For those who had to stay.

This is for those who had to stay and spend the Christmas holidays in their Erasmus city -but also for those who left and want to know what is going on in town-. For European people are easy: is not that hard to travel and families want to see their children, so they pay whatever it takes. For Smile People -if you don't know, Smile is the Erasmus program for Latin America- is a bit different. Crossing the Atlantic is not something you do just to spend a couple of weeks with family and friends -well, maybe I would do it if I had a lot of money-. So, you stay and travel to another city or you stay in your dorm and try not to kill yourself. In my case, I stayed in the dorm -Akropol, do you remember it?- and at the beginning I thought that it was going to be very boring and sad, specially because in Venezuela I spend Christmas with my all family -and believe me, is a very big family- and we eat things that we only eat in this holiday -you have no idea how much I missed my moms hallacas (you can see a hallaca in the picture below:(best Christmas food ever)-. Of course, I was wrong.

It's hard to spend Christmas far away from your family; but when you are on Erasmus you make friends that become your family; you get so close to these people that you don't believe it has been only 4 months since you know them, so you are having holidays with your other family.

This is what happened: around the 20th of December, our loud, annoying and lovely floor became a desert. Almost all Spanish people left and Turkish and Italian... everybody; I was missing even the people I don't hung out a lot with. And suddenly, I started to enjoy the silence that we never have here; having the room for myself and the kitchen so clean all the time... it was like living in a normal place. This was the first advantage. You never know you miss so much being alone until you finally are. Don't misunderstand me, I really like company and people.

I am not a crazy hermit but, come on, sharing bathroom with 9 people and room with other 2... Who wouldnt be happy for being alone? Finally, I was able to read, and to write and to start to think about all the craziness of the last couple of months. I watched TV shows without the earphones and I had the all fridge for me and I ate all the food my roommates left. It was glory.

We started to plan the dinner. Of course, Lucija cooked almost everything, but we helped a bit. It was not my usual Christmas plate, but it was so good, and knowing that we made our own dinner make it so much more special. At the end, we had a great time and I was finally able to use my high heels which I wouldn't do if we had gone out -because of the weather of course-.

For New Year's Eve, more people came to Akropol. At this time, me and girls were experts organizing room dinners and managing to fit all the people in a small place. At the beginning we wanted to dinner outside, but it was so hard to find a place affordable for students that we gave up and we decided to go easy and eat the most student dinner ever: pizza. Even if we were a bit drunk, we managed to go to Krakow Main Square and waited the new year there. It was freezing -minus 11 degrees- and the music was only polish music and the security guard took my beer but we were there to have fun. And we did it. We even ate 12 grapes and made 12 wishes, as I do in home, I wore my yellow underwear -for luck- and I kissed and hugged people around me at 12 AM. I was surrounded by nice, lovely people and there was happiness and love all over the place so it was not so different to things in my country. However, I have to say that the fireworks were not that good... come on Krakow, you can do it better.

So, for those who have to stay... don't worry. You are going to have a great time. You will have the complete experience; you will spend time with people that maybe you won't see again when all this finishes; you can have dinner out but I highly recommend cooking something with friends because is so much funnier and you will understand how much your mom works for having the nice table at the end of the night... she will appreciate this empathy. You will go the city center and receive the year with native people and you will feel for a while that you belong to this country. You will get closer to people that you didn't know that well, and you will discover a lot of things about them, just because now you have the time and the opportunity to listen to different people that also had to stay. You will know a different side of your new city.

Now, if you are in Krakow I have a few personal tips. No matter how cold it is, go to the main square. You will have fun and, probably a good story. Include everyone you can in your plans, you never know if someone else is feeling lonely -thanks Dani, for remind me this-. Go to the Christmas Market in the main square every time you can -specially during the day- because is beautiful and you have to enjoy it all the time that is going to be there; buy a postal in the place of pictures, they are very nice. Walk the city, the clubs are going to be empty -believe me, I tried- so, you have to have fun in different places. I don't know if it is because is the Catholic Holidays, but Krakow is amazing in Christmas; it's not just that is beautiful but is also a happy, cheerful city and even the Polish people is nicer.

Staying is not that bad, really. Not having "a plan" for Christmas is a great plan because it opens a world of possibilities. See it in this way: you can go to cities anytime but this city is special: you are living here! Enjoy it!

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