Muslims? So this is Christmas

Hi, I would like to share with you my amazing experience, especially now when religion and lack of knowledge is something that can destroy beliefs in others.

Once upon a time, when all of my Erasmus friends already left to their countries for Christmas, there was a situation which needed to be solved.

One Portuguese and two Turkish stayed in dormitory, alone for Christmas.

My home is around 2, 5 hours from Brno, so I decided to invite them.

João missed optimal time to buy a flight ticket, and for the other two guys Christmas is something really exotic because they are Muslims.

Erasmus reviewed my definition of a good friend, because in my opinion your real friends share food with you when you are in need. I have experienced it many times, during my random visits to my Turkish friends, they haven’t much but they always invite me sharing everything that they have.

It was very different time, we made a visit in a neighbour church, we had party in many music clubs, ate a lot of traditional Polish things, had a lot of fun and jokes around Christmas table with my family. No one of them speaks English but the atmosphere was very good, like real family, Erasmus family.

I took the guys for a walk around, I think they liked it because everyone from closer family or friends we have visited greet us with home made cakes and cookies and shared with us some stronger alcohol, so my visitants were very glad but after 3 visits they weren’t able to continue, asking me gently to come back home...

My hometown called Radlin has very good localisation, from Brno we came to last station Bohumin from where you can take any train to travel to Poland.

The biggest entertainment centre is Katowice, music clubs, shopping galleries and airport.

From December 2015 it will be even easier because local railway trucks are under reconstruction and connections frequency will increased as well.. So before you reach Katowice, you can visit Rybnik and have the same level of fun and extend your knowledge about local beers.

It will be a really good window to explore Poland, there are companies like PolskiBus, low cost and with very diverse connections to any Polish city.

This international Christmas was an amazing experience, breaking cultural stereotypes.

When we had to say goodbye, my Muslim friends Kazim and Umit show their habits and kissed hands of my parents and lift them to forehead as a sign of respect and thankfulness.

My parents said to me afterwards that no one before make them feel so special, and they can visit us whenever they want.

My Erasmus friends, brilliant guests.