Well, my last full day in Kraków went quite well. After a while, I managed to get all of my things packed, mostly, and my dad came over to help me out with the remainders of my packing, as... well, I'll be honest, it was difficult to put everything into the one suitcase I had left. All I can say is that I am super grateful for the fact that my parents are now here to help me out. Too. Much. Stuff. xD I scanned the entire apartment to make sure I had taken everything. Good thing, too! My dad helped me move all of my stuff out, and we headed back to their apartment. There, we met up with my mom's cousin, Basia so my ciocia Basia. It was really nice to meet with more family, and she thanked me for taking the initiative to make them meet up and what not, since I'm so curious about my family. We just relaxed in the apartment and my mom and Basia caught up. It was amazing to listen in a bit on some older stories and figure out how they were family, exactly. Plus, I found out that my mom and her brother miiiiight own land in Poland! If that's the case, I might have an actual starting point now! :DDD All I can do is keep my fingers crossed, because I would absolutely adore having that opportunity I did not even know was there before.
Eventually, though, I had to head on out so that I could go through the Targi and grab some presents for friends and what not. Fortunately, once I know what I want, I get it, so it went by quickly. Then I went and met up in front of Teatr Bagatela with the waiting Monika and Piotrek. It was to meet for the farewell dinner. The others joined us once their tram arrived, and we headed to Mamma Mia. It really didn't feel like it was going to be our last dinner together. It felt like another dinner, ya know? All of us, enjoying our time together. The restaurant's service was unbelievably slow, but fortunately, the food was quite delicious! We all shared some cheese and cold cut plates, as well as foccacias for appetizers, and then I ordered a pasta with curry sauce, almonds, and pear. Yes, yes it was delicious, but again, the service was ridiculous. Fortunately, that gave us more time to spend together! We just chatted about everything and anything. Piotrek also gave us little gifts; on desk month calendars of Krakow. They were quite gorgeous, and I'm really happy I'll be able to put a calendar on my desk so easily as opposed to trying to hang it on a wall. During dinner, I handed Piotrek my key to the apartment... I think at that moment, a bit of reality hit me, but not completely. It was still quite heart-breaking... Eventually, we left, and as we split off, we all said our farewells to Piotrek. I mean, Kasia didn't, but the rest of us did; yes, some tears were shed. It really had been an amazing semester. In fact, Piotrek told us we had been his least-troublesome group ever. Hoorah! I had personally been wondering how we compared to previous groups; obviously awesome.
However! That was not the end of our night together. We headed on to E. Wedel. Of course we were going to spend our last night at the best dessert area we knew! Unfortunately, Monika and I had to wait 20 minutes in front of E. Wedel for my parents. In fact, we watched my parents' lights be turned off, and we still had to wait for a long time. Eventually they met up with us, and at that point, Nate came up to us asking for 1 zloty. We all thought he was just jokng around, but he actually needed it! Priceless, haha. We headed inside, though, and we all sat together and kept chatting about whatever. One thing I remember was talking about the difference of travel in America and Europe, and how much easier it is to do here. We all ordered; I got truskawkowe pole and a drinking chocolate with coconut mixed in. Sadly, though, I was stuffed and could not finish the drinking chocolate. Michelle had to leave early as well, so we said our farewells with her.
Once we were all finished, we paid and left for our apartment, one last time. I wanted to double check and truly make sure I grabbed everything. It's a good thing I went back, too! For two reasons. Remember how I mentioned handing over my key? Well, I was the one in charge of mail. At dinner, I had asked Nate if I should give him the key, just in case so we could check the mail on our way back. He laughed and said it was impossible that we would have mail. So I handed over the keys. Out of curiosity, as we walked back into our apartment, I glanced into our mail box... Lo-and-behold, there was a latter! Better yet? It was for me. So there we all were, standing around the mailbox, staring, trying to figure out how the heck to pull it out. Kasia kept trying to slide her hand in so that she could pull the letter out. We stared and pondered as to what we should do, all of us suggesting ideas. My mom said we needed a large knife, so Nate went upstairs and grabbed the knife. Hoorah for it worked out! Kasia managed to pull it out, and I had the biggest surprise of my time here. It was a birthday card for me, from Meggo's parents!!! While I had known to expect some sort of letter, I had not thought that Megan's parents would send me an actual birthday card; I honestly thought they were going to send something from Megan. It truly made my day. One of the sweetest cards I have gotten, and completely unexpected.
With that adventure out of the way, we headed upstairs, and I did one last final sweep of the apartment. Yes, I washed some plates, and finally, fortunately, I realized I still had not taken my aunt's radio. Yeah, that was the second wonderful reason I came back to check. That was all that had been left, though, as far as I'm concerned. I threw out some last bits of food, I left the flowers my parents gave me, as there was no purpose dragging them around with us when we already had so much to deal with. At this point, well... this was the real tough part. The actual good byes. We all gave each other hugs, and I promised all of them its highly likely we'll see each other again, because I'm crazy and travel everywhere, and if I am in their state, I will likely call them up. They all had no problem with that, which was awesome. I left my apartment, knocked on Monika's since she was over there, and we determined that hopefully, we might just see each other in Poland again! It would depend on her parents. If not, then I know we'll see each other next time I'm in Orlando, as she could easily make the trip to visit me. Besides, she's as Polish as Sam in Florida, so hoorah for more Polish community!
