Before the exchange

Many things happened before the exchange. Well, maybe not many of them but at least some of them that were remarkable for me.

I came back to Integra's workcamp for the Feast of Cultures. Since the main public for this event were the daily clients -who suffer from some physical or mental disabilities-, they did a great job creating a nice theater where they were superheroes, and in the same time they introduced their country in a simple way. Here some pictures, and here the fulm album of Sarah's visit.

But let's be honest, my main attraction was because of the food. It's always nice to try different tastes, and I think this was the first time that people were already full and there was still some food on the table -not that I didn't try to finish it all, but well...

Then during the weekend -that I had expected like a time to relax and conscientiously prepare last details about the exchange-, a lot of plans came up and I tried to join some of them. Firstly, speaking with Matiss I realized there wasn't much things to do, so on Friday evening I went with some volunteers friends to the wine festival in Raca, a district in the outskirts of Bratislava. I was quite surprise to find something very similar to the southern Spanish 'ferias', only with no so much variety in the stands -either food or burciak, fermented wine, just before its processing. We tried in several stands the different kinds and bought two bottles, one for the following day and the other just to continue the night -'botellon' in the tram back to the center, why not?

The next day, Saturday 14th, I woke up early to take the train to Banska Bystrica for going to another fair, the one that it is said that Janosik himself use to visit every year. Again, it looked like the Spanish ferias, and this time I even tried a fun ride! Gosh, the hammer -that was scary but plenty of fun though. Then in the evening a newyorker girl managed to get me drunk in a drinking game where we found out a lot of stuff from the group, and finally I went to rest to Zvolen by night.

Sunday came and, as a proper Sunday, I stayed lazing around the day in Zvolen until taking the 7pm train to Bratislava. When I arrived, I prepared my backpack and made sure we had all the materials for the exchange. And then on Monday the last and latest adventure within a big group began :)