Of course, one can’t only live of only physical nourishment, one must quench the thirst of his intellect too, only to be achieved by visiting a museum.

Well I’m not going to lie, we just went in there because it was free and we didn’t know what to do on that Sunday, so we decided, as the intellectuals we are, to visit the Matejko house in Krakow.

I have to admit, that I don’t know anything about him and still don’t know much (but we are here in Poland so we will learn more about him). It was quite amusing being in this old house, looking at the rebuild rooms and learning more about how he lived.

Though the most fascinating thing in this house, at least it appeared to me like that, were the plants, which immediately had to be checked out by Pia and me to convince us if they are real or not. I don’t know if those plants were the most exclusive thing in this museum, but the security woman seemed to think so, whistling through the whole room, warning us, that we are not allowed to touch them.

It was really weird, because I still would like to know if those plants are real or not, but she was so quick in getting us off the plants, I can’t remember any more if they were fake or real. We left the house quite fast though. I don’t understand why, usually I find it somewhat interesting to be in someone else’s house. You can learn a lot about people the way they place their furniture, what kind of blankets they use or how the flat is decorated. One gains a quick glance into the mind of the person one is visiting, which makes it so special and thrilling to visit those other’s houses, thus it helps you to maybe get a detailed picture of somebody who died long ago, like Matejko.

We decided to leave Matejko alone and to see more of the city center and went up to the Wawel castle, enjoying the warm sun brushing over our skin, well knowing that it is already September and that we soon have to introduce ourselves to the scarfs and sweaters, which were just waiting for us. On our way around this humongous complex we saw him. A human sized, dark green colored dragon, walking through the crowds of visitors, until he stopped in front of us, just to be examined, touched and in the end photographed. Sometimes you have to enjoy the moment to capture it’s real beauty in the head and heart instead of your apple iCloud, but this time we had to show the world afterwards, that we befriended with a real dragon and also the codex of the tourists had to be followed.

First article, paragraph two is saying: “Take a picture of absolutely everything, embarrass yourself in front of everybody and buy a souvenir”, though we are not such strict followers of this codex, sometimes it feels good to do the right thing as tourist. May it be to jump through the soap bubbles, which suddenly started to float around us, only to dissolve within heartbeats, as soon as we touched them or by filling your belly with tons of pierogi. It is not bad to do touristic things when you are a tourist, that is why you are one in fact, to do them, but soon we realized, we are not tourists, we are volunteers who will stay here for the next ten months, sharing flats, food and experiences, watching sunsets and telling stories. Laughing and crying together, discuss and exchange opinions. So much is happening and that only within a few days.

You start to ask yourself how this could happen, and you realize that it is easier to be the one who you truly are with people who don’t know you. They don’t know the you before, they don’t know the old you and they can’t be disappointed about your “changes”, they won’t say, that they can’t recognize you or that they don’t like your new friends, because they don’t know you at all and somehow this feeling gives you the bravery to break free of those restrictions which keep you locked in your old self helping to create something longer lasting than those soap bubbles floating in the air. Welcome abroad, welcome somewhere else, welcome into a whole new world, with the real you, not the new you, but the real one. Welcome to Poland.

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.