Travelling in the East

Thursday morning I woke up at six in the morning to do some packing for my travels to Gliwice. At ten my flight from Amsterdam left to Budapest, a great city which is in the middle of some nice cities in the East. My good old friend Mariann picked me up from the airport. Before we would left Budapest, we went shopping and eating a good lunch, since we had a long travel in front of us, from Budapest to Gliwice to join the European Boards Meeting.

Finally at three o’clock we left Budapest on our way to Gliwice. The first thing we needed to do were to by passes to drive on the highway in Slovakia and Czech at petrol station, but we bought them in end at the border between Hungary and Slovakia. The first part was very easy, since we had driven this way already once together, it was more tricky when we had to go through Bratislava, from one highway to another, but we managed easily.

Then the nice way through Slovakia began in darkness and rain, it was quit easy till we were reached the border with Czech, somehow we had to drive though this country just for 32 km :) The real struggle started in Poland. They have really small boards to show the way and also if you missed it once, then suddenly the road is splitting… and when it’s raining like hell and dark, those once upon in a lifetime small signs can be missed easily ;) As we also did twice and then you just have to make an educated guess, left or right :D

The toughest although was the city before Gliwice, Rubnick. When you enter that city you see the plan of the roads, and also nr. 78 to Gliwice…But then… we searched for 40 minutes to find the damn road and if we didn’t asked an old Polish man in his very small car: “Do you know the road to Gliwice” and he answered something back in Polish, we both had the idea he would bring us to the right direction, and he did. Seven hours from departure we arrived at our nice Hotel. After we refreshed ourselves, we went out to the first party of the EBM. The place was a little bit to big, but still nice.

Friday the plenary started early, but I arranged to be exact on time when they needed me for the first meeting I had to lead; a two hours meeting about the strategy, the part of the diversity programme. It was a nice meeting with quit some people. After the lunch the first workshop round started, I was helping the “Culture in Motion” workshop from Nadine Karbach and Veronica Dumitrescu. I was there just for the first part to help Vero out. We had some cool energizers. After the coffee break, I took my own break another two hours of workshop would have been to much for me. I went to the computer lab, to spend some time behind the internet and work even for my boss ;) Also Judith from Utrecht asked Mariann and me to help her with her workshop. We agreed to give the second part of her workshop.

The second party was the European Night, it was close to our Hotel, so we went late since we wanted to take some rest before partying, the people had a lot of fun, since they have been drinking a lot of Alcohol already. I drunk some nice Riga Balsam and another drink. Since the music was not that good I went back to my hotel to get my mp3 player, for some good stuff since the laptop had mainly Polish music. So, there again me playing the DJ :D
Now the party could start, I found later on Mariann dancing with the main organiser, and I danced with Iryna from Kiev whom I met at the opening conference of Education Unlimited in Stuttgart. In the end there were just two people dancing… Mariann and me :)

We could stay till the last persons since we knew that our programme would start at 12.30 with lunch :) After that Mariann and me went to the computer lab to find info we needed for our workshop about CST Migration. We worked already for many years on the Case Study Trip Migration together and finally in the end we gave a workshop together.
At four in the afternoon, when we finally found our place, we gave the workshop together; first we talked about the project and then I divided the group in two to have one discussion about Migration (Mariann leading) and the other about Integration. After the two separate discussions we had a group discussion to end up our workshop.
After this workshop ended at six, the day was not ended yet for me. Network Affairs, Theijs and me would lead a discussion about – Quo Vadis AEGEE “Statutory reforms”. It was a huge group, and we discussed several issue’s concerning the agora, attendancy of the plenary, reducing nr. of participants, one fun agora one real one, extension working hours, starting at Thursday, etc. Another 1,5 hour discussion the future of our dear association. We stopped after nine in the evening… real diehards at work.

Then the most interesting party of all. Since we worked till late, and the party place was in the same street of our hotel, we went late, when we walked to the party place we saw already some blood… so interesting place we said.. after one hour we were all asked to leave the place, since one of the members of Gliwice was beaten up into the hospital, and Gliwice were not sure anymore about our safety. So, we all left to the gym, where Gliwice made a party place… we had a lot of fun, except the ones whom were trying to sleep… no more sleep till 3 at night. The best party of the event it was!

