Even though I believed that I never have a change to write the following blog post . . . life surprised me. It proofs that if you are a good person, amazing thing are going to happen with you. Training course "You and M&E" in Estonia actually was two parted. Seminar was about to be held in Wales in September. At the first place I shouldn't go there because Estonian participants places were already occupied but thanks to wonderful Billy I was able to participate as well. The hardest part of that was the fact it all was a secret. I usually don't have serious problems with keeping secrets because I'll forget them. But with this one I struggeled a bit. I met Karolina many times and had to lie her about how boring my life would be until she is in Wales. 04.09. My travelling day started really early. I had a change to practice my driving skills in an empty Tallinn 😆 From Tallinn I went to Oslo and from Oslo to Dublin. There I had about 5 hours to spend in the city center. I got off the airport bus in front of the Oscar Wilde house. I was totally shocked because recently I started to read once again "The Picture of Dorian Gray" to recall all the deeper emotions that this books hides. Anyway it was a great coincidence and from there I went directly to the National Gallery. I was amazed by their collection. Had so many WOW moments seeing great artists work's. Then I visited archaeology museum and ended up in Trinity College. I finally got a real university experience, the real university community is way more interesting than just uni with main building and no extra curricular attractions in it. Dublin's old town is amazing and interesting as well. In the airport I met Bulgarian and Czech team. It was great to have a chat with familiar people but at that point I was totally exhausted. Late at night we arrived to Cardiff. After a short ride to our Lavernock home Billy showed us our houses. And guess what? In our chalet was already a party going on. Well, didn't have too much time to think about that because we were in a hurry to pick up Karolina and Kristi from the bus station. They couldn't suspect anything until the moment when they literally saw me standing in the bus. Karolina took it quite calmly, but at some point Kristi started shouting 😄 05.09. We should have gone out discovering Wales in the morning, but because many people arrived pretty late we got more time to stay in Lavernock. Meeting with Heleri was funny. She saw me and Karolina through the window. But her brain just refused to identify me. She just thought that girl next to Karolina is someone really similar to me. But when I went directly to Heleri, she was perplexed. It was still hard to believe what I was doing there. Because Wales blessed us with a sunny day we went on a tracking path to breath fresh ocean air. Because tide favoured us we wanted to go down to the beach. But somehow we missed the right path and finally ended up in a village (edge of the Cardiff). On our way back we finally discovered a road to the beach. Other were already there. Beach was covered by rocks and it was really inconvenient to walk there. Ocean water was cold as expected. Because our way was full of blackberries, it was kind of impossible not to eat them. In the afternoon we went to the Big Pit coalmine. Somehow we were late, even though we had extra hours in the morning. Mine was now opened as a museum. Our guide was really charming guy who guided us in the dark and cold roads underground. After gathering information about Welsh history we tried to go to the Roman Town. But unfortunately on our way there we discovered that it is already closed for that day. So, we turned around and enjoyed traffic jams around Cardiff. At first it was planned to have a national cooking night, but because people were exhausted we decided to postpone this event. Instead of that we had juts great time in the pub. There were various ways how to have fun. 06.09. We spent the whole day at youth club. We started with slight meeting games. Of course we managed to reveal to public our funniest wishes with Karolina. So, if you have a rich single friend, take a contact with me. I'll arrange a meeting with Karo and her future rich husband 😆 After meeting games we had to present our work done with evaluation and monitoring. Even though we had a time limit per presentation. The session itself took very long time. Best part of session was Mihaela's task to capture the moment after every presentation with selfie stick. During the break time we enjoyed Welsh bakeries work eating sandwiches. Because near Lavernock accommodation place we didn't have a grocery store, we used a change to visit a shopping mall. Unfortunately it took a bit too long and we were late with a bunch of people to the session. At least it was a great shopping experience, though everything is expensive there! After full day in Cardiff we started cooking for our cultural night in lovely Lavernock. We decided to make minced meat sauce with boiled potatoes. It is ordinary and easy-to-prepare meal. It's nothing extraordinary and fancy. It is just a dish that tastes good and you can consider it as an Estonian food. Because people always ask what is the traditional Estonian food. I always struggle what I should answer because traditional food here is pretty nasty 🤪 As usual Estonians were the first ones who were ready. So, we started to eat our own food until other's arrived as well. My personal favourite food was offered by Bulgarians. My quilty pleasure banitsa and shopska salad were presented. Because there was so much food and you wanted to taste everything you ended up feeling totally full. 07.09.
Huuh, this was a day full of insane activities. Gorge Walk was the event I was afraid of the most. Water and jumping into profound indefiniteness is totally not my cup of tea. Moreover. it was an extremely cold day. Never have I ever been so cold than I was during the hike. Every ray of sunshine was a total blessing. Fortunately the instructors were funny and helpful. It wasn't really pleasant journey but it was totally worth it. Facing your fears is never a bad idea. Billy was especially brave capturing us during the hike. We had wetsuits on, but he just walked through the water crossing the river. But it was great that he did the whole way with us because now we have amazing video and photo material. I am totally in love with the place itself. I love waterfalls and green nature around it. If I had time beside focusing my surviving I just admired the nature around me and I felt inner peace that after few weeks I'll be visiting place with similar nature. I would totally hike there without getting wet 👍 After Gorge Walk I was certain that I will be sick because freezing more than an hour seemed to be harmful. My second worry was my hair colour. Just a day before coming to Wales my friend made miracles with my hair and gave them purple ombre look. But this hair colour was semi-permanent and after soaking my hair hours in the water I was sure that there is no pigment left. But for my surprise I didn't get sick and my hair still had a pinkish shine. In the evening we had another culture evening. This time we were just presenting our snacks with national symbolism. Because my presence had to be a secret for Estonians I had to figure out products that they are not going to bring in Wales and them by myself. It worked out, because we had variety of sweets. On Saturday it was Blanka's birthday and we started to celebrate it as soon as clock reached midnight.
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