Journey to Palermo

 

3 may, the day when this amazing experience started. My group from Poland had to leave our cities at early morning. I, personally, had to enter train in Gdańsk at 6:37 and when I found compartment where I had booked sit, the rest of my group was already waiting there for me. Our journey was quite tiresome. Firstly, we had to travel 3 hours – more or less – from northern part of Poland to capital, Warsaw. Then, we had to wait like 4 hours for our plane at airport. I wish it was timed better, but there is no one to blame. We waited, drank some coffee and after some hours we had to go to check-in. We were a bit stressed about weight of our baggage, because we had to pack a lot of backpacks, small books and umbrellas – which were gifted later on, to students who were participating in project – however it wasn’t even necessary. Our baggage had 50-70% of maximum allowed weight.

 

I have to mention this. Flight from Warsaw to Rome – because we hadn’t direct flight – was my first flight in general. I was scared, overthinking. It was surprising for me how huge acceleration had our plane. It was pushing me in the chair for tens of seconds. After a while, I stopped feel this pressure and everything was really good. Unfortunately, whenever you sit, when you look through window, you’ll always see wing, which makes photos or movies less valuable.

 

At Rome, we had a little delay, so we had to walk a bit faster than we planned. However, we still had some time to look after souvenirs. I got wonderful key ring which says „Rome”, is in Italian’s flag colors and letters are formed colosseum. I’m very satisfied of this purchase and it wasn’t that expensive

 

 

 

Arrival

 

Our journey to Palermo from Poland took 13 hours, almost 14. It was exhausting, but no one from my group was complaining about it. While we were in the sky, when pilot was preparing to land he bent plane for 35-45 degrees and it seemed like we’re going to crash into water. But then, we saw this huge mountain. It was a bit overwhelming. Airport at Palermo isn’t too big and because of that, mountain seemed even bigger.

 

We went towards bus stop, bought our tickets for few euros and waited 30-45 minutes and left airport when there was no sit left. Another 30-45 minutes we spent in bus but when left at our destination, we were amazed of what we saw there. A lot of people just hanging around. Some of them were playing on guitars and other instruments. We had to ask someone for directions towards our hotel, because we had name of the street, but couldn’t find it on the map. It was actual first experience of meeting and ‘talking’ with someone at Palermo. Funny thing is that we asked for direction in English, they were listening to us and answered in Italian. No matter what we said in English, we had all of answers in different language. It wasn’t that huge problem, because after all they showed us directions by their hands as well. People in Palermo are nice in general.

 

Our hotel, Mercure Palermo Centro was really good. It was my first time being in hotel like this as well.

Unfortunately, arrivals of groups wasn’t timed very well, so we couldn’t have united dinner with groups from other countries. That’s why we decided to go by ourselves and taste some food. It wasn’t hard to choose what we want – pizza.

 

And there was first time when we faced difference between countries, how things work. Traffic is so different than what we can experience at Poland. When you’re about to cross the round at Palermo you’re supposed to walk and actually ignore fact that there are cars moving towards you. It was a bit scary, but we got used of some of the rules quite quickly. Whole atmosphere of Palermo at night was great. Wherever you were going, there were people eating or just standing and talking with friend. When we went into smaller roads, we faced another difference – there were a lot of tables outside of restaurants. Maybe it’s not that huge difference, but this road which we chosen was really small. When we found good place, we ordered our pizzas and agreed on one thing – what we got there was one of the best if not the best pizza we ever had.

 

 

 

 

4th May, Official first day of project

 

We woke up early and ate our breakfast – which obviously was very good as well – and then we moved towards our another destination, CESIE’s office.

Small introduction at the very beginning. All students were standing behind their teachers and mentors who were sitting in incomplete circle. We said small information about ourselves – names and from where we’re from and then we were separated for few hours.

Students at one flour, teachers and mentors at other. It was interesting and maybe a bit stressful. From students, I was the only one who were alone. People from Germany, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom were as two. That’s why I was stressed and now when I think about it, it was completely not needed.

