Have you ever felt like home in a totally random place or too far from your family? That’s how Warsaw feels like to me. I don’t remember exact moment when I started feeling like that, maybe the first time when I didn’t need to use google maps to get to home anymore. Or maybe, when I went to Georgia to visit my family and I couldn’t wait to come back to Warsaw? I don’t know, but I know for sure how fast the night changes. It’s like I slept and dreamed all this time, now I’ve woken up and I’ve to go home. I’m leaving Warsaw in few hours and it hurts so much… Other volunteers were counting down their days to go home, to see their family and friends, but me… I feel so empty, like I’m leaving my soul in Warsaw. I was happy here. Free and Happy like never. The night changed really fast but it will never change our memories that we build together. (If you don’t know what I mean, listen to the song haha)
I found my people in Warsaw. The very first night I arrived to Warsaw, I met Liz. She was already in flat, walking around, choosing bedroom for us, cause we already knew that we would be living together in one room. I don’t think I will ever forget that tiny girl with curly hair and big smile on her face when she opened the door for me. We started making jokes and laughing very first moment, we checked the whole flat and chose our bedroom. We both remember our first dinner in the flat, it was so disgusting, but we were starving after long travel. There was nothing in the flat but we didn’t know anything about it, also everything was closed around and we couldn’t buy or order online, so we had to manage something with only pasta, oil and salt that we found in cupboard… It wasn’t our best dish of life, but we still remember it in a funny way.
After that night we spent lots of time together. We went to clubs and bars, also museums haha. We spent lots of nights talking and gossiping in our beds at 2am, watching Game of Thrones on the big sofa of Goclaw and crying on my bed, wiping each other’s tears with toilet paper and then laughing hard about our emotional breakdowns. She was a sister that I always wanted to have and the one that I will never forget.
My other personal sunshine – Dennis arrived the next day of my arrival. Our first meet was funny and weird, cause I didn’t know that he was super friendly and childish. I had to pick him up from taxi, so when he saw me, he started running to me with big luggage bags and hugged me. I knew at that moment , that he would be my person and he never disappointed me. He has always been there listening to my problems and killing our emotions, tears in a glass of wine/beer on the balcony. We were there for each other exactly when we needed.
And Kate, who left too soon and I feel like we didn’t spend enough time together, but what we spent, I’m gonna remember with happiness all my life. The last month of kate’s stay in Warsaw the four of us spent lots of time together, we discovered new places, hidden bars in old town and night walks talking about out lives. We found out interesting things about each others and felt connected.
I’m gonna remember every Cubano nights and expensive drinks in some fancy bars, even when we didn’t have money for it. Counting every groszys on the last days of month,taking the long walks in city, missing the buses all the time, getting lost at random places and eatting our lunch on the carpet of entrance room while talking about our future and changes in life.
It’s my last day of the project. I’m writing this blog and I feel my tears running on my face, cause my flight to Georgia is in few hours and I have the feeling, that 1 year in Warsaw wasn’t enough. The places that I visited wasn’t enough. The food that I tried wasn’t enough. Buses that I took in Warsaw or the trains to Modlin airport weren’t enough. My time here wasn’t enough at all.
But I realise that I’m so lucky to have something and someone that makes goodbye so hard.
And I promise, I will do everything I can, just to see this people again , to come back and breathe warsaw air again, to complain about cold weather and to run after buses that I will miss again.
This isn’t the end. This can’t be an end!
Until then I will warm my heart with our memories and keep hoping for good.
Au revoir!