Łódź

Łódź (Lodz)

The city is located exactly in the center of Poland, full of beauty and diverse cultures. Out of the country, sometimes better known as Lodz (due to the very original and quite difficult Polish pronunciation of "Łódź" - you can hear it here: Wikipedia). It combines the unique historical and cultural inheritance with the energy and fresh minds of young generations.

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Climate

The weather - typical for Poland. Four different seasons, each one lasts about 3 months. In winter the temperature usually oscillate between 0 and -10 degrees, while during the summer it's between 25 and 30 degrees. Rains are quite frequent during all the year. It's important to prepare some warm clothes and something rainproof.

How to get to Łódź

In Łódź there is an airport "Lublinek", located about 6 km southwest of the center of the city, in general most of connections are with the north of Europe. From the airport you can easily reach the city center taking bus 55 (leaves about every half hour). There are also buses that go to the train stations: the '65' to Łódź-Kaliska and the 'L' to Łódź-Fabryczna (which is also the intercity bus station).

Other airports near Łódź are located in Warsaw, Wrocław, Poznań and Kraków. From Warsaw the easiest way to reach Łódź is by train - they leave Warsaw quite often and travel last 1, 5 hour.

In case of other cities you can choose the train or bus to get to Łódź (it takes about 4-5 hours).

Useful links (in brackets the company's initials in Polish):

• Trains schedule (PKP/PKL): Trains
• Intercity buses schedule (PKS) [website in Polish]: Intercity buses
• Schedule of the bus line 55 in the airport bus stop: Bus 55

University

There are a lot of public and private universities in Łódź, among which University of Łódź and Technical University of Łódź are the biggest. The faculty buildings of Unversity of Łódź are scattered throughout the city. In case of the Technical University of Łódź almost all the faculties are located in two campuses close to the center of the city, but almost all exchange students study at IFE, the faculty where all the classes are in English (or another language) - in most faculties subjects are in Polish, though each professor can speak English.

Useful links:

• University of Łódź [in Polish] and [in English] International Students Office
• Technical University of Łódź [in Polish] and IFE

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Accommodation

Both University of Łódź and Technical University of Łódź offer their students (also exchange students) accommodation in the students campus in the dormitories close to university. Also these dormitories are like the center of cultural and party life of students.

Usually exchange students are automatically placed in one of the dormitories. If you don't have any information about where you are going to live or if you have other questions, you should write to the International Students Office.

Useful links:

• University of Łódź: dormitories information and contact [in English]
• Technical University of Łódź: dormitories information and contact [in Polish]

Public transport

Communication in Łódź is based on the buses and trams networks. Tickets are quite cheap and you use the same type of tickets in bus and tram. To valid the ticket you must put it to the machine in bus/tram. The type of ticket you need depends on your travel time: 10-minutes, half hour, 1 hour, 2 hours, 24-hours and also some special offers (such as the weekend or the family ticket). If you need to change the bus line (or bus to tram) during the travel you don't have to buy another ticket if the time of the first one is still valid. Of course there are monthly and semester tickets for students. You can buy one to travel only with one route or one to travel with every line during the month/semester. This kind of long-term ticket must be (with student ID) with you during the travel and you must show it to the control when they request it.

The simple tickets you can buy in every newsagents and other shops, also sometimes from the bus/tram driver. The long-term tickets you can buy in the MPK offices (adresses on the website) and in the almost every last bus/tram station.

The night bus communication is pretty good. There are seven lines that meet every half hour in the same place in city center and more or less can get you to every part of Łódź. The tickets are the same that for the day buses.

Useful links:

• MPK website: timetables and other information about trams and buses in Łódź

The cuisine

Normally in the university campus you can find the canteens where you can purchase some cheap plates during lunch hours. Among students more popular are little bars with chinese food that are really cheap. In the city center there are some noticeable restaurants with Polish food and cousines from other countries. Personally, I like for example:

• WOOK: good atmosphere restaurant with Chinese food (in the city center, Silver Screen center).
• Pierrogeria: where you can try different types of tradicional polish plate - pierogi (Manufaktura).
• Green Way: vegetarian food - original and tasty dishes.

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Everyday life, shopping

The everyday life in Łódź starts about 7am when the streets fill up with people going to work/school and... with traffic jams. Normally the work day ends at 4-5pm.

Shops are generally open all day between 9am and 9pm. In Łódź there are many hipermarkets like Tesco, Real - some of them are open all the week, 24-hours per day. Also there are many supermarket networks that offer products at very low prices (Biedronka, Lidl).

Parties

The normal (and the most crazy) student party starts in the student dormitory where you can find people from different faculties, cities and even countries (most of exchange students are located there). Also there are good parties in the students clubs close to the dormitories.

Close to Technical University:

• Indeks - pub, karaoke on Thursday, football matches in TV (Champions League, World Cup, etc. )
• Cotton - pub, matches in TV, karaoke, pool
• Futurysta - disco, the most popular among the erasmus students of the Technical University
• Underground - disco, pool

There are of course a lot of good clubs in the center of the city:

• Łódź-Kaliska
• Elektrownia
• Heaven
• Dekompresja
• Lizard King
• Czekolada

and some with more peaceful atmosphere:

• Zapiecek
• Jazzga

Of course you cannot miss the biggest student party of the year - Juwenalia. It's normally organized in the second part of May as a holiday of all the students of Łódź. It lasts about 2 weeks, the first one organized by the University of Łódź and the second one by the Technical University of Łódź. It begins with a great parade of students along the Piotrkowska Street, the presidents of Students Delegations of each university receive from the city President the key to the city - symbol of students that they take the power over Łódź during next days. Students organize the big football match between University and Technical University, and a lot of other sport and fun activities and parties of course. Each week ends with the concerts on Friday and Saturday. Each year students choose the topic of Juwenalia, prepare decorations for dormitories, dress up and prepare short performances for the rector, deans and other students that take part in the parade through all residences.

Really - if you are in May in Łódź you cannot miss this crazy party.

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Other activities

In Łódź there is a students organization ESN-EYE that works very well, is formed by Technical University students and organizes a lot of activities for the exchange students such as visits to the most interesting places in Łódź, trips to other cities in Poland, traditional holidays celebrations and other really funny events.

You can find out about all this events and other things that happen in Łódź in their website: ESN-EYE

Łódź is the city of different cultures and festivals. On the Piotrkowska street and Manufaktura there are a lot of thematic festival and exhibitions. And some parades that pass through the city center during some bigger holidays.

This big city has a really great history and cultural heritage. You can also find close to the city the Łagiewniki forest where you can enjoy the nature, walk and relax from the city noise during the weekends and free time.

P. S. : I will try to complete this text step by step with some news and stuff I forgot to mention :) Hope I'll help someone in some way...