That day the EVS volunteers (Sarah, Matiss and I) stayed a bit longer in the office in order to attend a meeting of INEX's promo-team. With this group we try to get a better perspective on how to spread the word of volunteering and youth mobility among young Slovaks. We went through a list of tasks, divided some of them and briefly brainstormed about some others. We agreed to continue this communication by a Google+ group created for us. It was a funny meeting and also interesting for me -that besides my advertising background I'm rather interested in PR and general communication.
Tuesday 12th
Our dear Olga, EVS coordinator and kind of 'tutor' in the office, organized a tea-meeting about her experience in Japan. She was there for something like a month and participated in two different volunteering workcamps as a campleader: one for collecting green tea and another one to collect rice. She really liked the country -she was also telling it once she got back in September-, and I was happy to find out more specific details about her experience and about Japanese culture. Oli also prepared few tasty dishes to try out, like sushi -well, without fish but still-, Japanese green tea and some sweets with beans basis. The meeting happened to be quite a success, not only for the food tasting and the presentation, but also because of the great attendance from the public -we were all squeezed in the office, haha.
Friday 16th and Saturday 17th
This weekend I stayed in Bratislava for the farewell party we had prepared for a very nice couple of Armenian girls. They arrived to Slovakia last year and they were two of the first people I met here, very funny both of them. On Friday we went to a reggae concert in Cafe Scherz -passing before by Valhalla, kind of a shabby place, but still way cheaper than the one we were going to visit. We had a great time in both pubs, after all the important thing is the company -and it had been a while since I didn't go out with such a large group. It was a pretty enjoyable night. Here a pict of my friends :)
On Saturday afternoon and evening, the plan was to take the girls out of the house so their flatmates will arrange a party there. With the excuse of another friend that needed to leave that day, they accompanied him to the station where he 'surprisely' discovered that he had left his wallet in their place. When they reached the place back, friends from different contexts -work, other volunteers, parties- were waiting for them in a nice decorated and cosy living room. We ate, drank and laughed together like always, for me it didn't feel like it was going to be the last time I was going to see them. We said goodbye, though it felt like a 'see you later' :)
Wednesday afternoon we went to Presporkovo Rodinne centrum to prepare together with mother and children some Christmas gifts for the clients of Integra, house for people with disabilities. I really didn't know what to expect since it's been quite long since I don't make any handcraft gifts. In any case, we had a great time and I let my creativity take the lead for creating a puppet and a tote bag. It felt good to create something nice that you know will make somebody happy in a close future.
Thursday 21st
Due to the silly rainy weather that we were having last Thursday, this photography workshop was unfortunately not so popular like the Japanese one. Don't get me wrong, there were many people interested in coming but they finally backed up because of this. For those who were there, we learnt 12 tips that Sarah collected for us, to apply in our photographic sessions. It was nice and inspiring, it motivated me to keep practicing with my camera.
Saturday 23rd
My friend Toni, from Liechtenstein, was one of the first people I met when I arrived here. At that time, he was living in Vienna but now he finished his studies and he's making an internship back in his country. But this weekend, he wrote me that he would be back for some days in Vienna and we arranged to see each other.
Timour -who joined me in the trip- and I wanted to arrive there with some daylight to make some tourism and take some pictures, but unfortunately we missed the train -twice- and we had just the time to take few pics in Museumsquartier. There we met Toni and his friend David, who guided us to the center and then to one of the famous Viennese coffee shops -Alt Wien. We rest for some time there before walking a bit more until Karlsplatz for the Christmas market, where we enjoyed a fire show, met with a Greek friend of Toni's and enjoy a cup of Glühwein -hot wine with spices, tasty and efficiently warming you up in these days.
After the Christmas market we took something to eat and enjoyed a couple of beers in Operngasse street. It's quite interesting, because there are only 60 kms apart, you can really tell the difference between Vienna and Bratislava, Western and Eastern culture. It felt good in there, it made me wonder about looking for future possibilities in the city -I still have to make up my mind, can not decide yet what to do next.
These days in the office I'm finishing a lot of important documents, like the summary brochure about the Youth Exchange Matiss and I coordinated, the final report about EVS and my Youthpass -the list of competences I developed in my time here.
It's eventually finishing and I really can see the end approaching gradually. I would lie if I say I don't feel sad for leaving but it won't be either true that I want to come back and see my family and friends after such a long time. In any case, I'm currently facing the process of finding out what to do after my EVS, which happens to be a difficult thing not because of limitations but because of the great amount of possibilities.
Everyday lately the question of 'what am I going to do next year?'shows up in my mind and different paths together with it. I really need a time to sit down with pen and paper, write down the different ways I can take and start making favor and against lists. I'll find our what is really the most interesting option for me and then totally go for it :)
That's all for today, my pretty ones,
Big hugs,
Ali
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