Cracow - city that I once hated

     Since Cracow was never that far from my hometown, i visited it quite often. Many of my school trips were all about Cracow simply because there's so much to do and see. A city like Cracow doesn't happen very often. There is a long story behind this place, a long story that explains why it is the way it is. Before Warsaw became the capital city in my country, Cracow played its role. What's more during the World Wars, the city was the only one that never got destroyed by the foreign armies because germans wanted to keep this place as their capital city. It was special and still is, for its old architecture. Cracow takes you back to those old times where everything was decorative, from the door to the rooftops. It has its charm from the day it was built but there is one huge disadvantage of it all. Cracow was never destroyed, never rebuild and its functioning is done in a very outdated manner. The air pollution is something you will not be able to avoid no matter how hard you try and what's worse, there is no way to make Cracow a more healthy place to be at. We would have to destroy the city completely and built it from the beginning to the end in a new way, having in mind some new solutions.

   

     Anyways, the reason I hated Cracow so much some time ago is just because I am very stubborn and I love to do the opposite to what everybody else does. I was this way when I was a bit younger but I've changed over the years with and I see Cracow's beauty in a way I never did before. Luckily I happened to be in Cracow like a week ago for a special reason.

    Since I turned like 13 I have been exchanging letters with people all around the world. It started in my primary school in the last courses when my English teacher let her pupils exchange letters with some foreign schools she's been cooperating with. I got so into that even when I lost touch with some of my good penpals I started looking for the new ones on my own. 21st century technology helped me a lot in this process of searching for the internet friendships. I switched from letters to emails and messages, then whatsapp and Skype and now first long distance friendship meetings.

    When I first started this adventure I didn't think about it much but I was definitely anxious about meeting in real life friends that I met online, because obviously reality tends to be a bit different than we imagine it to be while getting to know somebody just through a screen of your computer or phone or a piece of paper. I tried to get through that stage of preoccupation and in some strange manner it all actually helped me believe more in myself and just be who I am without wandering if people like me or not. Fortunately or not, I got to a point where I realized to very important things:

1. I want to meet all of my internet friends.
2. I no longer want to make internet friends.

    The second point is clearly connected with the fact that unfortunately those long distance friendships are hard to maintain and knowing somebody on a paper, doesn't mean you really know them. Not being able to see how somebody behaves in their everyday life, how they react in different situations. It's kinda like having two identities but the problem is that both are real, we just have the possibility to unconsciously select sides of us that we want and don't want to show. It happens all so naturally and there is nothing really wrong about it but I wonder not if maybe I should show first all the bad qualities of mine and how sometimes I get irritated or I argue with my sisters and am stubborn to the top of the possibilities.

    Leon. I got to know him like a year and a half ago when I was on the north of Spain on my almost ending Erasmus students exchange and he was doing his internship in the other end of the country. We met online i think in May of 2017 and at first I thought he was spanish. I wanted very badly to practice this beautiful language and so I chose internet to help me out with it. Quickly it came out Leon was not spanish but slovenian. Back then I didn't know much about Slovenia, just where it was located and more or less it's climat. Soon after getting to know Leon, I realized my knowledge about his country was poor and not exactly correct. What's more it turned that Poland and Slovenia have actually a lot in common and our languages very often sound identically. When we met this year in Cracow, while having some delicious ice creams in a place called Lody Rinella that i highly recommend,we were playing a game where one was saying something in their native language and the other was supposed to guess what it means. We had so much fun but we were shocked how similar everything sounded in both languages. We were able to understand more or less every word. 

    Me and Leon, we never actually planned to meet up but thanks to Leon's sister who was making her Erasmus students exchange in Poland, she encouraged him to come here for three weeks and visit all the cities that are the most important in my country: Gdańsk, Sopot, Toruń, Poznań, Łódź, Wrocław and Cracow, which was his last stop, and meet up with me. 

    I think we both weren't really anxious about the meeting but i got a bit stressed when i got to Cracow and we couldn't find each other for like twenty minutes. Many guys i passed by during this time, looked like Leon but none of them was him for real. It was funny but at the same time it made me a bit worried. Fortunately you already know that there was nothing to worry about because we finally found each other and had a great time. Before we met, very often we had video conversations and so we both new we were real ;P

    We didn't do much in the day we met but we had great long conversations and walks all around Cracow and i didn't expect it to be as good as it was. We had a fantastic time sightseeing Cracow and getting to know each other better. I hope all my first meetings with my online friends will be like this one. 

    If you can tell me a story of yours or ask me some questions down below in the comments and i will try to ask them in the best way i can and hopefully help you.

Xoxo,

Anett Cristy Joane