I know that there is this vast majority of people that when looking at places they look at architecture, they look at infrastructure, the look at clubs, beer, food, culture, money, etc. I like to look at the only thing that all this stuff has in common: people. Because it’s the people that make the architecture look great, it’s the people you talk to while drinking beer, having pierogi or spending money, it’s these people that make, most of the time, the place seem special. From this point of view, Poznan was pretty special. And pretty.

There are a lot of moments that I recall from Poznan that could make the difference in a bad movie. The long walks on the streets of Poznan, the hunting game of the German, the holy juice and the holy polenta, the blessing of Jesus, zubrowka, tuica, dinners at that fancy restaurant, coffee, cherry coke, that club mixing “Break on through (to the other side)”, the black room, that boring movie, the swearing contest, the street performance, but you can’t get all these inside jokes, so I’ll just stop here.

And then the day came that we had to say goodbye. And I was looking at the people I’d met and had to say goodbye. I know that I’m never going to see them again. And I don’t want to see them. Seeing them would only make the whole story seem real. Not seeing them will make the story become legend and the legend become myth. And this myth will someday, hopefully, make a good bedtime story.

Mircea Cernea

*laleczka is an appellative for women in Poland that can be translated into “dolly”. Breaking some English grammar rules, laleczka is here used as an appellative for Poland. Don’t ask why, Poland just looks like a woman to me.

P.S. New stereotypes: beautiful women, not so good English speakers, the guys that broke the Enigma code, nice architecture, cheap alcohol, normal potatoes, football hooligans (lousy teams).

Laura Ulevice (Lithuania) – the organizer of the project, tried her best to make everything comfortable

Aurelija (Lithuania) – we celebrated her birthday right in the middle of the project, lovely fruit cake

Jurga (Lithuania) – great dancer and she even tried to teach us some Lithuanian songs, trust me, that didn’t go so well J

Justas (Lithuania) – funny guy, I learned from him how to say “You’re beautiful!” in Lithuanian (it really helped me on our night in town)

Benas (Lithuania) – our Vilnius guide, a pragmatic person with high dreams, knows his way with the cocktails

Tayfun (Turkey) – full of energy, he told us that his friends call him “Fun” (we didn’t) and also he is addicted to Grey’s Anatomy

Senem (Turkey) – really likes to party and she is thinking of making palinca in Ankara, what can I say, she really liked our drink

Hatice (Turkey) – great cook, she prepared us some great Turkish delights; I’m desperate for their spices

Hicret (Turkey) – a future English teacher in Istanbul, has her own radio show and she is a real source of authentic Turkish culture

Cihan (Turkey) – big fan of Hagi, he demonstrated to us that you don’t really need English to communicate with others, great character

Genis (Catalonia – Spain) – party animal, he gave me as a gift the one, the only, porro, (traditional Catalonian drinking “bottle”)

Elia (Catalonia – Spain) – Austrian girl staying 9 months in Spain with EVS, I found her really courageous

Anna (Catalonia – Spain) – eager to come and visit Romania, very interested in our culture and traditions, also a good dancer

Lluis (Catalonia – Spain) – music is a part of him, he always listened Jarabe de Palo – La Flaca (great song)

Toni (Catalonia – Spain) – a little slacker and a real pleasure to talk to him, has a funny accent

Yildiz (Romania) – the official photographer of our team, a lovely girl, really likes paying attention to details

Ioana (Romania) – my partner in sightseeing, I still own her a National Geographic copy, sorry Ioana

Laura (Romania) – I enjoyed spending time with her, really organized (when needed) and very funny

Horatiu (Romania) – who would have taught that we will sing in the streets of Vilnius, with Horatiu as lead guitarist? We didn’t make any money, though.

As night fell on the streets of Vilnius, somewhere in a corner, two boys started playing “La Valse D’Amelie”…the perfect ending of a mysterious journey…

Bogdan – your rookie writer

We start to get to know each other. Somewhat shy, but slowly we start discussing, sharing opinions and laughs. The special activities help this process, and soon we become closer.

