The Adriatic Times
TRaVEL STORies March 2014
The Editorial If you were to ask a group of people to list things they like to do, some of the answers would most probably include travelling. Most of us would never turn down the opportunity of travelling somewhere new. While the reasons why travelling is so important vary, the influences it has on people are many and usually the same for everyone. Travelling can take away all the stress from your life. When you travel, you are away from the boring daily routine of your life and you see new things that give your mind peace. You feel relaxed when you see new surroundings, new people, new lifestyles; you get to know more and experience new cultures.
Furthermore, when you travel, your own culture also has an influence over others. Thus, the sharing of different cultures will in fact broaden your mind and vision. However, travelling is not only about finding out new stuff. Sometimes, people can discover things that they did not know about themselves. If you are travelling alone in a peaceful place, it might be a good way for you to get to know yourself and reflect upon yourself. You might write a journal while you are travelling and you might be amazed to find out some characteristics about yourself. Many of us fear certain things
Editor: Sibel Spahija Jornalist: Giuliana De Polo Proof reader: Malcolm Price Designer: Valev Laube
and those fears have most likely prevented us from doing what we would like to try out. An adventurous holiday might be an excellent time to face those fears and perhaps get rid of them forever. Who doesn’t love having friends all around the world? You must have often seen that while you are in a train or a plane, you start a conversation with the person sitting next to you and, at the end of the journey, you realize that you have made a good friend. New friends, new people, new cultures, they all leave a positive impact on your personality. The life stories you get to hear, the image of the people you meet, the cultural
diversity you experience are all pages of the book called ‘life’. All the pages added from your travelling will make ‘your book’ a complete one. Unfortunately, not many of us get the opportunity to travel a lot, but those missing pages can be completed by hearing others’ travel stories and that is exactly what this edition aims for. Dearest colleagues, are you ready to complete some of these missing pages with your peers’ travel experiences? The Adriatic Times editorial team hopes you have an enjoyable read through our 17th edition. The Editor
The Adriatic Times
4
A flying snowflake By Alpcan Karamanoglu
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference" - Robert Frost The less travelled road for most of us is this place that changed our lives and made us who we are; or talking more personally, the road that I took, which led me here to Duino, made all the changes in my life.
The Adriatic Times
They say each way leads you to another adventure, another brand new part of your life. Although I knew that this way that I travelled was leading me to perhaps the most difficult adventure of a sixteen year old boy, I was brave enough to take the first flight of my life on 03/09/2012 and leave home to look for another home. If I think of the past two years, one of the most remarkable things I notice is how simple my life would be without here. Staying with my family, still having my loved ones next to me, no goodbyes that each time shut me down, no changing places every four months, no effort to get used to a completely different atmosphere at least three times in a year. How simple would everything be, right? But then, why did I take that plane and come to
this place? The answer was never easy for me until now. There had always been a big question mark in my mind. Have I taken the right decision? Would everything be better if I was back home? I never managed to answer these questions. Nonetheless, now I know that it was the best decision that I have ever taken in my life. It was the right thing to come to this small village that gave me everything I wanted in my life. It has definitely been the most eccentric adventure that a sixteen-year-old boy, who never flew, had never been abroad and had never left home for more than a week, could ever have. All my life I have always imagined stepping into another land apart from Turkey, but unfortunately, I did not have the chance. My dream was always to see other people's faces in other geographies, simply because out of the cage seemed so much more interesting to me. The world was too big to me to stay in that cage. And then I decided to take this plane. From Istanbul to Venice, I remember everything; how I felt, what advertisements were in the airport, the names of the people I sat down with in the plane. Every single detail. Because it was
the reality that I wanted to see, I wanted to feel perhaps for the first time in my life. I walked to the gate, more physically than actually. I just wanted to stay with my family forever in the airport and not to take this plane. But I knew that I had to. What I have been taught is that success comes together with scarifications. So I left ten people that I have loved most in my life, including my best friends, in the airport and flew here. I flew with teardrops forming the new kinds of dreams for the next two years, I flew with more poems in my mind, more lyrics in my mouth than the clothes in my luggage, I flew with the scream from my heart turning to a song after I saw the sign which said "Duino"‌ I took the way less travelled by, because I wanted to be the different one. I took it despite all the apprehensions that I had, because it was the only way to protect my snowflake. Now I may not know about the forecast of my life after two months but I believe that the snowflake kept all its silence and beauty, it stayed desirous enough to be different from all the others.
