Maria's Blog

Good bye Poland :(

Maria — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:50:07 +0000

My time is over in Poland, and I had to say good bye to this great experience, I will never forget my time in Poland. I made good friends and many people who made this experience a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, one day the end will come but the only thing that lasts forever is the people and this memories that did that I will never forget them.

Me saying bye Poland

I want to say thank you very much to my team, in the office, great people that support me all the time and they made the best place to work. It was a little bit dificult to know that my time finished there. Off course I will never forget them.

My Dear Team

My Polish friends made me a good bye party, it was original with polish flags and Polish food. Also they did a poster, it was so nice ,with pictures of each of memories in Poland. They wrote something in the poster, some beautiful words, it was a little bit hard, I wanted to cry when I saw all my friends, and also,when I was thinking that, it would take too long to see them again.

My Friends

My friends and me in my good bye party

My poster

After the sad feelings, we needed to enjoy my last party in Poland, so we went to Rynek “main square”. We were dancing all the night, we were singing or try to sing. The party was really nice, specially because all my friends were there and they made everything possible to ensure that I enjoyed my time there all the way long until the end.

Visit to Tyskie Brewery

Maria — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:04:13 +0000

My friends and me were in Tyskie Brewery in Tychy, it is a city close to Katowice. The visit was really interesting. Everybody can go to visit the brewery and the museum, you have a guide in different languages, the guide show you all the plant and explain you all about the process, it’s for free. Since December of 2004 Tyskie has been visited by 100 000 people.

Tyskie Brewery

The first part of the visit start with the presentation for the owner of the company, through the video where he made the welcome to the plant.

The Welcome

Later we went to watch the video about all the history of the brewery. The video is like a movie where the actors represent all the character through the centuries of history of the Tyskie brewery The movie is perfect to explain all the history and they could have all our interest. It’s worth to see, specially how the Tyskie brewery has influence in an important part to the society during those centuries.

Watching the Movie about Tyskie Brewery

After the movie, we went to visit the museum and it was really interesting because they’ve got all the accessories of the history of the brewery and they’ve got a collection of all the beers from the SAB miller firm. SAB Miller is one of the biggest firm around the world and it’s in the top as a one of the most important firm actually. Also I was happy because there were two types of beers from Colombia that are part of the SAB miller firm. I never though that I could find beers from Colombia in a museum in Poland. But the taste of the Polish beer is better than Colombia’s beer.

Museum - Beers from Colombia

Me in the Museum

Collection in the Museum

We continue with the visit and we went to the old plant to watch the place where the owner and the workers were living in the firsts years of the brewery, they were living there and they were really happy to work and live there. Also they had a rail station where the train came to transport beer barrels filled to distribute the beer around Poland.

The old Plant

House of the owner of the Brewery

Me in the Brewery

After this we went to the new part of the plant, where is a new technology to increase the production of the beer. There are all the new machines and they are working so fast that I was surprised with the process, specially, because it was my first time in this kind of plant.

My friends and Me

We saw how they clean the recyclable bottles of beer, after this process, they fill the bottles or cans of beer, and later, they put the cap over the bottles or cans, and the last part, it’s put the label. This process is so fast thanks to the high technology that they are using.

The last part of the visit is the best, because we’ve got one beer and it’s so delicious and cold, also because after visit and see all the process you are thinking just in try the desired beer.

The taste of Tyskie beer

World Cup 2010.

Maria — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:58:12 +0000

I am living this World Cup in Poland. I am enjoying it because I’m rooting for Latin Countries and my friends also. Everything was going ok until quarter finals.

So I suffered with all the eliminators since Brazil to Argentina, and now, the last hope is Spain and Uruguay. We will see on this week in the match with Germany and Netherlands, it’s not easy because both are playing really well.

One curious thing is that in the German team there are two players from Poland (Podolsky and Klose) and they are among the best players. So in Poland somebody is supporting Germany because of these.

This weekend was completely crazy because I was supporting Argentina despite that I don’t like Maradona, the reason was that I wanted to see the people from Argentina celebrate, because I know how important is Maradona and the Football culture to them. But unfortunately they lost and I couldn’t see people celebrating. The match was really interesting and the players from Poland played very well.

Now I am waiting for the final and I hope that one of Latino teams is there.