Sunday was an early day, already at ten in the morning I had to be present to lead another meeting about the strategy plan, to draft the action plan. There was now a smaller group, but I didn’t mind, we had some good brains together to make the draft action plan, and after the second round of one hour we had time left to do some work on some other parts of the strategy, then we found out that some people were sleeping, since this couldn’t be the strategy, there were actions in the strategy… So a huge discussion, we had with the CD, Chair and some people whom knew they were talking about. Due to stress and Laure didn’t listened to me, she made a bad presentation of the action plan… but in the end all will go right.

In the evening we went with a big group to have a nice dinner in a Polish restaurant. After this wonderful dinner, we went to the dorms to have a small after party.

Monday morning we checked out our hotel at eleven, and we left at twelve Gliwice on our way to Auswitz. We were now not alone in the car, we had also Alexianne from Malta and Juha from Finland, so we had all four wind directions in the car, since Mariann is from the East and me from the west :) When we got to Auswitz it was windy and also raining. We took the tour, which was a good decision. It was very impressive this place, full of history. It was good that we didn’t went directly to Krakow, but first visited this place. After the four hour tour we went on with our journey to Krakow.

It was a nice ride to Krakow and the Hostel Giraffe was easy to find. If you ever go to Krakow sleep in this hostel you will feel home. We all stayed there and when we were settled we went to the centre hunting down some dinner. Marcin from Krakow joined us at the dinner place and gave us after dinner and after discussing the second world war, a nice 1,5 hour city walk in the dark. At midnight the tour was ended and we went home.

Tuesday morning we got up normal time, Juha left early since he had to catch an early train to Warsawa, since I don’t need breakfast, the two ladies made one for them self. In the meantime I could sit behind the free internet…. And they talked a lot… we left at 13.15 finally the Hostet...
We went for a short walk and also for a nice lunch in Nikita Bar, a Russian Bar. That was really a nice place. After this we went to the Hostel, since Mariann and me had a nice ride home, 6 hours :)
We left Krakow at quarter past five finally, a bit later then I wanted, since now we will see again the nice landscape in dark. Just before midnight we arrived in Budapest, where we ate a nice soup together before arriving home.

The next day I was very sick, Mariann took care of me. Somehow I managed to get on the plane, and got home late in the evening back in Rotterdam.

Osna in Rotterdam

Friday – Cleaning my apartment

Friday morning I was called by Job that one lady wouldn’t come to Rotterdam, and that person was one of the two drivers. So there was a small chaos… what to do???? Trains, something else… After some sms-ing and ICQ contact, they arranged and I was informed that Katja from Münster didn’t went hitchhiking as planned but driving four people from Osnabrück to Rotterdam, what a nice person!

The whole day I was cleaning the house. I did all the rooms, I started with my living room, then with the bathroom. In the meantime I went to the supermarket to buy some drinks, since the meeting point was my house in the evening. In the afternoon I went to the centre to buy some stuff. In the afternoon, I cleaned the kitchen and also the rest of the bathroom. After the dinner, I started with the sleeping room, which was a big mess, since the last weeks I cleaned my living room by putting stuff from there to my sleeping room, so it looked like a storage room :)

I wasn’t finished with making order in my sleeping room, when Kati came at half past eight. Not that much later came Lars and Job. Lars had a nice home made German cake with him, and also Kati had some candies with her. So, we had something nice to eat and drink while waiting on Osnabrück. Also since they all three were there, I could do some more getting order in my sleeping room. At eight the first car arrived in Rotterdam, they drove to the central station, and didn’t knew how to come to my place. They didn’t prepared for all, no maps, no address, no print out of the map I’ve sent. :)

I told them where to go to which street and also which neighbourhood, when I didn’t heard for 20 minutes anything I called one person. They were still at central station. So, I called Jochem to get the phone number of his cousin Pieterkoen, since he was on his way to me by car. While I was calling Jochem, Pieterkoen called me on my other phone. So I was talking to both on the same time, which was a bit confusing for them :)

Pieterkoen drove me to the Central station, and there we picked up the group. Julia went directly with Pieterkoen to his house, since he was lodging this Ukraine girl. I went in the car of Clement. With my guidance he drove us to my house. In the meantime the other car arrived at my house.