Through all of this, my parents waited downstairs. We returned together to their hostel, and in their hostel, well, we honestly didn't do too much. After a while, we packed things up, and I went to sleep so that we could wake up for the next morning. The next morning, we had our breakfast delivered. We got ready for the day, I headed back out to the Sukiennica with my dad to get the last of the gifts I needed; I did not have enough time nor the advice the day before to make sure I got the right presents. We went back to the hostel, I ordered a taxi, and we all checked out. We waited for our taxi, and I just looked at the snow-covered Rynek, super grateful for the fact that it had indeed snowed before my departure. You see, it had started snowing Wednesday afternoon, and there was a gorgeous layer of snow! The city looked absolutely magnificent, particularly with the targi all covered in snow. It felt truly in the season.
I honestly could not believe that was my last time to really see Krakow like that. Like a student living in the city. Like a native, who knew more or less a lot of the city. Time has truly flown by. I find it absolutely unbelievable that my second chapter has been completed. That I said good bye to these wonderful people I met and bonded with over the past three months. That I no longer will be attending courses at Jagiellonian for the semester, because I have to go back to Vanderbilt. This has been an absolutely wonderful semester, and I have absolutely no regrets. While yes, walking back we talked about all of the things we did not do, it really did not bother me. Why? Because I had indeed seen so much. I had done so much. I lived in my favorite country, and its most historical city. I met so many wonderful people and have so many memories and new connections. Why must time go by so quickly? Thinking about the last three months is absolutely overwhelming, and that does not even include my two months before that in Wroclaw! All of it is amazing. My plans to live in Poland were successfully fulfilled, and now I cannot wait until I return. Already, I am planning my hardest to come back in the summer. I have a ton of back up plans and opportunities open, thanks to this wonderful time here. I adored every moment, and I don't want to leave besides the fact that I want to see all of my dear friends back in the states. <3
But now the beginning of chapter 3 of this journey began. My parents and I arrived to the train station quite early for safety's sake, and we waited on the platform for the train. Whenever the train arrived, it unfortunately had our wagon at the opposite end. I knew that ours would be on one end or the other, but I guessed the wrong end. Therefore, I dashed after the train to get to our wagon, and my parents followed in confusion. We got to the wagon and climbed on board with our tons of baggage. One man was sitting in our cabin, but that was it. In fact, there were also only 4 newspapers sitting in the cabin, which I concluded meant that we would be the only cabin's residents for the ride. The trip flew by; in Warsaw, our fellow passenger got off the train, and the cabin was all ours. We sprawled out, moved our stuff all around the cabin, and just got comfortable. For a good part of the trip, we all napped comfortably by laying down. When awake, we played some card games together on a makeshift table from our suitcases. We talked about plans, I listened to music and wrote some overdue postcards. Truly, the time flew by, and we were all overjoyed with our situation. The express train, while yes, it was significantly more expensive, well, that upgrade was quite worth the very comfortable setting. Haha, originally I had planned on working on my family tree, but I had managed to get a lot of information from my mom the night before, plus I was working on other logistics instead.
As we drove into the station, we saw my uncle and aunt waiting for us, and we all headed to the car together, barely managing to put all of our stuff into the back. We did nothing significant for the evening besides enjoy my aunt's magnificent cooking (yummy veggie soup!) and just catch up over all. We really hadn't all been together like this since 2007, I think, particularly since my uncle is out on the ship a lot, and my parents aren't in Poland together often, either. My dad laughed that I already knew my way around their house, considering the amount of times I've been here since they built their house: more than either of my parents. Then again, went to sleep, and now, it's today, Friday, the 23rd, just a day before Wigilia, two days before Christmas day... It's... absolutely unbelievable!
My uncle's and aunt's house is wonderfully lit up from the outside. They have a menorah on the inside, that my aunt just bought because she thought it was pretty. She actually didn't recognize the fact it was a menorah, and the first thing I did when I came into their house last night was ask: Why do you hae a menorah? XD I mean, I certainly don't have an issue with it, but I was far from expecting it! They have a very pretty Christmas tree put up as well. And it's real! My aunt was going to let me finish decorating it, but she was tired of seeing it so naked, so she finished it herself. My mom laughed that she should've waited.
Basically, I love the fact that I'm with my family for the holidays, here in Poland. Tomorrow's Wigilia will be phenomenal, and I'm going to see my niece and my cousin and her husband. We'll have a huge feast all together. Heh, and if it weren't for me, then we really would't be here. What a wonderful opportunity! Yeah, today absolutely nothing significant happened. Woke up, ate breakfast, worked on post cards, ate obiad, my mom went to the hair salon (and she's still there), and that's about it. Here I am, working on this... relaxing at my family's house, determining what I should do now. I might help out in the kitchen in preparations for the humongous feast tomorrow night, or I might go draw for the first time in a long time. That's all for now, though, folks!
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