Mine in Tarnowskie Góry

Maria — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:11:37 +0000

On Sunday I was with my friends in the Mine in Tarnowskie Góry. This place is located in Silesia region, around one hour from Katowice. It’s a beautiful city and the population in Tarnowskie Góry is about 60,975 inhabitants. It’s got a nice Rynek.

Tarnowskie Góry - Rynek

My friends and me went to the mine by train. But this train is not like normal trains, it’s a traditional and old train from the city. We took the train in Bytom and the trip was nice until the mine in Tarnowskie Góry.

Old and Traditional Train

We arrived to the mine, it’s very old mining centre of lead-ores with silver admixture, to be called in the former times the silver carrier ore and the mining of iron-ores which in the past centuries formed this land.

Close to the mine

My friends and me in the Mine

We started the visit in the museum. The museum is really nice because there are all the tools that the old miners were using to work in the mine. Also there are some documents, some replicas of the machinery used in those days and also a lot of minerals as examples of all materials that had exploited in those centuries.

Tools used by the old miners

Some old tools used by the miners

Minerals

Replicas of the Machinery

The tourist route is around one hour and half, it has a lenght of 1700 m and about 40 m. deep. The most interesting part to me, it was when we were into the boats to do a trip into the mine. We could appreciate a huge quantity of water and we could imagine how hard was work there to the miners.

Me in the Mine

Me in the boat

This trip was really interesting, specially because I had never been in a mine before. The experience was nice.

Mi Bella Ibague :)

Maria — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:16:42 +0000

I love my city in Colombia. I want to talk a bit about Ibagué. The city is known as the musical capital in Colombia. It’s a small (actually big compared to European cities, but small for American -Latin American- standards) and hot (not extremely hot, but very hot compared to Poland) city near Bogotá with approximately 520,000 inhabitants.

Town hall and Plaza de Bolívar in Ibagué

I was born there and I’ve been living there all my life. The weather is perfect to me, because the temperature is around 20°C and 28°C on average along the year. In my city there are a lot of mountains around and we have the snowy mountain “Nevado del Tolima”, where we can go to walk (actually climb) and see the snow over the top of the mountain and we’ve got waterfalls that are amazing.

Snowy Mountain - Nevado del Tolima

Waterfalls near Ibague

Me in the Waterfalls

In Colombia there is a main square in all the cities. By law it is always called “plaza de Bolivar”. Normally, the town hall and the cathedral are located there, like some sort of Rynek. I love it during Christmas because there are a lot of lights and is beautiful.

Main square in Ibague

My university is called Univiversidad de Ibague, and there I spent a lot of fun times. Because I was working with IAESTE and I had the opportunity to know people and different cultures and I started to be interested in travelling. In the university we organized some festival for the students and It was wonderful.

IAESTE

In June (actually, 24th of June), we have the carnivals in Ibague, we celebrate “fiestas de San Juan” where we do a beauty contest so we have Miss Folklore. The queen has to have the best skills to dance the typical rhythms from our region, especially in this case a song called “Sanjuanero”.

: Miss El Espinal in “San Juan” parade

There’s a parade along the main street “La Quinta” (the popular 5th avenue) in which each of the Miss (they are from the different regions of Colombia) is accompanied by a group that is dancing with her and playing traditional musical instruments. Also we have the “Cabalgata” where people ride horses in the last part of the parade.

: Parade in Ibague

During the entire week there are different events as concerts, fairs, parades, parties in the street and all the people is celebrating the “San Juan” and is very happy.

Weekend in Częstochowa

Maria — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:05:28 +0000

Last weekend my friend Kasia Zajdel invited me to her city “Częstochowa”, it was a nice experience because was my second time there and I could see a lot of things and spend time with her family and with her friends. The first day we were in her parent’s home and I met the most important member of the family “Junior”, it’s a beautiful and friendly dog.

Junior

We were relaxing there and after we went to a pub to meet her friends and drink some beers. The pub is called “music box” and it has a space to sit outside and refresh. We were talking for a long time and after we came back at home.

weekend in czestochowa

The second day, we were visiting one of her grandmothers and talking with her, but Kasia all the time had to translate for her family because unfortunately I don’t speak Polish and the communication had to be all the time in this way. Also Kasia bought strawberries, because is strawberry harvest in Poland, so in this period Polish people eat a lot of strawberries.