When I entered my apartment, Maria told me there is a good thing and a bad thing, the good thing is that they all arrived and the bad thing is that the hat rack of me was fallen down out of the wall…. Mister Marco was the last to hang his coat, and there were to many on them, and it broke out of the wall. So, when everybody entered my crib, we were there with ten friends from Osnabrück and nine persons from Rotterdam. So, it was a full house. After a small talk, I divided the people under the lodgers, and they went home, to bring their stuff and then the meeting point was eleven at the Irish Pub for the first party!

Maria and Maja were staying at my place, we walked from my house to the Irish pub, but some were a bit slow we came at 23.50; instead of 20 minutes we walked 40 minutes…. But we were still not the last. The band was very good as usual, and we had to leave at 2.30 since then the pub closed.

A group went to have some food, Kebab, and therefore I had even one more person at my place, the presidente of AEGEE Osnabrück, Irena. So we went to bed around 4. At eight I was already awake, but I got out at 10.15; I made, after shower and shopping at the supermarket, I made the brunch for the three ladies.

Saturday – the longest city walk & Honda Party!

After brunch we walked to the city hall, we arrived at 12.50 a bit later then I hoped, but it was ok :). Since the weather was not that nice, some rain came out of the sky, Pieterkoen arranged six big umbrella’s from his work, the free newspaper Metro; and that was great. Lars and Job made a great plan of the city tour.

We had some stops, the first was in the St. Laurenschurch, where they also could see some pictures how the city centre looked like after the bombing. After that we had another “lunch break” stop, most of them bought the BIG warm “Stroopwafel”, the typical Dutch treat. We walked then to the Saturday market, where we gave 30 minutes time to do shopping and eating, many persons bought kilo’s of cheese, and besides Job, Irena tried the Dutch Haring. Our walk continued with the cubic houses, and most of them even went inside this museum, I went also inside, I could have gone in for free since I come there often with friends, but I talked with the owner about the latest news of all the cubic houses, nowadays the costs 200.000 euros for instance.

After this we walked to our social meeting place, Pardoen to have something to drink. We continued our city walk, by going over the Willemsbridge to the south side of Rotterdam. From there we walked to the Hotel New York to end in Café Rotterdam for another drink and also another Dutch treat bitterballen. Finally the last part was the walk over the Erasmusbridge and in the outdoor maritime museum.

We made groups for the dinner afterwards. Some people went first to “the Act” to buy some stuff, green stuff ;) I made dinner for 4 ladies, Nasi Goreng and as desert Dutch “Vla” with whipped cream. After this they refreshed themselves and we went to the Hondo party at Rogier’s and Arjan’s Crib.

It was a great party, there came many members of AEGEE-Rotterdam, I could be the DJ, and many people joined the Hondo game, with the Rotterdam style ending Gold Strike! Also later in the evening some people were kissing….. The party ended at 5.30; again three ladies slept at my place and we went to bed after 6 in the morning….

Sunday - Museum and Swimming pool

At 10.30 I was able to get out of my bed, and already at 11.15 the first participant arrived the nice Chinese girl. At one all the participants were at my place and also some lodgers. Most of them went to the museum and shopping, just Maria, Irena and me went out to go swimming.

This was great, in this way we could relax a bit more. At ten before five we were home, I was scared to be the last, but we were the first. Some 20 minutes later the rest came, and the left all back to Osnabrück.

After they left and we said goodbye, Lars, Job and me went to the Chinese to buy dinner, and we ate at my place. At seven they left, and I was home alone again ;)

So, it was a wonderful weekend, I hope the next mini exchange will be as great as this one!

Photo's Heidelberg Gala

My friends from AEGEE-Paris



European Active friends!


Hoi Lam and Patrick from AEGEE-Rotterdam



Ines and Wouter - Dutch and German Love :)



Somebody from Heidelberg, Duygu and me ;)