Eventually we managed to get to Rocio’s and Anthi’s flat all together, loaded with pizza and other snacks, because sometimes you got to enjoy life to the fullest. It is always amazing, when we meet all together, at least for me and not having that one week made me realize that I really missed those moments. Emelyn will, in faraway future, say the same to me, that is that every time we are together, she is looking around into all the faces, seeing them laughing and arguing which makes her and me too unbelievably happy.

That was exactly how it felt like being there in that moment, sharing food and laughter not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow but just living into the moment by appreciating everybody’s attendance. You know that there is the moment when of course everyone has to return to his flat but until then you try to take in as much as possible of that moment, trying to burn it into your memory.

Though to say that we did not think of tomorrow at all would be a lie because on the next way was Marias birthday. I have never been a big fan of my own birthday, always trying to get somewhere else, avoiding the awkwardness of people celebrating you. If it comes to other birthdays though, I am all on fire, trying to let them know how much they mean to me and showing them how happy you are that they were born at this date.

However, Maria did not want that we make out of her birthday such a big deal which is fine and to be respected. Though at least something had to happen, so we decided to reserve some places in one of our favorite bars if it comes to birthdays. Domowka is in the Jewish quarter Kazimierz in Krakow and because of the sheer endless amount of table games they offer for free we always enjoy spending time there, talking, playing and drinking.

Furthermore, we decided to prepare a little something for her, meaning a small book containing some personal words of each of us as well as enough space to create some more memories and put them in there later on. We did not have enough time, or we did not manage to make more time because I don’t know why, so we had to buy a small cake from Awiteks.

Awiteks is a chain bakery and fairly common in Krakow. Pia is a big lover of Awiteks so-called bread while Theo and me, as the Germans we are, can’t even consider this more than a white fluff lacking any texture or low and behold fiber. We might not be proud of much but if it comes to bread, we are not taking anybody’s shit because we know we have the best one in the world.

Anyway, we decided to get a small cake there but as everybody knows we have a quite picky eater here and asking somebody what kind of cake he wants for his kind-of-surprise party would degrade the kind-of-surprise to a no-surprise, duh.

As we met in advance to prepare her book and the cake, sticking candles into it and lighting it up, I met another volunteer who I did not know before, called Pamela.

Pamela arrived in the beginning of the week, making the time Pia and I spend away into 7 days in which we welcomed all in all 4 new volunteers!

When Maria entered the café, we all sat there, screaming our best wishes to Maria accompanied by hugs, kisses and tons of joy, climaxing in the moment she had to put out the candles.

When the like childhood smelling, grey smoke arose in the room we handed here over the book and ordered the first round of beers, teas and much more. Though I guess we must’ve been quite loud, not that anybody said anything, but we always are and especially if we celebrate something like a birthday thus accompanied by loud laughter and screams expressing how happy we are.

Speaking of birthdays and parties lets focus on an inevitable part of these. Dancing.

Text by Sebastian, a volunteer from Germany, participant of the project “reACTogether” but also the 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.