5
A poem, some advices to self and an apology By Jolanda Nava (3rd Year)
Advices to self or My very debatable truths about life There is life before Duino, there is life in Duino, and there is life after Duino. (I have seen it with my eyes!) You do not need to fully understand the impact these two years (or one) had on your life. I doubt you ever will
An apology or Why I did not write in the generation letter I would have loved to tell you more about what it is going on in my life, how amazing an experience Yale-NUS has been for me, or how much I have changed and much, much more… but the reality is, I have not changed much
– and that’s ok. I will not forget you all, because you made me what I am right now. I do not want to forget my present, because I want to make it as amazing as it can be. Always remember to smile – and if you realise you can’t, it’s probably time to look for a change or a bit of help.
and I still have to learn how not to overload myself. Another truth is that I am not ready to look back and draw summaries of a reality I am still trying to grasp. So forgive my absence, and I will forgive your IB; we shall meet again, in person or through the internet, as soon as summer knocks on our doors.
A Poem or What I wrote going away We are nothing but a footprint On the seashore of this place: The next wave of faces and dreams Will wash us away. But no ocean will erase The memories of these years The laughter and the tears, Engraved in our souls. For is time to leave And packing my world I have a suitcase Of life lasting lessons And weightless emotions So heavy on my back, That I started fearing the past. Love and a very tight hug, Jolanda
A journey outside us
By Giuliana De Polo
Let’s go outside, seat on the grass and travel. Yes, as you heard. Let’s travel far from our minds and near to the grass, here and now. Let’s take a seat, cross our legs, or uncross them, you decide. Let’s breathe, just that, one in, one out. Close your eyes, feel the noise, feel the air, feel the sun. Are you thinking ah? Just see the dance of your thoughts, wave your hand to them, say goodbye. Keep breathing! It’s an important part of the journey. Do you hear more noise? Do you feel more light? Do you sense your brighter inside? When you’re ready, open your eyes. See the world from outside you.
Warning: the following poem might be affected by recent philosophical and spiritual researching...
(Observation: this journey costs no money, can be done daily, and the benefits of it can be compared to a conventional vacation. The days are beautiful, just go outside and meditate! )
The Adriatic Times
6
“Ammunì, picciriddi!” – Palermo, Sicily By Emma Russo (and project week group)
The Adriatic Times
Our adventure in “the land of vespers and oranges” starts like this, with a Sicilian expression that will accompany us in every day of this amazing week. It is extremely hard to narrate because of the amount of emotions, experiences and reflections involved. Five days are of course not enough to get to know a culture and a new place entirely, but what we had the opportunity to do was a deep, even though quick, immersion into reality. It may sound weird, since we didn’t travel abroad, but the world we discovered in Sicily was really different from the one we are used to here in the North. There are many stereotypes about Southern Italy, both of foreigners and of Northern Italians. Probably one of the most basic and common stereotypes is the typical way we picture this land: a sunny and hot, beautiful holiday place, where everyone is extremely loud and relaxed, lazy and with not a lot of willingness to work. Well, the only sunshine we actually found was the one inside the people we met and who helped us, guided us and spent time with us, without ever asking for anything in return. Their warmth, kindness, caring attitude and simplicity is not even comparable with Northern Italians’ behaviour, most of the time. As generalizations are always to be avoided, maybe it would be more correct to say that we were very lucky to meet these people. We had a particularly good and lucky experience, but what we can surely affirm
