In May days are getting longer, there is more sun (well, at least it should be), exams are not so close yet, you can spend some time outside having a barbecue with your friends and so on… But there is one more thing, for which every student is waiting for for the whole year. It is called JUWENALIA.
At the university in Poland you always have two terms, winter (October-January) and summer (February-June). Exams are usually in the last two weeks of each term, sometimes a bit earlier. But in May it is less likely that you have a lot of them. So it is a good time to enjoy your free time with your friends.
So as you can see there are 100,000 students in one city. And Juwenalia is a very special time for them.
Juwenalia is the name for some kind of student festival. This year they started officially on 11th of May (Thursday), but some events took place even earlier.
Thursday is a bank holiday for all the students. In the morning they all gather in one place, dressed as many different characters. The only limit is your imagination! Wouldn't it be nice to become a princess, smurf, bride, elephant, Santa Claus, pirate, knight, bottle of beer, Pac-Man, UFO, jellyfish, grape, scientist, or whoever you want, just for one day? You can make your dreams come true in Poland!
You can meet Minions in Wroclaw!
The costume can be conected with your field of studies: here I'm an antibody!
Students meet with rectors of all universities and go for a parade through the city. At the end, the Mayor of Wrocław gives students the 'key to the city'. For that one weekend it's students who rule in the city!
Except the parade there are many other things going on at the universities. You can have a breakfast with the rector of your uni, what happened on Monday for University of Science and Technology (PWr fb event) and on Friday for University of Wrocław (UWr fb event) students. If you want to see how does it look like, there are plenty of photos at this website.
PWr breakfast with the rector video <- check this out!
P.I.W.O. (Potężny Indeksowany Wyświetlacz Oknowy – ang. Huge Indexed Window Display show). But piwo in Polish means… beer! But this event is much more than just having a beer with other students. For the last few years students gather in the student district of the city to watch the light show displayed on one of the student flats. Please watch this: Projekt P.I.W.O 2012 and this Projekt P.I.W.O 2014 (with laser show). This year Project P.I.W.O. will take place for 10th time!
Another event which takes place slightly before the official start of Juwenalia is a barbecue night. Students go at the river Odra (which has many rover beds in Wroclaw) and have a barbecue (pol. grill) there. All the local shops have a lot of sausages and even some single-use barbecues.
Students from some of the universities rent a ship and organise boat party for students. For this event you have to but a ticket earlier, as there is a limit of number of people. So you usually have to book your ticket really quickly.
Is it all? Of course not!
Each university has it's own stage in different place in the city. And they invite bands that play pop, rock, punk rock, reggae, rock'n'roll, hip-hop, rap, disco polo. So whatever you like, you'll find something interesting during these days.