Have you ever thought that in 7 days you can integrate 6 nations? Probably nobody believed in that …

We found it possible to spend a week in Croatian forest under mountains and above the sea. Miracles happen =). The beginning was hard – all embarrassed, shy and (some of us) tired after 30 hours of traveling we looked at next week with eyes full of questions. However magical atmosphere of Croatian nights changed everything. The 1^st night we spent looking at stars. A sound of waves, warm wind, smell of pinie forest and the Milky Way started the most amazing time in our lives. Each next day brought us new surprising adventures. (I couldn’t read that name :D, authors please send me an email co I can complete it :D) wants to have a baby.

Full of information and news about the EU, nights spent on playing cards, tasty and interesting national evenings made Thursday’s saying Goodbye very painful and tearful.

Now coming back to our countries, full of wonderful memories we regret it is over. We have to promise ourselves only one thing – we’ll keep in touch and do everything we can to meet again.

The hugest hugs and the kissest kisses from Polish group =*

The departure day was here :(

Everybody was initially packing and cleaning their tents. While this hectic atmosphere, the organizers were collecting the pictures and preparing the CDs so every national team can get nice memory on this exchange.

When everything was done, the final ceremony was here. Everybody got hand made bracelet (done by organizer team during their free time) and certificate. It was very touching.

Despite the fact it rained a lot, there was only few thing that should be changed.  Everyone learned how to integrate and what is integration about. The whole exchange was very spontaneous with great very great atmosphere, full of usable information and activities. Croatia missing you …

Last time … Martin Szakál – the web redactor of the project

The day began as usually. People hanging around, trying to awake while waiting for the breakfast and next informal education activities.

After breakfast, national teams worked on the T-shirts and costumes with the motives chosen for their EURO coins. They received black blank T-shirts and T-shirt colors. It was kind of relaxing activity.

In the afternoon, the game “Do not get angry, buddy“ (originally German game called - Mensch ärgere dich nicht) was about to start. We painted the game field with chalks on the ground. The stones were particular people from the teams (the three teams, each represented one pillar of European Union – 1. Citizenship; 2. Common Foreign and Defense; 3. Justice and Internal) When the collision occurred, the offending team gave one question from the question they prepared according to presentation from the previous day. It was very funny and educative activity.

Then at the beach, national teams introduced their finished costumes and T-shirts. The photo shooting process took place so we could record this beautiful moments and marvelous pieces of art and remember them forever.

In the evening just after the Croatian national evening, we went to town of Makarska by small boat. Coastline was really beautiful. In Makarska we had chance to taste Croatian national food – chevapcici. Apparently everybody loved this food. Then after some time of sightseeing in Makarska we went back to the camp.

After some standard morning obligations and breakfast everybody was herding in the main tent in order to evaluate and analyze the questionnaires from the previous day and assess Croatian people.

Every team said some summary and represented their findings in numbers. It turned out that older people are not willing to answer questionnaires about EU, maybe due to some kind of conservatism. In general, Croatian people do look forward entering the EU. They consider it as a chance to promote their study possibilities and traveling. On the other hand they don’t want EURO as the currency because they are afraid of rise in prices. The fact remains that many of them didn’t even know how many members EU has – they are not informed properly, what is mistake. It is important to be informed!

During the gaps in the schedule, national teams had chance to finish the designs of their EURO coins.

After the lunch, the preparation for the game “Do not get angry, buddy“ (originally German game called - Mensch ärgere dich nicht). People were split into three teams. Every team represented one pillar of European Union – 1. Citizenship; 2. Common Foreign and Defense; 3. Justice and Internal; Then every team got task to prepare questions for other teams. Therefore a presentation about all of these three pillars was organized. We handled also with human rights issues and some more basic information focusing on practical things (Shenghen system, where it is necessary to have passport/ID card, about purpose and tasks of ombudsmen, court system). Now every team got enough information to prepare relevant questions.

Macedonians came up with idea to play type of game called “energizer” - Kiss the rabbit. Everyone was supposed to give a kiss to teddy rhino and afterwards kiss the person next to him at the same place as he kissed the rhino. Everyone had great fun and wanted more energizers!

