23 of July It was my first youth exchange ever. To be honest I applied because all the participants countries seemed really nice and I had nothing better to do in the summer. I have visited all the project countries except Slovakia, so I had a pretty good overview of many nations already. I have never thought how far one point in Estonia can be from your home. But bus trip from Tallinn to Põlva took more than 3 hours. From Tartu two Germans sat in front of me. I thought that it is not normal that Germans are in Põlva bus, they must be bounded with our project. So, I asked are they also going to the youth exchange. Yup, I met with Mara and Dario from German team. Mara already knew Birgit, our project organizer. So, she knew who we have to look for in the bus station. I also met Kristjan there. We met in the previous project. We had a lift to Mammaste and had to take care of potatoes, to clean and peel them. Otherwise we would have starved this night. Hhaha, this time we got lucky because Spanish team already dealt with the food. In the first evening we talked to each other and somehow the topic went to a Despacito song. Spanish people translated the song. And we searched the Estonian and German versions of it. Somehow "Tasakesi" became the most popular version. Maria and Laura even started learning the lyrics. During the evening more and more people arrived. But last men standing were Estonians. Me, Allar, Kristjan and Lennart were up way too late. I don't even know how we had so much to talk to. 24 of July Morning was really peaceful. It was a music all over the house organized by Alessio. On that day we played name games that Spanish team had prepared for us. We started with balloons. It was difficult to break the balloon if you are afraid of it. So, I used a branch to break it. Inside a balloon there was a name of one of the members. With that person you had to talk and share facts about your life. After that you had to introduce this person to all the others. My partner Laura decided to mention that I am single, like it was certainly the most important fact about me. I guess this "are you single" topic started from there. Then we round games, where you had to remember someone's gesture and imitate it. Then name games with ball of yarn, so in the end we had a dense net. In the second part of the day Estonian team introduced the project in general. We had a quick overview about the timetable and everybody got involved to the group work. We divided ourselves into different groups to organize our life a bit. For example, we made cleaning and breakfast teams. Then Romet organized a pillow game, everybody enjoyed it. We ended our session with social games. Then we went wandering around to find the closest shop. In the evening Bulgarians finally arrived. 25 of July In the morning we played some more name games to get to know each other more. Games with ball and a bed sheet. This time I wore T-shirt with my name on the back, I thought if people can see my name it is easier to remember it. And those funny games to react quickly and silly at the same time. For example to be a washing machine or James Bond. At some point we went really physical. We held our hands and made a real mess and tried to solve it afterwards. because it was super hot outside. Burak introduced the best activity ever for us, a massage. Summer arrived to Estonia for a couple of days. So, after lunch we went to a local beach. I didn't know that in Põlva there is a sandy beautiful beach. It was refreshing to swim in the lake after walking there, because it wasn't so close to our accommodation place. Most of the people played a volleyball. In the evening we had a mission impossible organized by Germans. We had to write a song and make a sugar logo with organizers. In the evening we had an Italian intercultural night. They had educating presentation about most of the gestures they have in their language. Everyone knows that talking is only one part of Italians communication. 26 of July
We started our morning really actively with sugar islands game. At first it seemed an easy task but if you lost your attention for a moment you already lost one paper sheet (read: island) you needed to jump on the papers or squeeze yourself into a smaller group. It was nice to hug each other and I have to mention that we really had physical exercises. Then Slovak team introduced different body shapes and reasons what might cause it. We made international teams and started to compare in different tasks. But every great team needs a logo and a name. Our group name was SugarBae, we got inspiration from famous Turkish cook. Then we watched some scary videos about unhealthy lifestyle. Afterwards we had to make a food pyramid into our international team. If your team's pyramid was close enough to the exact one you gained points. By the way, the real correct food pyramid doesn't exist. We did a quiz to gain some more points for your team. Because the weather was nice we had some more outdoor activities. We played "grab a flag game" with Italian flag, actually I don't know how to call it but it seems pretty reasonable. On the second part of the day we made warning videos about the sugar in our everyday life. Those videos based on sugar experiments we made to figure out how much sugar products consist.
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AuthorMy connection with Erasmus+ projects. Youth exchanges and training courses. Archives
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