How long will it take me to learn Polish?
Polish is a slavic language - which means that some aspects of its grammar are not at all what westerners are used to (aspectual verbs are like nothing in any Romance or Germanic family language). Some people find the strangeness of Polish an impossible barrier, but others find it interesting and hardly a problem at all. You won't know which sort you are until you have tried. It is always worth trying at least one exotic language (Polish, Turkish, Hungarian, Welsh, Itsekiri, Thai) - you really don't understand language until you have seen at least one curveball. Having a girlfriend will help enormously. You should be able to get a basic tourist grasp of the language in less than a year (you will be amazed at how much this helps if ever you visit Poland). Two or three years should be enough for basic conversations and short newspaper articles (this is all you really need to get a deep feel for the country and its people). If you can stay with the language for five years or more, you will probably be able to read poems and short stories; have quite complex conversations; get your news from Polish original sources - in fact, by then, you will be hooked. ..... My daughter learned enough Polish to be able to live and work in Warsaw in a little under five years. She already had basic tourist Czech before she started (which helps a little), but now she adores the language.
What is it like to return home after living/traveling abroad?
What it's like depends on your experience abroad and how you feel about coming home. My wife and I have been nomads for the last three years and have no intention of stopping. We came "home" to Canada (her home) for four months to house sit and the US (my home country) after that for three months. We left for Mexico as soon as we could. We didn't come back because we wanted to, we came back because we had to. My wife's parents had been watching our dogs for two years while we traveled through Asia, and they wanted to travel themselves so they told us to come home and get the dogs. Fair enough. So, what was it like to come home? Discord, in short. By the time we made it back to Canada we'd been living out of backpacks for two years. We owned a car, some books and not a lot else. Our lives had shifted in a way that's hard to describe, suffice it to say we were different people. Our friends were having babies and doubling down on mortgages. Radically different goals and values meant that we felt like outsiders in our former home countries. We valued experiences over things, freedom over monetary gains and exciting cultural experiences over familiarity. We felt like we didn't belong any more and we didn't want to either. So we picked up our dogs, packed up our car and left for Mexico because we just didn't want what the US and Canada offered in terms of lifestyle. Long story short, we felt like square pegs in round holes so we left... again. Mexico has been fine, but in all honesty, we left our hearts in Asia. Not a day goes by that I don't think of somewhere in Asia we spent time, or some great meal we ate, or epic motorcycle ride we took, or friendly person we met in a temple or market. While we have our dogs we're stuck on this side of the pond, but as soon as we can, we'll be headed back to Asia.