Read about Day Three here.

I spent a week completing a cultural exchange programme facilitated by the company Angloville, where I provided conversation practice to Polish adults near Bialystok.

Last night was fun! Kal, Ricardo and I found out that we all snore – Kal also grinds his teeth, so none of us slept very well at tall. Anyway, at eight-thirty, it was breakfast time.

Breakfast worked as a buffet – salad, eggs, cheese, crepes, bacon and scrambled eggs. It was very nice. On my table I was joined Elvira, Darek, Piotr and another Polish mentee – Voytek – a project manager for an American ATM company. And we got to know each other a bit more. I found out that Piotr enjoys water sports like diving and sailing while Voytek is a chess player like me. I was a fan of the breakfast especially the crepes filled with a soft cheese. Very nice.

Anyway, at nine, Ricky and I were free for an hour and a half half, while Kal and the others were doing some warm-up activities with the Polish. As Ricky is a stock-broker, I tried asking him for investment advice. He suggested that if I have a spare couple of grand lying around (which I don’t) I should invest in helium. He has done so well in stock-trading that he has been able to effectively retire and got travelling around the world. He also used to be a drummer in a rock band which supported Bon Jovi on tour. Finally, he also competed on Ninja Warrior UK.

As I had nothing else to do, I went to the room and did a small calisthentics workout. At half ten, it was presentation practice. At the end of the week, the Polish participants had to give a presentation entirely in English about a subject of their own choice. The mentees could pick any mentor they wanted and Darek chose Kat and I. Darek decided to give his presentation about the island of Maderia, where he spent a recent holiday with his wife. Kat and I helped him to think through his ideas. She spoke about her experience working in marketing and business before eventually going into teaching. And as often happens when speaking with Europeans, the conversation inevitably turned to Brexit. Joy.

Theoretically, after this, I should have had another hour of conversation practice, but as there was an uneven number of mentors and mentees, I didn’t have a partner so I had free time, which meant I took a much-needed power nap. At half twelve, I joined everybody else for the second conversation session. This time I was paired with the Pomeranian owner Elvira. Our topic was film and music. We were speaking about films that made us fall asleep or cry. For the former I said Dances with Wolves and the latter I said the Pianist. The first film is a snoozefest and the second is heart-breaking. As the film is about the Holocaust, the conversation naturally turned to the situation in Israel and Gaza. I described this as a clusterfuck. Maybe I shouldn’t have taught Elvira that word. Oops.

After we finished, I asked Voytek if he wanted to play an online chess game which he gladly accepted. We played a one-day correspondence game, which he began with the Wayward Queen Attack – very aggressive. For lunch, we had tomato and vegetable soup followed by chicken escalope potatoes and green beans. Lunch was two courses – a soup course and then a meat course. The meat courses were usually dry and bland. This escalope was no exception.

But Bridget provided some much needed spice. She regaled us with a story of how when she was working at the Paris Olympics last year, she saw Snoop Dogg being driven around in a special car. But, as part of his convoy, he had a car that contained all his weed. Every so often, you would see him switch cars for a J or two. she also showed us a photoshopped picture of her and Snoop Dogg.

Anyway, I wasn’t the only one who thought that the food was bland. Ricky asked for ketchup, while Tyler asked for some mayonnaise. The conversation turned to food and Piotr surprised us by revealing that he is a competent pizza chef.

After this, it was time for some more conversation practice. My first partner was Magda – the administrator in a DIY business. We talked about travel and airports. My next mentee was Elizabeta – a duolingo fan who owned her own fashion styling business with her husband who is a Hong Konger like me. Although she was more interested in talking in general rather than following the cards we had. I also don’t think that she was a dan of the full schedules we had. Just before dinner, we had our final debate session.

I was paired with Kat and participants Darek and Agata – a sanitation engineer. The debate was supposed to be about taking risks, but one of the questions was about whether men or women were bigger risk-takers, which evolved into a light-hearted debate about gender politics. Then it was dinner time and we had some type of pasta dish today. Afterwards, Voyek and I played a couple of games of online chess.

We ended our educational day of half eight where our final activity involved the Polish participants taking control. They taught us mentors Polish tongue twisters which we then had to read out in front of everybody. Tyler was adjudicating. Supposedly, we were playing in teams, but Tyler kept insisting on giving everybody equal points. It was like we were in bloody Communist Russia. No. We’re not all equal.

But at nine, we had finished so kat and I ran to the hot tub. We were soon joined by Theresa, Voytek, Bridget and Piotry. Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out how to turn on the lights, so we were in the hot tub in the dark. But it was still fun.

At ten, while Ricardo, Kal and some of the others were getting drunk, Theresa and I played some pool and table football. Because this ISN’T communist Russia, I won both. And that was the end of my fourth day in Poland. A day of clusterfucks, tongue twisters and hot tubs in the dark.