I like to visit Poland. Poland is a very nice and calm place to be. It actually shares some traits with the US. For example, it celebrates most it’s holidays, like Christmas. It has a school system, and a government. They have the same military weapons too. Still, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving or our independence day. In school, they don’t have anti bullying laws like we do.
They don’t tolerate fooling around in school. If you do something bad, they might give a warning. If you are not very smart, they don’t call you stupid, they call you “glupi“, which means hopeless. They are organized just like American schools; they just aren’t organized in the exact same way. You can’t get away with things easily, and it is much harder to get into a high school or college in Poland.
Their government is like ours. They have a president, and other representatives. About a year ago, one of the president, and most other government officials were killed in a plane crash (foul play was suspected, but not enough evidence was found to prove it). They have most of the same weapons that we do. They also have the AMRAAM missile system, like sidewinders, drillers, etc. They purchase those weapon systems from the United States and China, but mostly from the US.
They have many different historic cities. One of the best known cities would be Krakow. There is a large castle on Wawel hill, where the king used to live. There was a legend of a dragon there. This is the story of the dragon. Once, there was a ferocious dragon who loved to eat people and take their goods. All of the king’s men who would face this dragon, would just become its’ next meal. A carpenter named Krak said that he would kill the dragon. He took three roasted sheep, and stuffed them full of sulfur and spices and left it for the dragon. The greedy dragon ate the whole thing. Then, the sulfur and spices started to burn his gut. He started to drink from the Wisla River. He drank until about half of the river was gone. After that, his gut grew and grew until it burst. The city was renamed after Krak. I went into the castle myself and saw it. I also went into the dragons’ lair. At the end of the cave, there is a large dragon statue. It is rigged with a gas nozzle, so that it “spits” fire every two minutes.
Everyday life in Poland isn’t exactly hard, but it is a little overwhelming to some. Getting a job can be simple, or super hard, depending on what exactly you want to do. In Poland, if your parents don’t care much about your future, you will have to care yourself. It is not like New York where there are jobs up for grabs just about anywhere, you need to search, and you need to be qualified well, or else you’re on your own.
Matthew Zakrzewski
Polska Szkoła im. M. Kopernika w Mahwah, NJ.
