It’s end of an era now. My journey in Krakow came to an end. Let’s see how it was…

Coming to Poland and living here was not in my bucket list. It was just an option that I preferred to give a shot. I liked the idea of my project -which is running language classes in a library- and came here. Turned out I was right and I really enjoyed the project.

Running language classes was more challenging than I thought it would be. It was first time in my life taking that much responsibility in a class – as the one who teaches and leads. It also has some challenges because of the age range in classes. I’m really happy to have worked with seniors because I feel a progress in my relation with seniors. I was really focused on teaching in the beginning but after a while I changed my attitude on that. As an intern doctor, I know that getting socialised is really important for seniors and I let them chat more with each other and that changed the atmosphere in the classes in a really nice way.

Poland was a really new country with a new culture, a new language, different foods and -most importantly- different social relations. My adaptation period was really okay because I was mentally ready to come here and I knew what to expected. These whole new things was a chance for me to discover and learn more about world. I didn’t love the language 🙂 but I tried to learn a bit. I liked the daily life here and I also liked the social borders between each other. This is the opposite of what I have in my country, so it was weird in the beginning; but after a while, I just started to enjoy this distance because it was resting for me.

I had lots of time with myself in this 8 months and it was also nice to realise a couple of things that’s important for me. These are the things I keep for myself but I’m also grateful for them, too.

Along the project and my time in Poland, I had chance to travel a lot and this was amazing. I went to lots of nice place and travelled solo for most of the time. I’ve been in Budapest, Amsterdam, Cologne, Brussel, Warsaw, Prag, Wien, Torun, Gdansk, Berlin, Rome, Barcelona and Cagliari. It was amazing to have that chance to travel and I also loved travelling solo.

In Krakow, I took advantage of city’s potential in telling about Poland’s soul. I’m really happy with being in Krakow for the project because the city is full of history. I went to the museums as much as I could and loved them. I also made some local and foreign friends here. The worst part of saying goodbye to the project is saying goodbye to my friends now. It’s also really tough to leave every corner of the city behind. Every corner that I got lost in the beginning.

Even years and years later, I’ll remember my time in Krakow with tears in my eyes. Lots of love!

Article by  Kevser,

European Solidarity Corps volunteer.

Farewell by European Solidarity Corps volunteer from 06/07/2025.