My dearest diary,
I know, it’s been a while… I haven’t written you for couple days. But the fact is, that 2 weeks ago I came back home from La Vancelle and I am still not able to fully concentrate and be back in reality. I left a piece of my heart there in that small village of Alsace region…
I remember the day when I was selected to be a part of a very interesting project “Improve entrepreneurship skills” with non-formal methods of education – improvisation and drama. I was so happy, yet I had many doubts. Fortunately, the doubts were not so strong, so I decided to go and spend 11 days of October with other 20 (strange) people in France. Dear diary, now I can tell you… I thought that I would miss so much in my school during those 11 days. Yes, buuuut if I had missed this, it would have been way bigger loss for me. ?
The journey was not the best, what can I tell. I had to ask my dad to drive me to Vienna airport, then fly to Frankfurt, get lost at the airport, take bus to Strasbourg, ask for train tickets to Séléstat in French, take another bus to La Vancelle and finally arrive to our Youth hostel. The first thing I saw there was a funny host, Eric, holding two tents with the words: “The hostel is full for today, you have to sleep in a tent.” And I, being STRONG, INDEPENTENT and EMANCIPATED woman, had no problem with this. But of course, I knew he just played with us.
We started our journey in La Vancelle with a big dinner everybody together. That is how I started to know my new friends, well, my new family for the next 10 days and our 2 amazing (a bit crazy, but we loved them so much) trainers, Filip and Mateusz.
My dear friend, every day was so awesome! We were having breakfast, lunch and dinner together like a big family. We had so many activities during the day (and now I don’t even care we did not have much free time ?) with no chance to be bored. Energizers, Ice-breakers, workshops… and mostly drama and improvisation. You can’t imagine how happy I was to try theatre for the first time and realize that this is exactly what can make me happy. I felt like a real actress with everything connected to it. Our task was to be creative all the time. Just the countdown and 1 word: 3, 2, 1, IMPRO! And we had to improvise ?.
I improved not only my leadership and entrepreneurship skills, but also my creativity and talking skills. I learnt how to be more open-minded, how not to be afraid of my opinion. I appreciated the teamwork the most. Since we were everybody so great people (and, oh my god, so awesome, yay), we did not lose time with being shy to each other. We were so open, did not have secrets and we were able to talk about anything. Just like a big FAMILY.
Oh yes, my dear diary, I know. I’ve said FAMILY so many times. But this is just how I felt back there. I felt LEGEN… wait for it… DARY. LEGENDARY!
And the most important thing for You to know, what did I experience? Sooooooooooooooooo many things, my friends, so many. I am thankful for every one of them:
• New friends
• New cultures
• Italian lessons (and Italian gestures, ma che caz…, I don’t want to be rude?)
• Juggling
• Massages
• Games
• Spanish, let’s say, “urban dictionary” ?
• Tips and tricks how to survive winter (and the whole year) in Latvia and Lithuania
• National foods and drinks
• The fact that the egg doesn’t have to be cooked well to be edible
• The fact that every item can have at least 10 more ways how to be used
• “Mushroom” should be pronounced “musrom”
• “Never have I ever” is the best ice-breaking game
• Travelling is not about the places, but about the people you meet
• Everything is possible, you just have to believe in it
• NFE methods are the best way to learn
• Life is much easier when having fun.
Mio caro amico, mio diario, I think that now you have a lot of information about my amazing trip to La Vancelle. You know I will never forget anything or anybody from the project and that I have only the best memories. We finished our project with contemplating about what we experienced so far. Everybody either sat in a comfortable position or just lied down on the ground and listened to Filip. After this we had the opportunity to write a short note to each of us. This way everybody had an envelope full of lovely notes <3.
The last day was very hard. Nobody wanted to leave. Aaaah, how I hate these emotional things. I was not the first to leave but I felt really weird taking the minibus to Séléstat in 9.15 in the morning. I took train again to Strasbourg, then waited for the bus at the station, DID NOT get lost at the Frankfurt airport, flew to Vienna, took bus to Bratislava and finally, on my train back home from the capitol, I opened the envelope with notes, smiling with the tears in my eyes.
For now, this is everything. But… you never know what will be my next stop. Maybe I will write you from Lisboa, Sofia, Vilnius, Olsztyn, București, Rīga, Madrid, Bisceglie… But I will write, I promise.
So, my dear diary, this is not a goodbye, it is see you soon.
Yours truly, Eliška
Huge thanks to Erasmus+, ADEL Slovakia and Tambour Battant for this beautiful experience full of memories.