In the evening, national teams finally introduced the designs of their hypothetical EURO coins. Firstly, Slovakian EURO coins were introduced and described. Everyone had chance to touch them. Then every team showed the designs painted on big plates of paper (Czech – beer (national “liquid” bread), lime tree, St. Vaclav, crown, lion; Hungarian – Hungarian lowland; Macedonian – mother Teresa born in Skopje; Polish – white eagle, Sukenica on the main mart in Krakow). Every team was then given new task – to prepare and make T-shirts / costumes representing the motives chosen for their EURO coins.

The web redactor’s team gave every national team task to write kind of short story / feuilleton about the whole exchange. They had chance to represent in the free spirited way their remarks, feelings and opinions. The deadline was the last day of our stay.

In the evening everyone enjoyed the Polish cultural night. We saw several presentations and had chance to taste rich catering with national foods and drinks. Krowkas rule!

Rain, rain and rain. The fifth day of our exchange was about to start.

Just after the breakfast, we organized discussion about European Union and Croatia. Leaders prepared questionnaires for Croatian people concerning about their opinion and attitude towards entering Croatia the European Union. The printed questionnaires were given to groups of students and afterwards they were told to go to Baska Voda downtown area and conduct the survey. Students were very excited about this task. Students from Macedonia helped to overcome language barriers, since they could speak Croatian. Every group was supposed to meet and ask at least ten Croatian people. The target group should provide us with some initial information so the precise analysis of respondents could be done. All students fulfilled the task and had chance to find out the public opinion in Croatia. The analysis of the answers was planned for the next day.

For the rest of the noon, teams worked on the designs of their EURO coins. First concepts were outlined already. They were told to prepare short speech about every motive chosen for the coin so the design is clarified for others.

After the lunch, we decided to work out our team building. The best way how to enhance this is to get the teams into sort of extreme situation where under difficult circumstances quick decisions must be done. Therefore we went to the rafting attraction at the river Cetina, close to our camp. We rafted 11 kilometers through strong rapids and whirls between rocks and tree branches. The teams consisted of approximately 8 students and one raft-leader. Despite the fact it was cold weather, no one despised this chance to try it and learn how it is important for the team to work together so the target can be reached properly.

The evening belonged to Hungarian delegation. Their program was very pleasant, everybody enjoyed it very much. We had chance to hear some stories, watch some presentations and taste some traditional food.

The best encounter of the day was clearly rafting. People were still fed up with bad weather. Of course, some people didn’t let weather to harm their time and they learned how to make raincoat from plastic bag :P.

Martin Szakál – the web redactor of the project

The day began with bad weather – rain, clouds and cold air! Everybody was little bit fed up with this situation because we were informed, that this weather is supposed to remain unchanged until the end of our exchange.

Some creative task was appropriate to take place. Every country participating in this exchange was asked to design and then draw the possible outlook of their EURO coins. One restriction – no religious theme, tolerance is important and not everybody would be pleased with such design. This activity was sort of long term activity.

After our great lunch break we went to the beach for a while, since the sun appeared. The discussion on the beach was introduced on behalf of tolerance and acceptance of different nations and minorities in particular countries and European Union in general.

Then we discussed websites, their purpose and contribution to the society. After the students’ most visited websites were introduced (wikipedia, facebook … ) and consulted (focusing on the purpose, usability, relevance of information), we were talking about websites of European Union and websites of some projects like Erasmus, Leonardo Da Vinci, voluntary service EDS, small exchanges, job abroad EURES. It was apparent that many of the students didn’t have a clue about this.

In the evening we watched the presentation and cultural evening of Macedonia and Czech Republic based on tasting the traditional foods and drinks, playing games and watching presentational videos.

The web redactor team summarized and evaluated the feedbacks of each country from the given questionnaires. The team leaders were asked to write their positive/negative impressions, general opinion, mark the level of accommodation, food, shower rooms, schedule, atmosphere and organization. Also they were asked to suggest some new topics they want to concern with and suggest changes or additions to schedule. See more in the article Summary of questionnaires.

Martin Szakál – the web redactor of the project (plus creative director :D)