2018

Finally, the time has come to talk about what I was actually doing in Krakow: my research project. The first few weeks of my stay were spent on improving my original research proposal. The main idea remained the same, but the experimental design has undergone a number...

Warning: don't read while hungry! 🙂 Below is just a small sample of some foods that I tried in Krakow. Whether it was a quick snack from a food truck or a fancy dish at an expensive restaurant, everything was very delicious! Honestly, I only have a few pictures...

The Wieliczka salt mine is so, so impressive, so I'm gonna start off by throwing some facts at you. With several levels underground, the mine reaches 327 meters (1073ft) below the surface at its deepest point. Its underground corridors and chambers span 300 kilometers...

I have been such a busy bee, between the work, the sight-seeing, and a visit from my Moscow friend, Nastya! Don't get me wrong, I like what I'm doing at work and I enjoyed spending every moment of my free time with an old friend, but it felt like I barely had time to...

So, you may have noticed that I did not write a whole lot about my research study yet. There are multiple reasons for that: The design went through quite a few changes in the first two weeks of my time in Zofia's lab, so I wasn't entirely sure what the finalized...

After his lecture in the morning, Thomas joined our lab for an informal meeting. It started with introductions, each person briefly describing their latest project. Thomas listened attentively, always following up with questions about the experimental design,...

Just some pictures from last weekend!    

Note: I use the terms bilingual and multilingual interchangeably throughout this post. I use them in a very broad sense referring to people who speak more than one language, acquired either by birth or later in life. Dr. Thomas Bak is a cognitive neuroscientist who is...

Krakow is full of events, and the past weekend was no exception. I was very lucky to attend not only one, but two parades! The first one was a student parade to kick off Juwenalia—an annual weekend-long students' holiday. The first ever Juwenalia was celebrated in...

There are so many churches here. Krakow is basically all churches, overwhelmingly Catholic. There are also synagogues in the Jewish Quarter, and a monastery up on a hill. Everyday I see nuns walking around the city. Cereal is sold in plastic packaging, no extra box...

It was my first Saturday in Krakow, and the weather was fabulous: sunny and warm with a light breeze. It was the perfect time for a walking tour. The guided tour I settled on was free, in English, and recommended to me by two locals and approximately a million reviews...

The Uniwersytet Jagielloński, or UJ for short, is the oldest university in Poland. Its history begins in the mid-14th century, when King Casimir III the Great decided that Poland needed its own university. He allocated funds to establish a higher learning institution...

My first day was quite short: I arrived in the early afternoon, took a long nap, unpacked, and decided to find something to eat. When I came out of my room, I saw that the halls of the building were dark and completely empty. To my surprise, the front door we came...

My journey started with three long flights, taking me through four different airports. Now, as a person well-versed in travel, I did not expect to be very amused by this process. How I was wrong! It all started in State College. The airport was so small and so cute!...