The pilgrims

So as I said before we had 4 pilgrims staying with us for 4 days. It was a great experience and everything went pretty well.

First there was Marta and Tomasz, from Poland.

Tomasz is 29 and he is a massage therapist. He does not speak english, which as you can imagine was a bit of a problem. Marta is 25, she is a student and she speaks some english, enough for us to establish basic communication. They were nice but very quiet and they were always in a hurry so we didn't get to know them all that well. At some time during their stay they must have had a fight or something because they stoped talking to each other, which made it hard for us to communicate with Tomasz. But on Saturday before they left he gave us a bottle of wine so I guess he liked it here.

Then there was Aleksandar and Antonia from Macedonia

Alekso is 23 and Antonia is 24 and they are engaged to be married in February. They are really nice and Alekso speaks english surprisingly well. They were very curious about everything, they asked alot of questions about our life style, our culture, economic conditions, traditions, etc. They always had breakfast with us and we used to stay up late talking and sharing experiences. They were absolutely in love with R and she really liked them to.
It was funny to see how these two kids had a diferent perspective of life. They have no jobs, no house to move to yet, they live in a very poor country with constant wars and 40% unemployment rate. But they looked so happy, so confident in the future and they had so many plans. I was amazed by them. They have travelled throughout Europe by bus (it took them 3 and half days to get to Lisbon), joining organized pilgrimages so they can have cheaper/free acommodation and trying to learn as much as they can. They knew more about the European Union, about its institutions and laws, than we do. And they are not even in the EU!

I realise sometimes we take what we have for granted and we forget to be thankful for the great life we have. I hope I get a chance to share my house with these kids more often because we have learned alot from them.