Serbia

On Friday I left raining Zagreb, to find a also raining Belgrade (for those who are interested to know in Serbian its called Beograd, which means white city).

In the first night we went clubbing near the river, a very cool place and on Saturday afternoon we did some sight seeing. I had the best guide tours, Alex and her brother, Velimir.

From what I’ve seen, in the last five years Belgrade is making many efforts to overcome the destruction and abandoned of its heritage during the last decades. It is possible to find a lot of influences from Turkish, a little bit of Hungarian and Austrian, and also still some from bombing. It’s a different city and I would characterize it as a city that is alive, you can find so many people in its large streets, cultural events and the traffic is more chaotic and crazy than Zagreb.

And I also heard that Serbian people are a bit crazy, and I understood what those people meant…

I could find this sign in the fortress of the city, Kalemegdan, and I thought it meant "Please, don’t step in the grass". It actually means that "This is the invisible tree that can read your mind" in Cyrillic.

In that night we had fun at home with the Sangria that I’ve made and in the next day we were ready for more sightseeing. So we went to Zemun, which is in the other side of the river where it was possible to find a beautiful view over the Danube river and Belgrade.

In this last day in Belgrade all people that are going to represent AIESEC Croatia in the International Congress 2007 in Turkey (where I am going next) arrived, therefore we start preparation. I had the opportunity to visit the MC office of AIESEC Serbia and also the LC of Mihajlo (for those who know him, will understand how funny that has for me). To finish big we went just to relax in a cool coffee bar, enjoy Alex’s mother cooking’s and to buy very cheap cigarettes for some Portuguese people that requested heheh.

I will see you in turkey :)

Slovenia

My trip to Slovenia is definitely worth a post…

The beauty about being in the center of Europe is the following: Saturday, 29th of July, in Split speaking with a Serbian Girl who had an internship in Slovenia:

- So, where are you going after Split?

- Oh, I’m going on Tuesday to Slovenia and I leave from there on Thursday to Italy. And you?

- Well, I don’t have any plans.

- Do you wanna come and meet Ljubljana? You could come with me and on Wednesday we can see the city because one day is really enough.

- Yes, why not? Let’s go.

The possibility to go to another country, to pay less than 20€ and to take less than 3 hours. How great is that? So you can imagine my excitement, I even forgot the passport and we had to take another train (“European Union People” my friend would say).

About the city, it’s a small city but it has some magic I must say. There is this river that breaks into two and then joins again giving the city a tough of Amsterdam appearance, with bridges and lovely buildings in both the sides. The castle from the top of the small hill remains very well preserved and gives the opportunity to the hundreds of tourists to see the entire city (people from Croatia and Serbia would say that it’s possible to see the whole country, because they are always making fun of the small size of Slovenia).

This photo is from this place called the 3 bridges.

A view from the Castle tower

And… Even if Slovenia didn’t have anything else, I believe that only for this it would be worth to visit this country. Imagine, walking around and to see a lot of signs saying that! Because in their language Cona means Zone… I don’t think I need to say more…

Well, it was great, I loved the feeling to go to another country is so short notice and the city. Thanks Bojana and see you soon.

Why does it always rains on me...

The weekend in Split was really great. In the first day I went to an amazing coffee bar with a great view over the city. In the second day I had the opportunity to try Octopus cooked via a typical cooking method from Dalmatia Region which is called “Peka”, I also went to an amazing sightseeing place in memory of the war soldiers from which it was possible to see the islands and cities around. In the third day I went climbing this mountain in Split called “Marjan” with an amazing view also and also I went up the St. Domnius’ Bell Tower of the Palace of Dioclatian. I was completely fascinated with the old part of the city, the palace, and the streets, so full of history. What I liked most is the fact that local people are still living inside the palace in so pictorial small houses. Also, a funny thing that happened is that I was walking in the Riva at night and suddenly I hear Portuguese. There was a large group of Portuguese people doing some kind of study tour to the palace and I found myself following them just to hear a bit of Portuguese. It’s was such a great feeling :) Besides all this, I went everyday to the beach and I had great parties. Thank you all guys for such great moments. Now I’m back to Zagreb, its 18 Cº outside, and it will probably rain. Actually, in this city I think it rains every week at least once. This is a picture from the beginning of July, so you can see. And now, I’m going to take advantage of the fact that I am in the center of Europe and start travelling. Today the destination is Slovenia.

