Eight Days in Poznan

Hello from Poznan.

I will be here for an extended Fulbright orientation until the 26th.

Poznan is midpoint between Berlin and Warsaw, and it is where Poland was founded back in 966. It was also part of Prussia for a couple of hundred years (until 1918)- so the city has both a Polish flavor and a German flavor to it. (the German's call it Posen).

During the week, we take Polish language classes during the mornings. They have us split into three groups of beginner, intermediate and advance (I am definitely in the beginner). By the end of the week, us beginners hope to be able to pronounce the alphabet and sounds, as well as some conversational phrases. I hope to continue my language training once I get back in Gdansk. I is a very difficult language- it is Slavic like Russian or Czech. My goal by June is to be able to read the local newspaper and understand the TV. I will never be an advanced speaker of the language.

During the afternoons, we have lectures on different aspects of Poland- history, culture, politics, etc. It is actually a rather intense week. We pretty much go each day from 8 a.m, to 7 p.m.

On Saturday we all return to our different Universities in Poland- ready to take on the job.

Over this weekend, they took us on a few tours of the cities and surrounding areas. As I mentioned, Poznan is the cradle of Poland- so most of the oldest sights and first kings lived in this area. I attached a few pictures of our sites. You see a castle, cathedral (first in Poland) and well and the old town square.

In modern history, Poznan is also the place where several strikes were held against the Communist government. The first occurring in 1956, where several strikers were shot by the Soviet Police; and the strikers were left dead in the street as an example. They had several more over the next 30 years. There is a monument of two crosses that honor the different strikes and strikers, which helped in the eventual downfall of Communism.

Finally, today is a day of national mourning in Poland. Over the weekend, there was a massive mine explosion in the Southwest part of the country. Several were killed and even more burned and critical.  Flags are at half staff and all cultural events across the country are canceled. Interesting, although this is top news here- I have seen really no mention of this disaster in the American news sites. That said, we have almost nothing about Jon and Kate in the Polish media.