Living Locally in Poland

July 24, 2017

By far the greatest thing about Poland is the prices. The exchange rate is somewhere around 3.7 PLN (Polish zloty) to 1 USD so many items are much cheaper here than they would be back home. A standard meal with a drink is more often than not less than $10 and getting a water bottle at the grocery store is about 50 cents. However, this can be very dangerous because if you don’t feel like you’re spending a lot of money you’re more lenient with your purchases. The Polish currency has been really easy to use so far. They have 10, 20, 50, and 100PLN bills and quite a few different coins. It often feels like I’m not even using real money to buy things anymore as I have been mostly reliant on cash this trip and haven’t been charging my card.

The most native Polish thing we’ve done so far is attend a football match and cheer for the Legia Warszawa team. The fans here are notorious for being rowdy so we were pumped to get the chance to see it. The fan section at the game was just a see of white jerseys and they were constantly cheering. They never actually sat down, they just stood and clapped and chanted. We did our best to keep up and mumble along with the words we didn’t know and it ended up being a lot of fun. Especially because our team ended up winning 6-0. You get a real sense of pride for a city when you cheer for their sports team.

Written By

Sarah Tyrrell

I am a rising second year International Affairs and Economics major and going on a Dialogue to the Czech Republic and Poland. This program focuses on the 20th century in Eastern Europe from World War II to the Cold War. I chose this Dialogue because I wanted to immerse myself in a different culture and learn about important events in history from a different perspective. I am excited to be able to study one of my favorite topics in depth and in the region where all of these events took place. By the end of my study abroad experience I hope to have developed new language skills that will be useful back home as well as an appreciation for another country’s customs and history.