We visit wonderful sites: Trakai, Seimas-Parliament, KGB Museum, and Vilnius city centre – wonderful view.

We are left alone in the city, night is coming. We eat McDonalds. No worries, we take the bus. But is it the right bus? We walk in the middle of nowhere half an hour. It’s dark. We get home. We party J

Being my first experience of this kind, I had a great time. I met new friendly people and I hope to see them again.

I discovered a wonderful drink, cider , learned a lot about this type of projects, learnt a lot about Catalan people and traditions, about Turkish religion and how Lithuanians party in clubs and eat a lot of potatoes!

For everyone reading this, I recommend Lithuania and Vilnius. Take advantage of the possibilities you have because you won’t regret!

Laura

Our stay in Lithuania began with some activities during which we had to interact and discover some basic things about each other, and about our organizations and cultures…it was more fun than it sounds when I say it! After this first step we took, participants started to share their knowledge about traditional songs, dance, food, and feasts during the daily activities or cultural nights. More interactive experiences like blind walking, quiz or games made at the proposal of participants created a relaxed atmosphere during the project and helped us grow ICU team spirit.

The venue insured us the possibility to visit the city and appreciate the very heat of Vilnius, the European Capital of Culture for this year 2009. As I was passing the streets in the sound of guitars, I suddenly remembered the first time I visited Sibiu many years ago. For those of you who are passionate in traveling, undoubtedly Vilnius is a place you should mark on your journey map. St. Anne’s Church, Royal Palace of Lithuania or KGB Museum, are just some examples of what the town has to offer.

Another experience that should be mentioned is the visit of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian Parliament), very well prepared by the organizers of this project. The transparency that Lithuanians have in this type of matters is quite amazing and an informal presentation of one of the members of Seimas ( Asta Baukuté, a well-known actress in Lithuania) gave us some clues about cultural fundamentals of Lithuanian people.

There are many things to say…as many interesting experiences happened during this whole week of intercultural understanding. All in one, it was a remarkable chance for me to start gathering thoughts and meanings from different sides of this world meanwhile discovering also some new things about myself…

Ioana MUL

Meet up with turks and catalans and lithuanians. Make a great little potpourri of culture, spice it up in a workshop and what do you get?
You get ICU – the dream. There’s always something about foreign capitals and foreign people that makes you yearn for human contact.
You get two opportunities:
One, well-organised discussions, flawless planning, clever and ambitious timesurfing to churn your imagination and let thought diamonds fly in out-of-this-world patterns.
Two, you get some people from distant lands, sort-of make them at home, sort-of make a schedule, sort-of break the schedule, sort-of take them out sort-of visiting, sort-of bind them all together in harmony. Sort-of break that harmony. Sort-of do it all for the heck of it, the objective is an illustrious and ellusive beast, and catching illustrious and ellusive beasts isn’t really your thing. So sort-of do it all. It’ll be good enough.
And with two, you get ICU – the real deal.

Well thought of before-the-project preparations, ignorance for the project itself.
Share your culture, kids, we’ll just sit back and watch you. And then we’ll show you our uber-traditions. But in a short 2-minute presentation. So nobody gets bored. Okay, we’ve got liftoff!

ICU = a great vacation, where i:

• danced the Macarena with 12 people from 4 different countries
• drank from a porro(catalan porro, see pic.)
• sang and guitared through “dragostea din tei” with screaming foreigners. that is something.
• played “amintire cu haiduci” on a street in central Vilnius(got the guitar from a group of lithua blue-eyed gallies singing their Bob Marleys out)
• learned a catalan dance, danced a lithua dance with traditional dancing pro’s
• talked about NLP, Stanley Kubrick, indie music and Porcupine tree, hair-concealing religiously-symbolic scarves, the political hardships of Turkey and god knows how many random and not-so-random things with a beautiful Turkish girl(never did get to see her hair though)
• learned that catalans are proud and patriotic from Genis(what a wonderful name), who also had a knack for the South Korean film industry and indie bands(got a mighty blog as well)
• learned how to say …tasty bad words in 3 different languages
• the list can go on.