Strawberries from Poland

Later we were in her parent’s home, they had prepared a special lunch, it was delicious, her grandmother made a Polish food. They were asking me if I like Polish food and I say that I loved it, and for sure I will miss it, when I leave Poland. We were talking, and this day was so hot, that we decided not to drink a coffee in this afternoon, as we normally do, we rather went to the lake to refresh and enjoy the beautiful day.

Delicious Polish Food

kasia's family and me

Kasia Junior and Me

We went to the lake with her friends and their dog “Bruno”, we organized all things on the grass and we sat to take the sun. Kasia and her friend went to the lake but first the water was cold but around 6 the water was hot. We were playing also with Bruno because he was learning to swim and we had lots of fun. I was surprise because I never thought that in Poland could be “Mosquitoes” but during this season there are a lot of, and this day after some hours we were kind of forced to leave by a cloud of annoying mosquitoes.

Enjoying a Beautiful Day

On this day, Saturday, we were in a fair in the main street, there were many people and also there were some tends where people sold some food, especially, meat, cheese, bread and artesian beer. Kasia and me sat there, to eat something, later started to rain, despite this we run and we went to the pub to meet with her friends. We were enjoying and drinking beer. And when we wanted come back to home, there was raining a lot that her friends had to take us home in their car.

Kasia's Friends and Me

The next day, it was Sunday and we had a meet with her mother’s family, so we were with her family and later, Kasia and me went to the shopping because now in some shops in Poland are some discounts, and it was nice.

We come back to her father’s family to meet for last time with them, before to come back at home, we were drinking coffee and eating a delicious cake. I was telling her grandmother that, actually, I don’t know who of the grandmothers is the best cook because they are both fabulous. Her grandfather invited me to drink a glass of wine, so we did and we talked about all the trips around the world that they have done, because they love to travel.

The Grandparents and Me

Finally we came back to Katowice, we were really tired after the long weekend, thanks to Kasia it was a nice and different weekend and she gave me a nice book about the history of Częstochowa.

Poland, close to visit other Beautiful places.

Maria — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:15:27 +0000

I had the opportunity, two weeks ago to visit Czech Republic, exactly, Brno and Prague with Edgar. It was wonderful because, firstly, it’s close to Poland so we went by train and isn’t many hours, secondly is a beautiful country to see, with a forest and landscape, thirdly is not expensive to do tourism there.

Me in Czech Republic

We went first to Brno to visit one friend “Martin”, he was in Colombia for six months during his international semester, he was living in Edgar’s home and we are good friends. It was really nice, that we could meet him in Europe, we were around Brno and it’s nice city with a castle and beautiful cathedral. At night we were eating Czech food and it was delicious, also the beer was good, but anyway Edgar say that he prefer Lech beer from Poland.

Edgar, Martin and me in Brno

Brno in Czech Republic

Drinking Czech beer

After Brno we went to Prague, and it was amazing, the city is beautiful and it has a lot of places to visit, it has a beautiful castle, interesting museums and the main square is wonderful, one of the attractions there, is the astronomical clock, when we were in the square was a show with dancers from different countries.

Me in a park in Prague

Beautiful Prague

Also the Charles bridge is beautiful and there are so many people that is impossible to walk there. The city has some parks to relax, and the place that I liked most was the Petřín tower because the view is wonderful and the park around is really nice.

Me in Petřín tower

Petřín tower and the park

In one of the days that we were in Prague, we met one Czech friend, she is Zlatka and she was in Colombia some years ago, Zlatka was living with me in Ibague for a couples of months, and it was a special meeting to talk about her experience in Colombia.

Zlatka, Edgar and me

After this trip we went to Vienna, is a beautiful city with a lot of museums, the gardens are beautiful and the Köln Cathedra has a special design, it’s worth watching, also there are a lot of interesting museums and all the things about the history of Mozart.

Vienna

This day, we arrived there around 6:00 and I was so tired that I went to the park to sleep for a few time. At 8:00 we started to walk around the main attractions in the city. We were in a main square, there was a festival and they were selling beers, cakes and the typical food from Autria. We tried the typical cake and it was really sweet.

Relaxing in Vienna

Me in Vienna

Later we continue with the trip, and we went to visit the Donau River, because we wanted to know if it’s blue as in the waltz by Johan Strauss II”. We were walking around the river and it’s really nice and it’s blue. When we were there started to rain, so, we sat close to the river to drink and eat something.

