During the time, when in Lithuania its half day raining and half day sunny, 34 young people gathered in a beautiful ski resort in Zakopane, Poland. To start with, I have to mention, that Lithuanian team really enjoyed the trip to the place. We got this nice communication flowing between us and I have a feeling, that this the-further-the-sunnier weather was our main enthusiasm generator. During the project, we had some important things to do: we had to make some presentations. The most important of them was a suggestion on how to make our planet more eco-friendly, since the project was about ecology. We took this task properly and everybody was interested in how we could save nature and save money by installing solar panels. We even showed a video of self-made oven. Did you know, you can make an oven from cooking foil and a box? We do know, and we know how to! Another task, which was more creative than theoretical, gave us some fun time and team-building while presenting an eco-farm. I recommend you to read Tomas Berginas’ article about how fun it was to brainstorm an alternative way of saving nature and money and being in harmony with our surroundings.
My most favorite task, which maybe was not so much ecologically-themed, but still very fun – a safe rocket construction. We were split to teams and every team got an unboiled egg and some materials, equal in quantity for every team. Our task was to make a safe carrier for the egg not to break when thrown from the highest floor. And guess who won? Yes, it was us! We wrapped the egg in lots of paper and sticked it to handles of a plastic bag. Then we cut the bag deeper for it to collect air rapidly and work as a parachute. And so, when other peoples eggs were smashing to the ground from second floor, our parachute was working even better the higher we got, because it had some more space and time to fully deploy. As a prize, we got some amazing Slovakian chocolate.
Of course, we had some excursions. My photo from Auschwitz was considered the best photo of the day, you can check it on Tomas Berginas article‘s top! It was very interesting and comfortable, because during the excursion information was told through earphones. But my most favored part was going to an aqua park in a luxurious hotel. It was so fun and relaxing and warm!
Also, I want to mention, that we, of course, had intercultural evenings! As a Lithuanian team, we were most applauded for “šakotis” cake. But I had two nights that awed me the most. First it was Italian night. They made a feast for us with Nutella, marmalade, Italian coffee and, of course… Three amazing bowls of Italian pasta. It was soooo tasty, I ate three full plates, one of each type! After the Italian evening we had this fun improvised table tennis tournament of 8 players at a time. We had to run around the table to manage to hit the ball back, and if you don’t manage to do it on time – you’re out. And so on until the final showdown between two finalists, who play on standard rules.
The second amazing night was Romanian. They brought us many sweets, but what surprised me the most, it was the fact, that one girl from the team brought a traditional Romanian shirt who has to be passed from generation to generation. That shirt of her looked completely new and snow-white, but when she told us it was 200 years old – I could not believe!
As you can see, the project was not only very interesting, but also joyful, fun and practical. I’m really thankful both for our sending organization and for the project hosts!