The list should go on. This is the important part. The project was fine in the sense that it gave us freedom to express ourselves, to share our cultures in a non-formal way(often, in the light smoke of a waterpipe). With a little bit more common sense, a little more calm and a lot more discipline and organisation, the project would have been a fulminating success.
This way, it was just a great vacation in a strange land with blue eyes.
I enjoyed the living daylights out of it and it’s something i won’t forget in a long time. Got myself a good day-to-day journal so it’s all written down in history.
Conclusion: learn that it is not only your job to organise, but to make everyone feel like they are part of a great mission. A mission of acceptance, of exploration, of freedom and shiny postcards.
See you again when we ride together.
1h30 to Prague. 6 hours big shiny Prague airport, where Absynth grows on trees. more than 30$’s worth of trees. 1h30 to Bucharest. Enjoy

We have a new international project accepted. And that is what “A look into the superstitions” going to mean for us and for all the participants. We are anxiously waiting our friends from Bulgaria, France, Spain and Italy to meet us here, for 10 days full of superstitions, art and creativity.

The project will take place between the 12th and the 21st of August 2009 (10 days), in Bran – the city of traditions and myths – and its main goal is to develop the communication,comprehension and the tolerance between the participants while fighting against prejudices, stereotypes and discriminations by revealing superstitions through creative art (photography, filmmaking).

One of its objective is to create a community in a learning environment. We will also contribute to the personal and social development of the young people involved in the youth exchange and encourage a long-term partnership between the countries. In order to achieve our goal and to attain these objectives we will use several working methods like: workshops, outdoor activities, round tables and role-play games.

So stay tuned for more informations, because we are planning to „bake” tons of surpises.

Browse it here and feel free to comment !

Open publication

“Do it internationally” was the line that inspired me to become a member of the InterC organizing team. International Communication – InterC was our first Youth in Action experience, as organizers, not as participants, and as far as I’m concerned, was – as they say it in the movies – the beginning of a beautiful friendship, more than one , actually .

The seminar was held last year, in Sibiu – European Capital of Culture in 2007 – between September 9-15th, on the topic of intercultural communication, as its name states it, and it was a mixture of serious workshops on acceptance of neighbours (“Who would you rather share a house with? ” – Finnish workshop), minorities’ rights (a role-play illustrating the Romanian Parliament on the minorities’ issues), understanding each other’s mentality, not just their language (“The Monkeys and the Donkeys” – German group game), but we also saw our country through the eyes of a foreign tourist – thanks to our guests from France, who had been in Romania the summer before our project took place and put all their experience on tape, for the world to see.

If you add a visit to The Brukenthal National Museum – Sibiu’s 230 years old emblematic palace, belonging to Samuel von Brukenthal, the baron whose love for paintings, books, numismatics and minerals gained him a well deserved place in local and national history, as a renown collector of beauty – a short trip to ASTRA Museum – and a crazy city quest on a rainy day, you can have just a small picture of what I still consider one of the best experiences of my volunteer student life.

[to be continued]

And after all that there was the project itself – called Successful Leadership, Improving projects’ Quality. It was interesting – as we not only focused on the factual part of it but also on the cultural dimension – involving some teambuilding games which I rather liked. The organisation in charge was obviously a Polish one, based in Warsaw not in Krakow. They were very nice to us, took really good care of us and even indulged me in my pleasure of learning how to count and say a couple of useful phrases in Polish – properly.

The part that marked me most though was my visit to Oswieçim; or – as it is more commonly known – Auchwitz. We visited the Auchwitz museum in our last day in Poland – as it happened it was a cloudy, grey day – something which helped the surreal atmosphere we found there. But it was the final point that truly made me realise this was not a trip wasted. It was a lesson learned.