Showing posts with label before arrival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label before arrival. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 25, 2012


How it all began....

Today I am gonna explain why I am going to Cartagena de Indias and how I got this opportunity. Basically, I am going there for an AIESEC Internship for half a year and I am going to teach English in a language center called Centro Colombo Americano.
First of all I must say that recently I have graduated from the University. I studied Applied Linguistics, specialization: German and Russian at the University of Warsaw. I have also some experience in teaching languages in private language schools and for individual clients
Now that I needed a job, and I also felt like going abroad after living 6 years in the same city, I thought I could find something interesting through AIESEC, an international youth organisation that offers paid internships all over the world. The word paid is very important in this context because in Poland most internships that you can get when being a student or a fresh graduate are unpaid which is, in my opinion, almost like slavery, even worse, because they make you think you do it voluntarily.
So, I applied for the membership in AIESEC which I got without any problems, the recruitment was nice and easy. I thought, searching for an Internship wouldn't be that nice and easy. Looking for a job is never nice and easy I thought. It's always rough!
Well, in this case - surprise, surprise - it wasn't! Everytime I am sending my CV to various companies in Poland, I know they mostly won't even contact me. And I was really surprised, because I got accepted in many places!
So, among the options that i had I chose to go to Cartagena. Because of the language (I already speak Spanish), great climate (I am fed up with the Polish cold) and great pictures and videos I found about the city. Hell yeah, I did my homework! :)
Here you have one that I liked a lot:


I am amazed by the things about Cartagena and Colombia that I'm reading and watching, I can't wait to go there! :D

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Hi! Welcome to my blog!

I have never ever written a blog before. But now that I am going to Colombia to live there my great intercultural experience, I thought it'd be a nice idea to start writing about it! :) I also thought that I would write it in English - If i did it in Polish, my Latin friends wouldn't be able to understand it, same for some of my Polish friends if I did it in Spanish. And I am too lazy to translate every single post :) So, long live the lingua franca which happens to be English nowadays :) 

I am going to Colombia. On January 16th I will be in the city of Cartagena de Indias on the Caribbean coast. A city of great history, colonial architecture and very hot, tropical climate. Quite different from what I see from my window right now: In Poland it's winter time, with lots of snow and temperatures significantly under 0 degrees. To be more exact: currently we are freezing our asses off. God bless central heating! But very soon, within three weeks I will go to the city of the eternal summer, with average daily temperatures around 30 degrees, lots of sun and lots of humidity. Like in a wet sauna! I suppose, it means sweating all the time for me and taking shower 4 times a day, like Latinos do. Shame on you, nasty and dirty little Europeans who think, one shower a day sounds like good hygene! :) But anyway, I am looking forward to it. The day before yesterday I literally felt pain when I had to take off my glove outside in order to make a call. Shame on you, tactile smartphones for not working with my gloves on!