My first days in Krakow

Hi! My name is Nora Lys, I’m 21 years old and I come from Ghent, Belgium. For the last 3 years I’ve been studying psychology, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to improve my skills. My hobbies are climbing, playing the guitar, dancing and reading. I love coziness, warm summer nights and swimming.

After studying for a bit, I realised that I was eager to have some more working experience. At the same time, I wanted to become more independent and see some more of the world. For the past 20 years, I’ve been living in the same place. Everything feels so familiar and it’s like you have your own little corner of the world. This is so soothing, but I feel like exploring and integrating in another culture will teach me a lot and most importantly, will be very fun!

Even though I’ve traveled quite a bit already, I’ve never been gone for such a long time. So for me this was definitely a big step, a completely new adventure. The last days home felt like nostalgia, even though I was still there: drinking one last beer at my favourite cafe, randomly bumping into people I know, the Dutch announcements in the train…

Arriving in Krakow was exciting, it was still warm and from the train I saw the city passing by. After 24 hours of travelling, I was happy to arrive and meet my 3 fun roommates. People I will spend a lot of time with and will probably call good friends one day.

Going to buy groceries and doing the paperwork slowly made me realise that I’m not just some random tourist, but will actually be living here and call this my home. Although this can sometimes be a bit scary, I feel that Krakow is a good home. It’s a vibrant city with a lot of events, green areas and it even has the most beautiful lake to swim.

Although the winter will be icy cold, I’m looking forward to finding my routine here. The work in the school will sometimes be challenging, but I will learn so much. And I’m surrounded by a really nice group of other volunteers. So I hope I will find my way, laugh a lot, challenge myself and much more.