We started our training – which was organized by amazing guy, Ian – with simple, but very enjoyable and effective thing. Before journey, I was thinking about the way of dividing us in groups. I was thinking how they’re going to do that so no one will be in disadvantage or felt alone. Ian done amazing job.

 

Our first task was to make interview with person across the table. I was sitting across Evita, a girl from UK, but born in Latvia. First, ice-breaking activity was supposed to break our fear of language barrier and it done pretty good job. All of us noticed that our English isn’t bad and we can easily understand each other. Interview lasted 5 minutes, we were supposed to gather as much information about person across the table and then share it to everyone. 5 minutes for one person, another 5 for second person and then we were sharing information to everyone, one by one.

 

Second task was interesting as well. We were supposed to write as many fears, expectation and motivations of this journey to different country as we could.  Goal of it was to show us that we share almost the same fears, so we shouldn’t feel alone, think that we’re alone, only by ourselves. Expectations and motivations were similar as well.

 

Third task was probably the best. We were divided into groups of 4-5. Ian gave us descriptions of situation which we were supposed to solve. My group decided to take situation in which were two guys, good and bad. Bad one wasn’t fulfilling his duties of cleaning kitchen, bathroom while it was his turn. Good one had enough of it and had to make this quite hard conversation and find solution which would solve this problem. Our group found ‘Jar’ solution which provided benefits for both sides which seemed the best in our opinion.  I and Mattias role-playing and if you’re reading this Mattias, I have to apologize again for small improvisation. Second group had to deal with person who were messing around the room, listening to music from phone, loudly and when someone asked him to stop what he was doing, he was listening, accepting everything, showing that he understand that he should change attitude, but after few seconds came back to what he was doing before. Second group decided to solve this problem by calling police which moved out this guy. While my group done this task just by conversation, second group decided to make whole scene. It was really fun.

 

Small break, lunch at some smaller restaurant where we could taste very good pasta.

 

After lunch, Ian took us around Palermo to places where we were supposed to work on the next day. While we were walking, I asked Ian for small help. First request was about key ring. I really wanted something which will remind me of this project, journey in general. We couldn’t find something really good for a while, but in the end I got key ring which looked like chili pepper (unfortunately, when I came back to Poland it broke into few pieces). Second request was a bit simpler – I asked for translation “best mom” into Italian language. At arrival, when I was walking around with my teacher and mentor we found shop where it was possible to order apron in different colors and possibility to get embroidered anything what we wanted. It was gift to my mother. While I’m writing this, she hasn’t seen it yet, but I’m sure she’ll love it. Ian helped me – and everyone in general – a lot. Whatever we asked him anything, he was giving a lot of effort into answer and helping with some advices on places where we could go.

We visited Mensa del buon Samaritano, Centro Astalli, Molti Volti and  Libera Palermo.

After all of it, we had a bit of free time so we walked around. Last place which we visited was Libera Palermo where we could buy things like wine, pasta and few more which were originally owned by members of mafia, but taken by organization. I got wine for my brother, colorful pasta for my friend and two packs of pasta for myself. At 8pm we had to go together – students, teachers and mentors to one restaurant for dinner. Food at Italy is wonderful, it’s not needed to say and this restaurant proved it easily. I ate one of the greatest meal which included meat and pasta and then, I ate the best lemon  ice cream in my life.

 

After dinner we could do whatever we wanted. Evita, Mattias, Karwan and me went together  around Palermo, saw empty road and experienced this amazing atmosphere. We got along quite quickly, talked about many topics – obviously about difference between our countries as well – and we end up near our hotel for some drinks. I don’t drink in general, but I couldn’t pass this opportunity when I had birthday on next day – in 10 minutes when I ordered drink – and while I was hanging out with amazing people like them.

 

Four of us came back to hotel at 2:30am.