is that the atmosphere of Palermo was completely different from the one that is breathed in the air of any northern city. The dominant element both in the town and in the fascinating countryside, characterized also by a uniquely amazing landscape, is an incredibly beautiful and perfectly fitting chaos. So, it is normal to see buildings falling apart still from the Second World War’s bombs and an entire area of the town abandoned and closed by a wall because its edifices collapsed after very strong rain a few weeks ago. It is normal to have buses that come whenever they want and do not really respond to anybody. It is quite normal to find garbage on the side of the streets and it is very normal to see entire families on the same motorbike, without any helmet, of course. However, walking through the narrow streets of the city centre means also smelling the fragrance of spices, bread, fresh fish, vegetables and fruit sold on the stands of the markets, hearing the loud and energetic voices of the merchants, feeling part of a pulsating and alive reality. The chaos reflects in people’s lives that seem to be way more natural, genuine and spontaneous than in Northern Italy and Europe. However, chaos is not the only dominating element in Palermo and in Sicily. Mafia, that’s what our project was about, and that’s what is still, often, dominating these places, even though in a very
different way than it used to be. When we are talking about mafia, we don’t have to think to the Godfather, or other stereotypical images of elegant Italian-American gangsters. Mafia is, first of all, a social and cultural deeply rooted phenomenon. As we learnt during our Project Week, every social conflict has three main aspects: what we see is only the top part of the iceberg, the behaviours. However, underneath, lay much deeper roots: attitudes and contradictions. In order to end any conflict, its three characteristics should be addressed. It is in fact rather easy to find solutions to the contradictions, by using creativity; moreover, if both contradictions and attitudes are treated, behaviours will follow. It is indeed much harder to change attitudes. It can be done through empathy, but such feelings cannot be enforced on the scale of a whole population. Indeed, the mafia is the embodiment of a very complex social conflict, and to fight the mafia it is therefore necessary to address the Sicilian culture itself, to act at the root. Education and increased awareness are two of the most effective tools that can be used to this end. This is the strategy adopted by many anti-mafia organisations, such as AddioPizzo, Libera, and the Cooperative Liberamente in Cinisi, with which we collaborated during our Project Week, through meetings and workshops.
Furthermore, we volunteered in the centre Santa Chiara for socially challenged children, especially sons and daughters of immigrants, who live their childhood in close contact with criminality and have a high risk of abandoning school and entering in affairs such as drug dealing, the most profitable and largest business of Mafia nowadays. We spent a day with them on the occasion of the “social carnival” (Carnevale Sociale), in which we served food and helped entertaining the children by face painting and helping them with homework in an after-school activity. At the end of which we also presented
our experience at the College in a very simple way to give them a different perspective of a possible future that is often lacked in their lives. This intense immersion in such a different, complicated but fascinating reality was extremely inspirational. Not only because of the characters we talked about, and followed in the steps of, like Peppino Impastato *, but also and especially for the “common” people we met, who are dedicating their time, efforts and entire lives to fighting something that is so rooted in the society and affects everyone and everything that is so hard
to stand up against. These people are doing it every day, with little or big actions, making available and useful for their community their own abilities, skills and knowledge. Now that our adventure is over, we know that it is gonna stay forever inside each of us. *INFO BOX: Giuseppe Impastato, also known as Peppino (Cinisi, January 5, 1948 – Cinisi, May 9, 1978), was a political activist who opposed the Mafia, which ordered his murder in 1978. He was born into a Mafia family: his father's brother-in-law, Cesare Manzella, was an important
7
mafia boss who was killed in a car bomb attack in 1963. As an adolescent, Peppino broke off relations with his father – who kicked him out of the house – and initiated a series of political and cultural Antimafia activities. With our Project Week group we visited his house in Cinisi, which is now a museum dedicated to his memory. If you want to know more about him and his activism against Mafia, we suggest you watch the movie “I Cento Passi” (available with English subtitles).