Wine with Coca-cola

Last week I had a lot of work because I was going to have an AIESEC Conference (5 days with the 5 local responsibles for HR, all girls!) mainly for knowledge sharing, decision making and define actions steps for the term.

So, after 1 hour of sleep I left Zagreb on Thursday to Starigrad (it means old city), a small city in the coast near Paklenica, a National Park.

We really had a good time, we have covered everything we needed, we were very flexible but effective, we made important decisions, we danced, we still had time to go to beach everyday (the water is around 26-28 Cº), to get to know and to drink. One interesting custom here is to mix wine with coca-cola. Young people normally buy very cheap red wine and mix it with coca-cola and also in AIESEC conferences the same happens. With white wine, they mix it with mineral water.

(This is a photo when we left home one night; the one that we took when we arrived is censured). I had a great time and I am very satisfied with the final outcome. It was somehow challenging but I’ve learned a lot of important things about the country and especially about the AIESEC culture in Croatia.

I can say now that one of the biggest strength of AIESEC in Croatia is the mindset that people have that they are One AIESEC. Just to give an example, in LC Meetings it’s normal to present the activities and projects of others LC’s. So, it was very interesting to see them discussing about things such as “How to communicate selection to new members” because they were concerned in transmitting the same message, otherwise it wouldn’t be good when different members from different LC’s talked about it and perceive differences in the process…

So, after those five days I’m back in Zagreb, I’ll soon start my vacations until 10th of August and I’m going to Split and to Belgrade for sure, and probably some other places...

Last Month Update II

Continuation...

- Fourth week: I went to do some sightseeing with Geet (Indian) to downtown of Zagreb. I really like this city, specially the coffee bars in every street, the parks, and the large roads with a lot of space to walk.

- Fifth week: this was a very busy week with a lot of work. Me and Sinisa we manage to clean the office and now it seems a new place (I think it’s smaller than the Portuguese MC Office but it was a window, and that makes all the difference).

Also that week, there was an AIESEC’er from Brazil here, Luis, so it was pretty cool to speak in Portuguese with someone heheh. Another coincidence is that he is Lilian’s friend, an intern of AIESEC ISCTE in 2003, they were from the same LC. So we went clubbing in Zagreb (finally!) with AIESEC people and we went to a barbecue near a lake in Zagreb in the weekend.

Well, we started playing drinking games and this is the photo after the four of us going inside the lake (including the mobile :\) - Sixth week: in the last week the highlight was to go to a football match: Dinamo Zagreb (2) vs. (1) Wolfsburg, a friendly game. It was pretty cool so see that the lyrics change but the melodic of cheering groups are the same as in Portugal football matchs heheh. So, were it is a very brief resume of my weeks here, ufa…

Last Month Update I

So, what happened during this first month?

- First week: it was mostly preparation to visit the LC (Local Committee) of AIESEC in Split, for which I am responsible to coach. Here you can see photos from MC (it’s the team that I belong to and it stands for Membership Committee) house (we live in the second floor) from which I take 45 minutes to get to the office and 40 to the city center.

- Second week: the visit to Split. It’s a very beautiful city and reminds me Funchal.

I had the opportunity to visit the castle and the beach (twice, and I even went to swim once). More than once, we went to the beach at night to drink (in Croatia that is very usual among young people, to buy drinks, go to some place outside and then to go clubbing). I was very well received and it was very interesting to get to know better the LC, but there is definitely a lot of work to do.

Two interesting episodes: one German guy that last year was in Split for an internship was there during my visit period in vacations and I had the opportunity to meet him. The funny thing is that it wasn’t the first time because we knew each other from EuroLDS (AIESEC conference in Spain 2004 where I was delegate and he was from the organization). What a coincidence :)

Second episode: the EB (Executive Board) from Split wanted to learn a Portuguese Roll Call, so I have teach them “Estou Alegre” song, and here it is one photo from what they have wrote to be able to tape the video I have sent to the communities heheh. Can you understand anything?

Then I went back to Zagreb and finally I meet the Indian girl that had arrived meanwhile to Croatia. That week I also went to an LC Meeting of LC Zagreb (they have LC Meetings every week!).

- Third week: finally we manage to gather all the team together. We started with the MC planning and we also had some Teambuilding moments. We went to this very beautiful and big park in Zagreb, Maksimir.

To be continued...