I still have an impression that it was a dream. I still can’t accept that it was reality. What am I talking about? About our trip to Romania. About making a bond between countries. About the situation that somewhere you can feel better than at home. Especially if you are talking about the people and ambience.

But wait a minute. I have to start from the beginning. If you know nothing about the project called Socartes Comenius I won’t explain what it is. It’s too difficult. It seems at first glance that these are just long, boring meetings for people who love English lessons. WRONG! It’s definitely a wrong definition! I learned that the hard way.

It’s 20th of November. It’s too early to think, it’s too early to have breakfast, too early for anything! Normally, I would sleep till the noon, but now it’s impossible. I have to waaaaaake up… I’m sorry for this long yawning. I have to go back in time. I wake up fifteen minutes too late. I wash myself; bring my suitcase down the stairs. I forget to take my toothbrush. Again I’m down the stairs and I eat breakfast. Next I get into the car. At the last moment I recall that I forgot my pajamas. Okey, I say goodbye to my house, to my brother, to my animals and I can go for a very long journey. At the airport I meet my teachers and this time they are taking care of our small group: Mrs. Katarzyna Wiączek and Mrs. Joanna Omachel. You have no idea how strange can the meeting with teacher somewhere else than school be especially on Sunday. One moment later I meet Agata and then we are all together and ready for everything.

Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. There were also two teachers from Wodzisław Śląski, our partner school, and with them there were two students Agnieszka and Łukasz. They are in the last grade of Junior High School. They were a bit shy so we did not talk a lot. Me and Agata, we didn’t know what we should expect. Nobody knew. Of course there were some general ideas but no details. It was supposed to be our first time in Romania, for Agata first time outside our native country. In my mind I was in the place of destination already but before the target we had to have a very long trip. First, check in and then almost one and a half hour of shopping (duty-free) at the airport. This time has passed very quickly and before the blink of an eye we were on board of the plane. We ate some sandwiches and salty biscuits. We watched the clouds outside the window and soon we left our Tatry Mountains behind our back. I felt some kind of unspoken feeling of freedom. Snowy peaks of the mountains were like the guardians of our beautiful Poland. Hmmm. Wonderful view, what more can I say than that? There weren’t any problems when we landed in Bucharest. I can’t say that capital of Romania charmed me with some amazing views or great beauty because it was very similar to Warsaw. But with time you start to notice details which in fact are adding to the whole beauty of the city. Mrs.Wiączek with Pascal’s guide in one hand and camera in the other was our guide. The most important points of our minitrip were: Parlament building (one size smaller than a Pentagon in the USA), the copy of (Champs Elysees) and (The Arch of Triumph), but we’ve seen that only from the distance, orthodox church named by Saint Anthony (like everything prettier, hidden in a shade of blocks of flats), a restaurant Sheriff’s (the most popular in the city, something like Pizza Hut). We’ve seen (but also from a distance) a National Theatre. And now some explanations :Nicolae Ceausescu- ‘clever and wise’ dictator called ‘The Sun of Carpathians’ ,who was executed, thought once that everything and each of great buildings which has its own history and charm has to be hidden behind the shopping centre, block and other element of a modern city. He wanted to create a ‘new city’. Because of his ‘wonderful work’ it’s very difficult to see every monument of Bucharest. They’re waiting for us to discover them in small streets, plenty of which can be found in the capital. At the end of almost each of these streets you can find something extraordinary. That was an explanation.

Well fed we had to come back to the Otopeni airport to prepare for a flight to the second biggest city, Iasi. That was a place where our teachers lived. And we that meant: Agata, Agnieszka, Łukasz and me, lived in a village called Raducaneni. There is our partner school. There we met a lot of people. There we met our friends; we discovered the value of our country. But I will talk about all that later. On the plane to Iasi the group from Turkey joined us. There were three teachers and two students: Gizem and Kursat (there should be two dots under u but I’m not so clever to do itL). At the airport everything was more or less explained. We had already known who will be our host family. We met Noria, the girl who was on project meeting in Poland. Nothing has changed. She was smiling all the time. We were a little bit afraid of leaving each other and going to our ‘houses’. But when that happened we were too tired to think about anything as it was 10.30 p.m.

On the next day there was a big project meeting. The conversations were very shy. Some people were just standing alone and watching. We introduced ourselves; we talked about school, about lessons. But these were just numb chats. Everything would develop with the course of time! We ate lunch. It was quite good, but now I will complain. In Romania everything is very salty! Too salty I think. But that didn’t interrupt me to eat a lot of mamaliga called in Romanian polenta. J. In the evening everything has began. Our friends from Romania invited us for something to drink (but try not to have any bad associationsJ) and then the chats started. Then we discovered that we have many subjects to discuss and when the time to go came nobody wanted to leave. I chatted all the time with Gizem and Łukasz. Mostly about the history of our countries that meant Poland and Turkey. And we also discussed the similarities and differences of our life. We are not as different as we thought. We have slightly different points of view but we didn’t quarrel about that. In our ‘houses’, at least mine, we had a very lively discussion. But it ended at eleven p.m.