Seeking Freedom The life story of an ex-addict By Sibel Spahija
To the readers: Before you read this piece, esteemed colleagues, I want to clarify a few things. This piece is based on the real life story of an ex-addict, whom I was honored to meet during my project week, in Amsterdam. Even though I used bits of creativity/imagination, the report itself remains essentially unchanged from what I remember the person told us. I apologize in advance for any possible errors I may have made.
Furthermore, it is clear that this ex-addict has dealt with more extraordinary circumstances than those we come across in our daily lives. Thus I would kindly ask you to take his psychological and emotional state into consideration, also the cultural background of the interviewee while you read it. All above stated, read at your own risk. Enjoy!
Once upon a time, in a small house in the Land of Holland, a male child was born. Even though the beauty of his angelic face is commonly found in many children, he was given an extraordinary life, which not too many people get to experience. Life itself is unfair, since from the first day a human being is born one is not given the chance to choose the family one wants to be born in. Both his parents were criminals, who would steal from others and sexually assault people. Not only had the outsiders suffered from their rage but
also the little kid. They beat him every day till he ended up trying to make a living by himself. He started selling drugs to prostitutes at the age of seven and soon he made enough money to take care of himself. However, the poor kid did not know that once his parents found out he was earning money there was simply no way out of that house. As if beating wasn’t enough, they now took all the money he made out of his “job” and if he resisted them they beat him and let him go without food. Of course, the kid was clever enough to hide some money from his parents in
The Adriatic Times
8
order to feed himself. But, food is not the only thing a human needs in order to live; we also need belonging and love, where unfortunately the poor kid had neither. The day he brought money, his parents gave him “love”; they hugged him and made those almost-happy family jokes. The day he did not bring money, he was kicked out of the house, wasn’t given food and was told to come back only when he had some money. So, if he needed “love”, he had to buy it from his own parents.
The Adriatic Times
The kid survived in these conditions until he was thirteen. At that age, he thought he had found a new solution, a way to reduce his pain. He started doing drugs. It was that year when he was first arrested. As he was under eighteen, the kid was sent to children’s prison. He did not stay there for too long. When he was freed, he was sent to temporary host families, as his biological parents were not able to raise him, according to the law. I wish I could give you a happy ending here, but unfortunately the story of the poor kid continues… Expecting to be happy in his new host families the kid was hit by the brutality of fate once again, as if thirteen years of hell-like life were not enough already. His thin blonde hair, ocean deep blue eyes, his pale skin and angelic face triggered sexual assault by his step-parents… The kid was growing up. He went to the streets, did drugs and got into all the kinds of problems an addict could get in. He was in jail many times.
However, he did not see the jail as a punishment. For him “jail was a restroom”, the punishment started when he went out. When he left prison he was treated as a parasite by society, so he continued to be what the society considered him to be. He stole; he did drugs and met prostitutes. He met prostitutes, although in most of cases he did not have sexual relations with them. He would take them to do drugs together, and then he would tell them his story. He did this for such a long time that when he approached the place where the prostitutes stood, all of them would run to him because they knew that all he wanted was a person to give him company. One day, when he went to the place of the prostitutes, he spotted that there was only one woman that did not approach him. He went to talk to her but she went away as soon as he approached. The next day, he bought three red roses and went to her saying “these are what I want to give to you”. The woman took the roses and went to the corner of the street, waiting for him to take her for a drink. That’s how he got married, to a woman who was HIV positive, just as he was too. He tried to take her out of prostitution but she was used to making her own living and it was very difficult to get her out of that business. The guy, despite all, could not let her go. Was it LOVE that made him do so? No, it wasn’t. Or perhaps it was... How could a person, who was never taught anything except hate, know what LOVE could be? Although he had LOVE tattooed
on his left hand during one of his prison experiences, he still did not know what it really meant. He thought he would never manage to understand the concept of LOVE until his daughter was born, completely healthy despite her parents being HIV positive. Then he learnt what true LOVE is. A miracle had happened to a person who believed in nothing. He is now fifty-seven years old. The kid who started doing drugs at the age of thirteen, quit drugs thirteen years ago. His wife died in her forties, but his daughter and granddaughter live a happy life, in good conditions. He does not blame his parents for the life he had, but he is happy that they are dead and that he does not keep in touch with his siblings. The police still treat him as if he is dangerous, but that doesn’t stop him from telling his story to the tourists who visit Amsterdam, as in the end “he doesn’t seek for forgiveness, he seeks for freedom; he doesn’t seek for attention, he seeks for friendship”. Now, each night he goes to bed, he hopes to wake up in the morning not remembering anything. He wants to wake up not remembering his past, not remembering his daughter, not remembering those three roses which brought him the most important person he ever met, the person who gave him a miracle, who gave him a healthy daughter to help her father understand what LOVE is.
