Kraków in our hearts

After a hot train ride, with no AC in our carriage, we arrived at Kraków Glowny station in the early evening. Our hostess Barbara picked us up in her car. She and her family - husband Andy, sons Kondrad and Kacper, daughter Kaja and Mika the dog lives in a cozy house just outside the city centre of Kraków.

"It'll be hamburgers for dinner" she announced and Tim was of course very happy.

Couchsurfing is about free accommodation, but almost even more important, it´s about developing and refining your social skills. It's about meeting people from completely different backgrounds and cultures and try to form, if not a friendship, at least mutual respect and acceptance. You are not expected to serve your guests food, drive them anywhere, entertain them, provide anything else than a free bed/couch/mattress, but it is assumed that you have an open mind, a willingness to share the story about your country and culture and have an interest in your guests´ life and travel plans. Barbara did all that and a lot more. Since she first joined Couchsurfing 15 years ago (and prior to that, Hospitality Club and Servas International) she has invited hundreds of strangers to her home and during our stay she made her uttermost to make us feel welcome. If there would be such a thing as a gold member of Couchsurfing, she definitely would have received that award.

When I was planning this trip I have also tried to find a variety of hosts and families with children in Tim´s age. Barbara´s two boys (12 and 14) immediately got along great with Tim and I don´t think we had been there for more than 15 minutes before they started playing a computer game together 😊 All Barbara´s and her husband Andy´s children speak English really well. They have been travelling together to many countries, both in Europe and other continents, which the many enlarged and framed photos around the house of their journeys proved. Staying with them was a huge inspiration.

One of the days we also decided to do a full day excursion to Auschwitz. It wasn´t an easy decision. When she found out about our plan, Barbara asked me, are you sure you want to take a child as young as Tim to a concentration camp? Maybe it would be too shocking for him. We discussed it for a long while. I spoke to friends from home, to Tim´s stepdad as well as his biological father. There were divided opinions. Some thought this would be a great opportunity for him to grow and learn. Others said he is too immature to grasp the meaning of such a visit and would only brag to his friends about having been there, as if you had just visited the Eiffel Tower, or that the experience would frighten him too much. In the end we decided we should do it. And it proved to be the right choice. Tim was being very respectful and considerate. He showed great interest in what we saw and read. I genuinely think this visit affected him in a good way, and hopefully, it has made him more aware of the history, empathetic to people and a more humble person.

This is what we did in Krakov:

Had fun at the beach

Did yoga with Barbara every morning

Went on a morning walk in the magical forest every morning

Went on a day excursion to Auschwitz

Had a Swedish/Polish midsummer dinner with our host family

Took a guided tour in the Jewish Quarters

Listened to a concert by the river on Midsummers Day 

Visited the new science centre

Played lots of computer games (Tim 😉)