On Tuesday we met again in the school library. Lady, who was working there, talked with us through our interpreter (Noria). She shared with us the knowledge about the greatest Romanian poetry. After some time we were divided into pairs and we were playing ‘guess the name’. Here are the rules of the game. One person writes the name of somebody famous on the piece of paper and sticks this to your back. Then you have to ask questions to people who know what the name of a star is and they have to give you clues. And of course you have to guess. Not everybody guessed.

In the evening we spent our time chatting again. Then I found out that Gizem is fascinated with the person of Che Guevara. The tone of our conversation became a bit more serious when we started talking about politics, about the minority of Kurds in Turkey. The anger that I caused was moderated by jokes of Kursat and Łukasz. Then we started to laugh so loudly that everybody around was quiet. Then I felt so well in their company! Because before it was a little unnatural to talk English all the time, we didn’t have subjects to talk… I don’t know how to describe it. It was a little strange before that moment as I felt like during a school break. I laughed, I was joking and I forgot that we have known each other just for forty eight hours. I’m so glad that I could go there, because I met fantastic friends! People, without any exaggeration, were really great! And I was very surprised with the behavior of Romanian students. They had such a difficult time then. Their teachers were protesting for four weeks and there’s no hope to end that. They have to live by 100 euros a month and the prices are similar to ours. It’s a little cheaper but not very much. Just a little. That is a result of political situation. The politicians didn’t realise what they are doing to people! At this time students were not going to school in the whole country. And for them school is something else than just a place where they can learn. It’s a place where they can leave not very prefect reality outside and go on the trips into an imaginary world which is ruled by them. Just them. The living conditions are hard but it can’t break their strong spirit. Good spirit. They are smiling all the time, they are very helpful even to strangers. I was very surprised and I forgot about roughness of Polish people. But let’s stick to the subject.

On Wednesday we went to Iasi for dinner and to go sightseeing around the city. I have to confess that is was very similar to Bucharest. It is not that I was bored. I chatted with Agata, Gizem and Kursat. Sometimes Łukasz joined us but Agnieszka found many things in common with her host sister and they stick together. But that didn;t mean that she didn’t speak with us. We had little problems with talking to our host families because their English was not good and they preferred to keep together. So the real talk started in the houses. Tuesday was probably the best day maybe apart from Friday. In the evening we went to Kursat host family, Alex. We played there in a game called ‘countries, cities’ but we played in English (it was very difficult, trust me!) but it was boring so we started to joking. But as always everything that is good has to end, doesn’t it? So finally we had to leave.

On Thursday we woke up very early because we were taken for a trip to Moldavia (mountainous part of Romania). The views were amazing! Agata saw the mountains for the first time so I had to be very patient and listen to all those ‘Ohhh, ahhhh’ and twitching. J But sometimes the views were really breathtaking. We also saw the oldest monastery in Romania. Many people from that group were Orthodox so we had a chance to see how they pray and how they adore their saint. I’m very sad that I have to write this but it’s very unhygienic. Every single icon has to be kissed and touched. The bones of the saints have to be touched too. The touch is believed to make miracles. It is a little weird to palpate somebody’s bones but of course they have their own rules and I won’t judge this ritual. Because of the weather the way back was very long and tiring. We were at home very late so I just ate mamaliga and went to sleep.

On Friday it was freezing. It was snowing and it was very cold for almost all day. My shoes were very wet, let’s say. When I stayed in the hotel others visited the typical school in Iasi. They said that conditions were even better than in Warsaw sometimes. Then abyss between village and city school had been discovered by us. On that day everybody was laughing and we had great time together. I believe that it was the most brilliant day of all these days. When I put down all e-mails and addresses I felt very sad because I realised that I may never see these people again. But during this one week I found more real friends than sometimes we find throughout all time spent at school. I may be wrong because within such a short time I haven’t seen their defects. It is possible. We left after ten p.m. I was so jealous of Agata! She was lucky! On the last day Gizem, Łukasz and Gizem’s host family stayed in Agata’s host family house. Łukasz left but very late. And I have to stay with Adena only (she was my host family) and her sister. But I won’t complain because she was a very nice and problems with talking weren’t really important. Then, late in the evening she taught me some words in Romanian and she learnt some words in Polish and we had a lot of fun. A few hours earlier we have been teaching each other some difficult phrases in our native languages similar to ours stół z powyłamywanymi nogami. J. The Turkey phrase won! It was something about garlic or not garlic meal. But it was really difficult! Nobody except for Gizem and Kursat repeated that phrase fast enough.

Saturday was a very sad day. In the middle of the night we had to be on our way to Iasi, to the airport. We had to say goodbye. We almost burst into tears. In Bucharest we said goodbye to Turkish team because they had the flight to Istambul. There were the tears again. And I felt like I was losing some part of myself. However, I realized that I got something in exchange.

We could complain about hard conditions, we could complain about cold weather, we could even miss our countries. But so much kindness and friendliness which we got there minimized all the inconveniences.

The lesson for me is simple; it is pathetic to complain about anything, because it can always be worse. And now I started to miss everybody. We have our addresses but it’s not the same. It will never be the same. One thing which was quite interesting was to see our teachers from normal, private side. I will never forget this, I’m sure.