My Polish Experience

Hello everybody!

My name is Cori (Corina Ionilă) and currently I'm working in AIESEC Hungary, as MCVP OGX. I joined AIESEC Bucharest back in the autumn of 2004, together with a bunch of other 40something crazy people.

Last year I decided to start to live international, so I left for an internship in Poland. What that meant for me? Let me make you a brief!

It represented an entire row of first times:

First time flying;
First time in Poland;
First time being away from Romania for a longer period;
First time having to face language barriers;
First time living a cultural shock;
First time swimming in the Baltic Sea;
First time assisting to a catholic service in Polish;
First time working in a foreign environment;
First time managing a European project;
First time having dinner with a CEO;
First time falling asleep in a club.

For 3 months, I lived a continuous process of self assessment and discovery. Through every single little challenge I was overcoming one more limit: from asking for 20 slices of salami in a personal sign language to trying to communicate with my boss when he refused to speak English instead of Polish, from asking for permit to use the washing machine when the landlord spoke no English to arguing with the train controller when he was threatening us with calling the police.

It was this experience that made me feel confident of myself, of discovering my values, my beliefs, my dreams and my future. I realized I am the only owner of my experiences and that the limits I encounter are up to me to be conquered or not.

I climbed in the highest tower made of bricks, I heard every old town’s legends and I watched from the sky entire cities rebuilt after the war from a nation’s ambition to continue to exist. I learnt what it means to be proud of your country and I learnt a lot more about my own country as well.

My Polish Experience enriched my life like nothing else had done before and inspired me for what came after it.

for more stories, feel free to visit my traineeship blog at http://polishpink.blogspot.com:))