The city of Kraków is located in southern Poland with rolling land all around the city. The other parts of the country are easily accessible by train or bus. The city itself is relatively big with a lot of villages surrounding it.

Kraków is a former historical capital city with beautiful, well preserved buildings. There are many places worth visiting. You can enjoy lovely architecture of the Old Town with Wawel castle and Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, cilmb one of Kraków mound with great views or swim in a newly opend quarry in Zakrzówek. You can also find hidden jewells such as Arcade Museum or kayaking on Vistula river.

You can visit other cities like Katowice or Wroclaw and compare the difference between Kraków and them. I personally recomend to visit Ojcowski National Park with beautiful nature. There is also marvelous Wieliczka salt mine. If you love adrenalin and wnat to have fun with friends, then Energylandia is a place for you.

My employer was AGH University of Science and Technology and I enjoyed working there. The whole university is in one big campus near the city center. It has average size and it is evalueted as the second best university in Poland.

The work corresponed with the o-form. We did chemical and biological research of wastewater in laboratory with methods like titration, measuring of respiraton and spectroscopy. One day there was even a fieldwork in form of collecting reed plants. It was very interesting for me as I will write my bachelor thesis in similar field of biotechnology and the work gave me a possibility to compare it and learn something new.

I was paid 1485 PLN per month, but it was not enough. It could be enough just for accommodation and basic food (survival), but if you want to fully experience the city, explore other parts of the country and have fun with friends, it is definitely not enough. Poland is cheap, but not that cheap.

In general, English was enough almost everywhere. In work everyone spoke at least some level of English. In the public places depended on the place. Usually, the older generation was not able to speak English. But if you had some problems in Polish language, the local committee would immediately help you. For me personally as a Slovak guy the language barrier was not that significant.

The price of accommodation was 550 PLN. It was arranged by local committee and I was staying at the dormitory. However, I could not stay at AGH University dormitory because of orders from the city of Kraków due to the sport games. I had to stay at Cracow University of Technology dormitory that was unpleasant and uncomfortable. The stay was survivable just for 4 weeks. This was not the fault of local committee, though. Just a misfortune.
All interns lived in this dormitory of Cracow University of Technology.

IAESTE members picked up every student that arrived for the internship. I was picked up at the bus station and recieved a welcome pack with useful things (SIM card, bottle, beer opener...). Also, it was possible to rent a cutlery, pot and ethernet cable and later I was guided to the dormitory. Very helpful people.
IAESTE also organized a lot of events such as International and Polish evening, trips to the mountains, old mines and museums. There were many options how to spend a day and we could always arrange some changes for the plans.
We did trips by ourselves, too. It was usually in the city where we did not need direct help from the locals.

I met my co-workers during my first day at work and we spent a majority of time together. I met the other interns during first two week on events organized by IAESTE. After that we hung out a lot because we lived at the same dormitory.

There were a lot of possibilities for sport. I just did not have time for everything. The AGH University has a great swimming pool I visited. Also, we went kayaking on Vistula river with other interns. In general, Kraków is a very good city for biking with a lot of bike lanes.
You can see many street artists on the streets and mainly on the main square. There are museums of modern art, local history and many more. My favourite was museum with the painting of Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci. And we went to see Barbenheimer because it was a must and we had a cinema nearby.

Local cuisine was not a big surprise for me. A lot of dishes were very similar to those im my home country. I just enjoyed the little differences. For example, we make kompot because of the fruits and the Poles because they like the sweet water. Or there were a lot of dishes with beetroot. I liked very much the Polish national dish, pierogi (except the pierogi ruskie, those were always tasteless). Also, the local specialty, obwarzanek, was just a bread and was too dry for me. But I my two favourite things about food were: cheap prices and a lot of vegetables, that accompanied the main dish.

We used Whatsapp on daily basis. Sometimes we also used Instagram or email.

Enjoy your stay as much as possible. Make plans for every day and visit everything you can. Do not be afraid to spend money, it is worth it and it is often cheap. Ask about some hidden gems and places, that are popular among locals. Visit the Kraków mounds. Go play the arcade games. Swim in Zakrzówek. And every Wednesday, there is cheap beer in Hala Forum (I recomend black Litovel). Also, ask locals for Monte, they will know.

Umbrella and sun cream because the weather is unpredictable. Clothes for both hot and cold. Proper wallet for small coins in case you use cash. Your own bottle, tap water is good everywhere and you can just refill it, so you do not need to buy it.

I met a lot of foreigners and made a great friendships. They will show you their way of life and you can learn a lot from them. You can enjoy other countries and experience local cuisine. In work, you can learn new ways of aproaching the problem and you will find out if this is what you want to do in you future. You will better you English skills. Also, you can try to learn local language.

It was great. IAESTE would always help me with any problems. They were ready with everything.