Incredible Opportunity

Ratings
Overall
5
Impact: 5
Support: 5
Fun: 5
Value: 5
Safety: 5
Review

As someone who had never even been on an airplane, much less travelled abroad, I cannot say enough great things about my experience. I wish we would have had more time for service projects at the Auschwitz museum (we were replacing tags on baskets and creating storage bags for umbrellas), but I understand our group had time restraints. Sara from Amizade was very helpful, and I enjoyed my interactions with her. Our site coordinator, Dr. Matthias Hass, was an incredible resource, and I feel the success of my experience is due largely in part to his participation. However, I felt my interactions with our other site coordinator, Ana were not even close to positive. I felt she was completely uninterested in interacting with the group, or helping us to have a great learning opportunity in Poland. I recognize that this was her first time working with Amizade, but I was thoroughly unimpressed by her lack of preparedness and participation. Blowing off our service activity to go peruse the parts of the museum she wanted to see, or telling us to look up information on the historic sites ourselves when she actually had no idea what she was talking about is unacceptable to me, and seriously hampered my enjoyment of the last leg of our trip. I feel if Amizade is to continue employing her as a site coordinator, she should shadow someone like Matthias, and be supervised by someone like Sara. However, even with Ana as a tour guide, I still had a great experience, as Sara was present for our time in Krakow. On a positive note, I loved interacting with the locals, especially during our tours. Our guide at the Auschwitz museum was Aggie, and she was a remarkable guide. I feel my experience at Auschwitz would not have been the same without her. Our other tour guide in Krakow was also very good. All of the staff at the Auschwitz museum were very friendly and helpful, and I was glad to meet them and spend the time we did helping them in the Artifacts department. I liked having the free time we were allowed to explore and visit the Christmas markets, and felt very safe going off in pairs and small groups. The only accommodation I didn't enjoy as much was the Hotel 4 Youth in Berlin, as my room was pretty destroyed, but it was certainly livable for the amount of time we were there. I loved the meals, and was very excited to try all of the new foods we were given. Overall, I loved my trip to Poland, and cannot thank Amizade enough for providing me with this fantastic opportunity.

Would you recommend this program?
Yes, I would
Year Completed
2013