 

 

 

5th May, second and last day of project

 

My day started a bit weird. I didn’t know that it’s needed to put card near doors for electricity and I needed to charge my phone through night, because I set alarm at 8am so I could calmly eat breakfast and then at 8:30am leave hotel with Ian and move towards Mensa del buon Samaritano where I was working for few hours later. I woke up at 8:29am because Israel, guy from Spain with who I was sharing my room, closed doors. If not this, I could wake up at 10am or who knows when. Because of this I hadn’t possibility to eat breakfast and I was a bit late because other event.

 

I was working with Mattias and Karwan at Mensa del buon Samaritano. We were helping in the kitchen with some basic tasks.  We got some food as well, which was really nice by them. We could take a taste of another meal and honestly, I can’t remember if I ate anything bad, distasteful through whole journey. Whenever we were going, we got a lot of great food.

 

When we ended our work, we left Mensa and moved towards office and in the middle of way we met Ian and few students from other places. We gathered most of us – except Evita and Kiara – at  Molti Volti. After a while when everyone came from office and when all students were together, we had lunch. We could taste pasta once again, but also some pizza and few types of salads.

 

After lunch we had “Public Event” which was summary of what we went through those two days. Presentation, few words from mentors. After that, we were divided into groups and had few tasks to do. The main task was getting feedback on this project from students. I tried to share as much as I could. About what I experienced at Palermo – culture shook (like traffic), fears, what we liked through those days and more. Every group had to share feedback of students to everyone.

 

Next thing was celebration of completing project. 9 of us, students, got certificate, backpack, small book and umbrella. My group from Poland was responsible for organizing those items.

 

We had free time after this “Public Event”. Mattias, Karwan and me decided to walk around Palermo a bit. I found little shop with t-shirts and I couldn’t pass opportunity of buying t-shirt with Godfather.

 

At 8pm we had our farewell dinner. It’s so surprising how quickly all of us got along. We forgot about all of our fears or even language barrier. We talked normally and just enjoyed this amazing time we spent at Palermo. We talked about a lot of things, one of them was like task for everyone to count in our native language slowly and the rest from our student’s group had to repeat. Funny and interesting experience at the same time. It was nice to notice that in few languages “5” sounds similar.

 

We had plan to meet Ian at his favorite restaurant to eat pizza and watch football match, quarterfinals between Real Madrid and Juventus, however our farewell dinner lasted for 2-3 hours and we couldn’t do that. However, after dinner we had another free time for us and as 9 we went to one restaurant and stayed there until 3am. Ordered some drinks. It was surprising and nice by this restaurant when they gave us some free snacks, even small pieces of pizza. For some of our group, it was first or second time, tasting pizza. After 3am, three of us had to come back to hotel, but Evita, Mattias, Karwan, Israel , Kiara and me decided to walk around and just not go to sleep, because it would be such waste. So we ended up in 24/7 bar where we got some ice creams applied with shovel of some kind. At 5 am we were at hotel and at 5:30am I had to leave from the room. We stayed for so long, but it was definitely worth it.

 

 

 

Homecoming

 

After some goodbyes I had to leave. It was quite sad to leave Palermo behind, but I made new friend and I’m very thankful for this opportunity.

I had like 3 hours of sleep through 36 hours so when I had to stay at airport in queue I almost fell asleep. When I was on plane I couldn’t resist and finally got some sleep, like 40 minutes. It’s funny for me when I think about it now. I was stressed when I had to fly for the first time, but when I was coming back to my country I missed ascent of plane.

At Rome we had some delay and we weren’t sure if our baggage will be on time on plane, but everything went perfectly and we traveled back to Poland. Firstly to Warsaw, then I left train at Gdańsk.

 

 

 

Final words

 

As I said, I’m very thankful for this opportunity. I experienced a lot of interesting views, situations on this journey. I met only polite, nice and helpful people and made new friends with students from other countries. We’re already thinking about our next meeting in the future.

Personally, I was never person who liked sightseeing, mostly because I could look at monuments in my country and after awhile they became boring, but when I saw buildings at Palermo, view of whole streets ended up with mountain at horizon I was overwhelmed by what I saw. I’m looking towards next projects or just possibilities to travel around the world.

 

Maciej Wiśniewski, Poland