On a personal note: I would like to take this chance to express my sincere gratitude to the organizers of the project week I was honored to participate in it. Thank you Hester and Ilya for giving me, and all the other participants of the PW in Amsterdam, the chance to have such a remarkable and enchanting experience.
In Life…
9
By Sneha Mahapatra
“We wake up at 7:15 and at 8:15 paradise begins.”
gaging in various activities is all that they really have.
This is what one of the prisoners told us when we asked them how they felt about going to school. In life, everyone deserves a second chance - the meaning behind this particular sentence became so much more real after the experience that I had in the prison in Athens.
They respect each other. They encourage each other. They feel each other’s pain and suffering. They laugh together…well, sometimes even at each other. They value each other’s presence and they never underestimate what they might end up learning from someone else.
At the end of the day, they were prisoners. Yes! Well, so what? Prisoners are human beings. They have hearts and they have families. They have dreams and they have talents. While being punished for the crime that they committed, they are given a second chance by having the possibility of being educated; how they feel about prison and their response to it was humbling. Coming from culturally and geographically diverse backgrounds and being locked up inside a small cell, interacting with each other and en-
Life inside is never easy, but they always find ways to make the most of every day. In life, it is the small things matter. We all know this, but they apply it! Be it painting a picture, making paper flowers, telling us about how much they love their mother or miss seeing the smile on the face of their son, every single action that they take, or work that they do, is done with the utmost precision, sincerity and emotional attachment. The fact that they have done something wrong and have ended up in prison makes
The entire Project Week group at Trikala prison.
them appreciate life so much more. Almost all of them stated that before coming to the prison, they did not know what they wanted from life. They were leading a meaningless existence filled with anger, frustration and crushed hopes. However, after being in prison and having access to education, they now feel so much more empowered and confident, because they learn new things about their abilities every day. Some of them want to become Maths teachers, some of them want to fight for other prisoners like themselves and some want to become artists. What they all said was that they found purpose and meaning in life after coming to prison. They felt and understood the wrong they were doing before, but they now know how to do right. They all have belief and ask us to pray for them so that one day they will go back to where they belong - to see their wife, to hug their mother, to eat homemade food and to watch a movie in their favou-
rite cinema. It is this belief that drives them and keeps their spirit positive. But, above all, they want to go out and show the world that there is value in giving a person a second chance, because that is what changed their entire perspective of life. They learnt. They appreciated. They grew. Every interaction that I had with them taught me so much more than I had expected. Sometimes in life, you forget to value what you have and you begin taking people and things for granted. It is very easy for this to happen. However, if this phenomenon, of taking life for granted, is not realized and stopped at the right time, it can become very dangerous. Had it not been for the prisoners and their attitude of appreciating, and having a positive approach towards, every little thing, I would not have understood how arrogant I had become and how much there is I need to be thankful for.
