GRAZIE

Here we are again, for the last time! Does anybody else need a tissue?

It has arrived… the last day of my classes, my last lesson in my last week in Krakow.

I have never been good at expressing my feelings and now I have no idea how to express these emotions. How do I describe the joy, sadness, and gratitude I feel at this moment?

This month has been so full that I didn’t have the time to stop for a second and realize… that I am leaving.

This month was full of wonderful experiences, like some flowers given to me during Women’s Day by one of my students, visiting some museums with friends, and some “awful” hiking (I am a domestic animal, I am not built for exercise) that nevertheless culminated in a wonderful landscape 🙂.

These experiences will stay with me, in my memories and my heart, and since this is not enough for me, my friends and I decided to have a more carved memory.

Yes, baby, we did it! A tattoo!! Crazy, I know!!

My flatmates and I decided to have a memento on our bodies. After debating until the day before the appointment, we finally decided what to do, and after we checked multiple times the meaning of this word, we did it!

Drum roll, please 🥁🥁🥁 “Połączenia”.

“Connections” is the best word to describe this experience for me.

“Connections” with my flatmates who became more than friends in these months, and the thought that I would not be able to live with them anymore, to talk to them about life, work, love, and even the most insignificant things in that kitchen table that more than anything has become as a lighthouse for us – it fills me with a sadness that is hard to describe; “I will miss them” is not even close to describing what I feel. Words sometimes are simply not enough.

“Connections” with this city: Krakow has been a dream, much more than what I was expecting, and the more I get to know about this city the harder it is to let go.

The architecture, the museums full of arts, the history, the markets, the walks along the Vistula, the park near my house, the smell of coffee in the beautiful cafeterias, the snow, the library.

I left some fragments of me in all these places, and all these places have left fragments of them in me.

“Connections” with my students: meeting for a few hours a week with all these amazing people so passionate about learning Italian and my culture, and available to spend some of their time with me, makes me grateful. I hope I was able to express the happiness that this experience has given to me also thanks to them.

“Connections” with the library staff: they have always been ready to help me, always so cheerful and prepared to make me feel welcomed; work in this library has been one of the best gifts of this project.

“Connections” with all the Polish people whom I met during my stay, from the people in my organization. They were my very first taste of Polish culture, and they did an amazing job (too good; now it is hard to say goodbye) and all the other people that I met along the way.

“Connections” with all the other amazing people that I met in Poland (that are not Polish hahaha), from the Italians that I met in the Italian meeting, the other volunteers from all over the world staying here in Poland, the Polish teacher (to whom I am sorry that I didn’t always give my best), the people in the workshops to which my friend dragged me (thanks Clara), and all the other unexpected encounters that made these six months some of the best in my life.

This experience changed me and I hope, in a way, that I’ve also left my mark in Krakow, and… as I said, this is not a goodbye, just a

SEE YOU SOON 🥰