Donau River

Edgar and Me in Vienna

Picnic on Sunday :)

Maria — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:01:21 +0000

Last Sunday was really hot in Poland and everybody went outside to enjoy the nice weather, and specially, people went to the park and they were practicing some sports. On saturday Edyta call me to invite me to a picnic in the park with her whole family, because she told me that she understood me about the sad feeling after my boyfriend left Poland, so I needed some distraction.

We were to the park to a nice place around the trees, and her family organized a special place to sit and relax, with some chairs and one table, where they put all the things to eat, some kind of Polish food that they normally ate to the summer season, for example some salads, some meat, a lot of juices, and for sure, the dessert, some cakes and cookies. I got the opportunity to try a type of cold soup ” Gazpacho” from Spain, specially for the summer, made from tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, olive oil, parsley and so on. I really like was good, and this cold soup was made by the husband of Edyta.

Picnic on Sunday

During the day we were playing with the balon, reading magazines, eating , playing in the tent and relaxing. Later we were playing wii and it was so funny because I am not good in sports, I was thinking that maybe I am not so bad but not, I am, specially playing basketball.

Playing in the tent

This day I was playing with one of my best friend in Poland, one “personita” so special with who, I can speak Spanish here. She is so lovely, she is called Sofia, and we were enjoying this sunny day together.

Sofia and me

Doing the Intro of The Lip Dub

Maria — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:11:55 +0000

The last Friday we were doing the intro of Lip Dub, and it day was really difficult, specially because on Thursday was the Corpus Christi and people don’t have to go to work and to study. But the most funny thing was that I am really catholic but this day I was partying with friends and with my boyfriend, “Edgar Jimenez”, who came for two weeks and half to visit me. So we woke up at 8:00 and finally we just sleep for 4 hours.

We came to the university in the morning to do the intro of the Lip Dub, some students were participating, and also Edgar, who was participating in all the video and he says “it was completely unexpected and very enjoyable. I liked to know people and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. Also, it was funny to listen to all the instructions in Polish and still manage to do my part (without talking about the funny costumes)”.

Edgar in the Intro of Lip Dub

Edgar and me working in the Lip Dub

We start to do the intro and the idea was try to simulate two different periods of time, the period when the university was created (1937) and the nowadays (2010). Some students have to use some beautiful costumes, this part was filming in black and white and was wonderful because we got exactly that we want to show in the Intro of the Lip Dub. After this part we did the nowadays and it was so nice, because , finally we can apreciate the contrast between the both period of the university.

Students of AE doing the intro of Lip Dub

Nowadays in AE

The last part we went to a restaurant to take a delicious lunch and also to watch the results of the work. And all people was surprised because the video looked great. But now we have to wait until tomorrow, because the Premier is tomorrow at 13:00 in AE university.

Doing the intro of Lip Dub

Doing the Lip Dub

Maria — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:52:57 +0000

We were on last Wednesday doing the video “Lip Dub”. It was amazing because a lot of students were participating and they were wearing costumes. It was so funny and each of the students laughed at the others and so on.

Students of AE doing Lip Dub

This day we have to do all the video and the best part was that all the students, they were motivated and they have a lot of energy, because we knew that this wouldn’t be easy, especially because we have to do all the video in one shot. It was the most difficult thing for the cameramen and for the students because we had to be ready when the camera came. If one of the students made a mistake, we had to do all the video again. In one part of the video, when we were in the last part, one of the students made a mistake but nobody had any problem to do again, because we were enjoying a lot, especially because we were very happy to have our own video in AE.

Doing the video

The experience was fantastic, because was the first time to me, that I have the opportunity to participate in a video where many people get involved and the video request a huge logistic. We were a lot of people included the international students. As a video request a huge logistic, all the people arrived near to 6 p.m to organized the stage and to use the customs. The idea was that the video looked the most original as possible and I think that we did it.

We start to do the video but first, we had to make the video several times before making the final shot. After several attempts we had a brake to eat a big pizza and caddies, They were delicious, and it was enough to take energy to continuo doing the video.

The last part was the best because it was try to pretend that we got a big party like a Hawaiian style, and we did it. It was amazing because all the students had the swimsuits to go into the swimming pool in the last part of the video. Also some students go to the swimming pool with them clothes.

Party in the swiming pool

Finally do this video was the most crazy experience that I had have in AE. In June we will do the premier of the video, and for sure I’ll do the publication in my Blog.