit of the nightlife. I went to the Tortilla Factory, the "school's" bar, where everyone goes. Interesting indeed, with a 100% chance of running into at least 100 people from WUM at any given Friday or Saturday. Yes, I did go there two nights in a row. I felt it was "my last chance" for a while. Second night was not quite as busy so we ended up going to a club, Opera. Here, they wouldn't let us in until they heard we spoke English (probably because foreigners spend more money), yet I'd hear some Polish guys inside that would curse Americans because of war etc. Who were those "Americans"? Well, a group consisting mainly of Swedish, British, Canadian and ONE US citizen... :)

That was last weekend. This weekend I've changed socializing at a cozy cafe, having drinks at the fun Tortilla Factory, and clubbing at Opera with having a quick, boosting, delicious cappuccino at Coffee Heaven (which by the way is MY new heaven), studying for hours at a beautiful library, and now, instead of clubbing on a Saturday night I'm sitting at home writing this blog...

This reminds me, it is unfortunately time to call it a night. I need my beauty sleep but most of all my brain cells need to rest.

So long!!

Love,

Anna