Off we go!

As you all know, this is the first blog post that I will be making on this topic, so I figured it would be easiest to just give people the background information on Poland. I chose Poland partly because this is a country that I know quite a bit about. I grew up there for the first 8 years of my life and still visit about two times a year. It's a country that I have grown accustomed to, and even though I know a lot about its' culture and politics, there are always new things to learn and that's what my intentions were when picking Poland as my country of interest for this project.
Also, the picture at the top of the blog is from the Polish Tatry mountains in Zakopane. More information on this city can be found here. This is a place that I have visited before and highly recommend to anyone that's nearby.


As for Poland, it is a beautiful country that is occupied by 38 million Poles. The major religion is catholic and the capital is Warsaw. Poland is a member of the European Union since 2004, and is a democratic country on the Eastern bloc of Europe. The current President is Bronislaw Komorowski who has been chosen over this past summer after the tragic death of former President Lech Kaczynski. The crash which many of you may have heard about has not been left alone without any controversy. To read a little more about the crash and the details of what actually happened, you can check out this New York Times article.

Poland's currency however has remained the "Zloty" but there are few speculations that it may change to the Euro in the future. As for now, Poland's economy isn't the strongest one among most countries, and the change to the Euro would prove to be very difficult on its' people since the GNI per capita for a Polish person is roughly $13,000. For more background information you can go to the BBC website which outlines a full Poland profile.

Check back next week to find out more about what is currently going on and what the major news of the week are. While waiting for the next blog posts there are some major Polish news on the widget that's on my blog. Enjoy!

Dave Szymanski