One is maybe asking himself now: “Well whatever, she’s 17 if her parents agreed then where is the problem with that?”, well let me tell you something. Before ESC became ESC, it was called EVS, which stands for European Voluntary Service. In that service it was fine if you were 17 as long as you turn 18 during the year but that is not how ESC works anymore, thus opening a discussion between the national agency and our office so that Pia could stay here because the ESC concept is brand new and somebody did not notice that Pia was actually too young. It is maybe comparable with the fight of your parents against the parents of your best friend who got you into trouble, but you both are just watching the scene because neither of you understands what happened or why it is bad. You just want to hang out more with your friend because it was actually fun and you want to repeat it some time, while your caretakers are busy with talking. That is how we just kept on doing our ESC during this time, hoping that our organization would win and that we could keep Pia in our circle because she already became precious to us in that short time.

One day later we met in the bank for opening our polish bank accounts and that was the day when we got to know Fabian. Emelyn and me entered the building and as soon as we stood in the entrance, we saw Pia sitting there together with another boy, short black hair, brown eyes and slightly beard shadow running over his jaw like a colony of ants. We instantly introduced each other, and he turned out to be Fabian, Fabian Bajen from Spain. In fact, he is from a city in which a friend of mine did her EVS, what I instantly told him and to which he reacted in a warm way, saying that it is great and asking where she lived, what I could only answer with shrugging shoulders. But then he began to get his engine started, meaning asking questions over questions, doesn’t matter how silly they were just questions.

Don’ get me wrong I had a lot of fun with our conversation and it is something different, I got to admit, to talk about the underwear you wear because you too stole it from your brother because it looked cool or just because your parents won’t buy every time new clothes for you so you have to take the leftovers from your siblings which they have grown out of( this is just a slight example of one of the things we spoke about, so you can imagine).

By now we were, what I like to call “the core”, the first people who arrived during the 01 until the 05 of September. It is amazing, that we instantly had a certain connection between each other, we started to hang out together, like, every day, met, talked and ate. One experience, I guess it was the most intense for Pia and me, was our introduction to the pierogi. Pierogi are little dough pockets of pure enjoyment, boiled in hot water, filled with any kind of delicious treats, from potatoes to spinach, strawberries to apples and cinnamon, decorated in either bacon and onions or some creamy, white condense milk. Simply pieces of heaven.

If you are coming to Poland and you are going without eating pierogi, sorry but you did not pass the class, go back and get your freaking pierogi, then you can leave. To all the people who are saying, that they are not having enough time for eating pierogi, or its always to late or too soon, which in fact it never is, thus it is already a weak excuse, let me now completely destroy your invalid statement by saying that in Krakow exists a store which offers them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so don’t give us that sentence. If you have tried them and did not like them, I am sorry for you but also want to say, that Poland’s cuisine has way more offer than just these dumplings.

If you remember the day, we went to the all you can eat breakfast with Fernando, you might remember the name “Plac Nowy”. Plac Nowy, which is literally translated into “New Place” is a small kind of market square with a round building in the center which looks kind of like the houses people build for the water birds on public lakes. A roundel with several small fast food shops, which all seem to have just one thing, the glorious Zapiekanka. This endless loop of the Zapikanka circle is only interrupted by a Belgium fries’ shop and Good Lood, which serves a decent ice cream and by the way is iconic for Krakow. Fabian nearly immediately discovered this crispy kind of pizza, served on a baguette with sheer endless toppings and flavors, for himself.

As the week went on, we thought about what to do at the weekend, giving birth to the idea of food evening. Food evening is a thing which we planned to do on usually Saturdays, were we meet in one flat and cook together something specific out one’s country. Though I got to admit, that the first food evening was neither specific for Spain, nor Germany, nor France, nor Catalonia because we did Pizza.

Text by Sebastian, a volunteer from Germany, participant of the project “reACTogether” but also support of the project “Mobility for Solidarity”

The project “reACTogether” is organised within the framework of the European Solidarity Corps and financed by European Commission.