Stodolni tour 2006, Ostrava

In 13 people (me, Lucka, Jarda, Velissa, Tomas, Fjodor and trainees Piros, Gina, Cedric, Alex, Stas, Lukasz, Abi ) we left Prague on Sat at 10 am to travel for 5 hrs by train to Ostrava, to go for a party to "Stodolni tour 2006", event organised every year by AIESEC Ostrava. There gathered around 100 AIESEC members and trainees from the whole Czech Republic.

After having eaten in Asian restaurant - classic noodle/rice meal with chicken meat :-), we went to Stodolni street, where was the gathering place for participants of Stodolni tour.

I talked there to Chris, Greek guy who I met in Karlsruhe (TWIN 2004) and who is for traineeship right now in Ostrava, had participated in why-do-we-do such-things? game :-) , chatted during the dinner with some more people there and finally in the evening Alex B. arrived to join us!

Then there was the travesti show (to be honest, the performance was average, if not lower, but we laughed a lot as the travesti guys liked Jarda so much, that they even invited him to stage to be part of the show ;-)).


And at last we all went for clubbing. I like this party time when you can just enjoy the music and dance as long and as much as you want/can. Dancing all the time there, I do not have any pictures from that time. I only remember trainees and people dancing around, smiling and having fun. Which was actually the reason we went there... ;-)

There are around 60 clubs and pubs in Stodolni street, so one has to decide where to jump in and after some dancing you chose for another one.
I dont even know how it happened, the fact is that in Desperado club we danced on the table and in the windows to do some "show" ;-) for other people walking through Stodolni . . . Funny!

In E 99 club, where we spent most of the time, we danced together with Esko, Majka, Jarda, Radim, Velissa, trainess and others almost till 4 am on Sun.

The fact is we had to chatch the train to be back in Prague in the morning.

I have to admit it was crazy going through the whole country just for one night to a big party time, and it was worth it!
I found out we have great trainees here in Prague who went with us, we were cool party delegates from Prague and had colossal party time in Ostrava.

Stodolni tour 2006 rocked!
Awaiting the next-year edition :-)

Song of the week #2: Bent - Swollen

Lyrics to be found here

Happy about upcoming socializing time

From time to time one feels the need to get amused in organised way.
Me too ;-)

So, what is going to happen:

25/11/06 - Stodolni tour in Ostrava with a bunch of people from Prague
30/11/06 - going to *CLOU* concert - group I adore
30/12/06 - 01/01/07 - New Year's Eve in Prague - this year it will rock here, yeah!

frangible thing called friendship

I have realised recently there are people in my life I call friends. Doesn't matter they live in the same place as you,
you don't care how much time you spend chatting in cafés,
it is not important to you that s/he is in different country nor continent,
you don't count the hours when cooking together...
You just know you invest in a personal bank of each other
and you feel kind of feed back.
And this feeling is just great!

Having some coins in your wallet...

On Thursday,

I met a guy in the underground offering people they could donate some money to children foundation that provided toys and equipments for ill children. For 10 CZK donation you get heart-shaped-label, for 40 CZK a small wooden whistle as "thank you". When he was trying to introduce himself to people in the undergroud, 4 of 5 refused to hear anything... Just one older lady gave him 10 CZK.

Then he approached me. I asked him if he could tell me more about this foundation, so I was shown official City Hall statement. Now, I was standing in the underground, surrounded by people, he said "as a young I will understand him" and donate some money. I knew I had just 50 CZK coin in the wallet and some big paper money... Now, it was time to decide what to do:

+ I felt like donating some money but not too much
- I said I had just 50 CZK coin, where he cannot give me money back
+ I saw his face wishing somebody would understand him
- I said to myself he would misuse the money he was collecting
+ simply I realised sometimes you have to believe in simplicity and fairness in the life . . .

So, I am keeping my wooden whistle in my handbag.

Much more was this story for me to think about one fact - wearing some extra coins in my wallet, you will never know when you will need them...

And you said you liked travelling?!

read more here

Faci team at ENERGY 2006 - flashback

I have experienced it, yes, I have - TEAM experience . . .

Unbelievable, when we arrived to Siauliai for faci pre-meeting, we were 19 individuals from Estonia, Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, Hong Kong, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Turkey, Russia, Slovenia...

. . . with the time, we were becoming faci team . . .

Leaving Siauliai after one week, we knew we were a real TEAM. . .

I don't feel like describing it with words, sometimes a picture is valuable as thousand words....

ENERGY 2006, Siauliai - facilitating

Designed to Empower YOU

Being in Siauliai, Lithuania, to facilitate at international conference ENERGY 2006 was one of the most exciting times I have lived so far in AIESEC.

Imagine:

• 250 delegates from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia
  
• 17 facilitators from 10 countries
• 2 great guys: René (conference manager)+Ümit (chair)
• 10 people in Organising Committee (+OC supporters)
• 3 days of learning - for EVERYONE!

• Derek Small empowering session
• Jarda (CEE GN director)
• companies involved: Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Peep Vain
• AIESEC XP simulation session = 5 hrs long session (it is not about time, it is about quality of the session...)

• eXchange track run in Czech-Estonian couples whole Saturday (it is not about counting hours, it is about delegates' learning...)
  

• issue based party ("pimp my party"), special party chair, people performing (not only) AIESEC dances till the official end of the party

• Global village (Czech delegation enjoying it so much, that I was even found exhausted and sleeping under the table during GV ;-) + Estonian citizenship rulezz)

• rhythm based clapping and singing during plenaries and wrap-ups
• site: high school building, LCs sleeping in class rooms in sleeping bags
• gossip box team and "Dancing queen"
• ice-cream ;-)
• YMCA roll-call
• snowing on Sunday
• 3 days of peerlessness & fun, too
• . . . .
  

