Exchange visit to Wodzislaw Slaski (Poland)

• 8 am : We met at the Montpellier train station
• 9 am : We boarded the train
• 1H30 pm : Arrival at Charles De Gaulle airport.

• Then we walked around the airport, some students went to Macdo, others to Starbucks Coffee.
  We played cards waiting for the flight which was delayed by two hours. So, the company gave us food vouchers, only 4,50E !, for the evening meal. At 7h40 pm we finally boarded the airplane for a 2-hour flight,

• We arrived in Krakow at 10 pm, we took the bus, and we met our penfriends at midnight in front of Wodzislaw Slaski high school.
  What a long day !!!

First of all we went to the school of our penfriends. There we had a very busy morning :
we first met their teachers and the headmistress who welcomed us with drinks and cake,

• we played some games to discover each other’s culture,

• we had a workshop “how we sample chocolate with our senses”,

• we went to English or German lessons with our penfriends,
  we discovered traditional Silesian dances with a folkloric group and we danced.

• We went to the Nautilus, a restaurant where we were offered T-shirts and a typical Polish lunch and then we learnt how to make pirogi, a kind of ravioli, and a fruit salad... and we ate it all !

• Finally we walked to the bowling alley, we made three teams and the winners were Benoit, Marysia and Olaf. The sun was absent but the smiles were present.

We spent the whole week-end with our penfriends’ families and we had many different activities, thus discovering how Polish families live :

• some visited the Guido coal mine, the oldest mine in Europe, where we went 327m underground, saw many mining machines and techniques,
• some went to Pszczyna, a museum castle, from which Kaiser Wilhem II led World War I,
• some went to a natural park, where they saw typical Silesian animals,
• many went to “Mind in Maze”, a kind of escape room game : they had to solve enigmas in 50 minutes to win,
• some went to Hydropolis, a museum based on water science,
• a few went to Wroclaw, a beautiful city,
• most went shopping for some souvenirs.

It was the excursion day with our Polish penfriends.
First, we visited the Wieliczka salt mine, written in the World Heritage List of the UNESCO. We went down 450 steps, 135m underground, down to the third level out of 9. Our guide explained how the mine worked, and also the legend of the Hungarian princess Kinga.
The most impressive place was Kinga chapel which contained beautiful salt sculptures (biblical scenes, saints, Pope John Paul II), everything was made of salt, even the chandelier and the floor.
You can go to mass every Sunday and other religious celebrations like wedding or Christmas.

Then we went to Krakow city center, we walked through the imperial Wavel castle and close to the Vistula river saw the emblem of Krakow, the drake that spits fire every 10 minutes.
We walked along the medieval streets to the Rynek, the city’s main square with its beautiful cloth market, and finally reached Chimera, the salad bar where we had lunch.
Then we had some time to buy souvenirs for our families.

We met at the high school at 7:15 to take the bus to Krakow. We said goodbye to our correspondents and we left for the airport.
After registering our bags, we walked through the lobby, bought some Polish pretzels and passed the security gates.
The flight lasted 2:30 and we landed in Lyon with a beautiful sun. After we arrived in Lyon, we went to the Part-Dieu train station by regional train.
We had to wait for three hours before the departure of our train. So we went to the mall next to the train station to eat. Then, our train left at 6:10pm and we arrived in Montpellier at 8pm.