Why did she travel 4,310 miles, leaving her friends and family behind, to a place where she knew literally no one?

“I wanted to learn,” said Ada Popiszyl ’12.

Popiszyl, who hails from Lublin, Poland, is spending the next eight months in Westport as a member of the Rotary Club’s student exchange program. She had heard about the program at school last year, and decided to take advantage of this “amazing opportunity.”

Popiszyl will return to Poland next fall instead of going straight to college. She will be repeating her senior year in Poland, but she says that her experience so far has led her to “seriously” consider coming back to America for college.

Lublin is close to the Ukranian border and houses more than 400,000 people, which is quite different than Westport’s 25,000.

Popiszyl says that her first impression of Westport was that it was “like desperate housewives.”             Still, she enjoys living in this “very calm suburb.”

“Everyone’s more friendly here,” said Popiszyl. “People make you feel nice.”

Adjusting to the American schooling culture has been a bit of a challenge for Popiszyl, who, although she speaks English, the “language” of Westporters is “so different.” She says people here speak it so quickly, it is often difficult to understand what they are saying.

“I had to study less for my classes in Poland,” said Popiszyl. She says her favorite class at Staples is culinary.

Popiszyl’s school back in Lublin was much smaller than Staples, with only one hundred students. Popiszyl says she was “overwhelmed” the first day, but that adjusting to Staples’ size is “getting better.”

“You begin to see some familiar faces in the hall, so that helps,” she said.

Ewa Stryjecka, one of Popiszyl’s friends from Lublin, says that the six hour time difference has proven to be quite difficult in terms of keeping in touch.

“We talk a few times a week mostly using Facebook chat but it’s not the same as having Ada almost every day. We miss her a lot,” says Stryjecka.

There are other, more minute differences between America and Poland that Popiszyl has picked up on.

“People in Poland hug and kiss a lot more,” she said, attributing it to the fact that it is an “Eastern European culture.”

She also has noticed that Staples students’ choice of attire is quite different than that of Polish students. She says that Staples students “don’t pay attention to what they wear” as much, citing the popularity of sweatpants amongst Stapelites as a prime example.

Popiszyl says that the school spirit of Staples is fascinating to her. “We don’t have cheerleaders in Poland.”

Popiszyl also says people have asked her “the most ridiculous questions” since she has gotten here.

“Everyone asks as if I know any Polish swear words,” she said with a laugh.

“Someone once asked me if we ate sandwiches. It’s as if we lived on the moon!”

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