My Baltics' friends, I know we had wonderful time together,
keep on doin'!

Lithuania, visiting Vilnius in one day

Baltics...
After 6 months going again to Lithuania. Hmm, is it a destiny country for me? ;-) This time we were heading there with Petra to Siauliai, stopping by in Vilnius to do some sightseeing and finding out AIESECers in Vilnius are very kind to foreigners :-)

We spent the whole day in the center - seeing Vilnius from The Hill of Three Crosses together with Giedrius and Gilmentas, then we went to the MC office to leave our belongings there and we were ready for exploring Vilnius. Guys took us to the Gedimino street, the main and very nice place with all the shops nowadays' human beings cannot imagine life without [including McD.. . :-) ]

We saw the Vilnius University - so many garden yards within the area just surrounded by walls and living so special student's atmosphere there, President's house, St. Anne's Church (I admired that church! You cannot even count the total amount of churches there in Vilnius...). Vilnius is unique (among another facts) that you find in the center buildings max. 3 floor high in order not to harm the historical atmosphere in the city. Nice!

What is more, as Lithuania is situated at the amber coast, you may get amber manufacture everywhere! And everywhere means really everywhere. These guys know how to work with their national treasure, am I right?

In the evening we went to Casa Nova restaurant with Giedrius, the Hot Lover, to eat pizza together with Ümit, went back to the airport to pick up Irena finding out there is wireless internet connection for free in whole Lithuania... and heading to Siauliai (1 small Japanese car, 5 people, 4 luggages, music and fun.fun.fun)... This was just the beginning of the Lithuanian adventure!

Song of the week #1: David Guetta - The World Is Mine

Ok, who cares about the video shot - just, can you feel the BEAT?!
Lyrics to be found here

Outdoor team, LTC 2006

Wow,

Local Training Conference 2006 will be always the one I have enjoyed the most. I worked together with my outdoor team, guys who were so much willing to bring outdoor games in the way like it has never been before.

Having kind of teambuilding in KB office in Prague when Jarda came up with the idea of us being zombies was just the first step. Damn cooool! We even bought beef livers for our first time on the stage during opening plenary, just to shock not only new recruited AIESEC members, current members did not want to believe we are able to do "such things" :-) CRAZY!

Time was too fast, in 30 minutes we were dressed up as real outdoor facilitators and divided our teams. So much work, so much energy put in everything - and the end? Goal of these outdoor activities was reached! Great job, Zuzka, Paja, Peta, Vojta, Jarda and Misan!

We delivered Oscariada in super trouper way, as well! All outdoor team performing "Sladke mameni", dancing in negligee. We both, Jarda and me, improved our presentation skills :-) when awarding delegates for shooted videos (topic: Cultural differences). And the night? Pyjamas party...

Saturday evening? Mission: night game. Every AIESEC Praha member remembers forever after LTC the time when s/he spent 2 hours with her/his new team somewhere in the forest, passing different obstacles on their first team way. The atmosphere that night ? Foggy, pretty cold, music played at the end of their journey and hot wine to warm up. Outdoor team facis did not get lost, mission: fulfilled!

Special moments of our performance?
+ trying to go through the night game journey in 5 people at 3 am
+ outdoor team room (normally 3 people fit in, we did so in 7!)
+ breakfast eaten in our room
+ making the atmosphere during LTC :-) WE DID!!!
+ gossip team and punishment commando done by outdoor team facis!
+ incredible fun within outdoor team
+ "vypadáš skvěle!" [you look gorgeous]
+ "za vším hledej outdoor tým" [outdoor team is responsible for EVERYTHING]

My facis, just because of you and our work I will remember LTC 2006 as the best local conference ever! Thank you for everything you put in our performance, we were f#*@ing GREAT!!!
Love ya!

My Україна

One of my friends I met in AIESEC, Anna Volkova, invited me in September to come to Ukraine for one week. The reason was simple, I was supposed to be chair at Opening Conference of World Without Borders project.

After 24 hours in bus I reached Kiev. The whole day I spent sightseeing with Lena who took care of me. Thanks a lot for this, it was nice being in the center together with George and Dina, who came to Ukraine too, in this case to be interns for this project.

Having eaten at Puzata Hata, restaurant with traditional food, seeing center of Kiev and having fun, of course, I luckily met Anna in the underground. It is so nice to see again somebody who you have close relationship with. Anna took me to her home, we had dinner together with her family and the next day I was invited to lunch to her grandmother's. SO AMAZING! I love Ukrainian cuisine.

The conference itself took place in suburb of Kiev, in a small resort. Having there 20 interns, organising committee, some more AIESECers and international team of facilitators (Olya, Julia, Yigit, Anna), we spent together 3 wonderful days. It was a challenge for me to have in the audience guys from Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, Brazil, Singapore and Ukraine at one time!
Such international experience on few square meters... even not able to describe it...

Last evening/night was dedicated to country presentations and it was time for Global village, too. Jovin explained us for example where to go for swimming in Mauritius, Turkish guys talked about Atatürk in a way I realised how much this person means for their nation. Anton and Anechka rapped in Ukrainan way, unbelievable.

Time when I had to say bye bye to these people was interesting, when I knew they were going to spend 2 months in Ukraine as interns in different 6 cities. It was just me who was going back home... This moment made me decide that I wanna go for internship, as well. To live the eXPerinece like no other.
My I-will-never-forget-you-WWB-interns, have great time in Ukraine and live the eXPerience like no other!
You will be always in my mind.