The Adriatic Times
10
Student democracy - an idea that brought me to UWC
MEP Estonia in the House of Parliament
By Valev Laube
Even though there are numerous ways to spread your ideas in the world and make them visible to a bigger audience, we still prefer to keep many things private. In the setting of the college, our background often finds its place in the section that we don't want to or just don't find it necessary to talk about, even though that might be the reason why we are gathered here and awarded a scholarship to study in a place like this. A huge and latest chapter in my life was taking part actively in different student democracy projects, spreading the awareness about the power of students' voices.
The Adriatic Times
With students and not just for students. There can always be some improvements made; it does not matter if we are talking about schools, politics, humanitarian help or personal characteristics. The European Union has taken the approach to involve more students in developing educational systems through organizations like the Organizing Bureau of European School Students Unions. It is the biggest umbrella organization in the EU to cover many European countries and their own national umbrella organizations for a better collaboration. Countries included in the movement are Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania Luxembourg, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland. All of these countries have at least one national platform of smaller
unions to take action within the country. It can be named differently, as for example, Italy has Unione degli Studenti. Education as a regulated and transparent institution. For the four years before coming to UWC, I have been in close connection with either my own national or international student democracy projects. It is important to understand all levels of it. It can start from your school, student council (or any form of student union within the school), committees within the student union, national level, European level, or International. Regardless of the platform used, any student democracy program or movement works in respect to the main principle of full transparency and this in its most authentic way. I experienced this when I worked in the Estonian Student Councils' Union, as a part of the Culture and Communication Committee. During monthly meetings, everything was protocolled in case someone was missing and needed to catch up with the latest discussion topics, attendance was reported, and in some cases, even direct quotes included. All of this to make sure that all 200,000 students within a country could either read about what the umbrella organization was up to through our website or to just have some evidence in case of dishonesty. The same procedure took place in the same way also twice per year during general meetings
when around 400 secondary education students (between age 14-19) representing every school in the country came together to sign official documents that were sent to parliament. Those decisions were discussed and signed to express the opinion of the whole country's student population. So far, there has been much done to improve the conditions of students in the country and balance the quality of education between schools in cities and countryside. Thanks to such connection in the example of Estonia, ESCU has been able to keep school buses free in the countryside area, because many student would not be able to afford to go to school otherwise. We have managed to set limits of how teachers can schedule times for tests within a week so that in the long term students have more equal distribution of examinations and equal opportunities to concentrate on all subjects. Importance of committees within the student unions - structure and being organized. When building up my first student council in my first school, which was one of last schools in Estonia (my country of origin) who was not member of Estonian Students Councils' Union (ESCU), I took part in courses that taught me what are the main principles of getting the school into the union and how to make it all happen. What I remember the most from those days and from my later experiences is
the importance of dividing work, importance of protocols taken from the meetings of the council, formatting of documents, and most of all, importance of not just discussing but voting for the conclusions. Finding a perfect structure for the council or any other student representative group is not easy. Sometimes it can require a bigger percentage of the student community to be represented and divided into bigger amount of committees (e.g. committee for searching funds for student events, which also promotes events, committee for building better awareness and transparency within the school, committee for international representation of named schools' student body, etc.). Every school is different, but what should never be forgotten is that it doesn't matter where you are, students can make a difference and can change the power of their voice in the institution (meaning school).
tive role in the development of those institutions. In addition, the movement finds it important to promote solidarity and understanding between young people.
You are not a student, you are who you are and you can change the stereotype.
During the period when I used to work in the national student councils' union, I learned how important it is to understand people and their needs. I remember once being in a meeting with around 20 student representatives and a Ministry of Education representative. The discussion was about the importance of small elementary schools in countryside regions. While the mentality in the country is very urban and mostly in favor of "better" schools in cities, we, the students in the meeting room, had another vision. As I was one of "them" (how students from the countryside were called in the meeting) who had studied my first 8 years in a small school (which provides education for first 12 classes), I felt like I had to speak up about my background and make them realize what reducing support for such schools would mean.
The movement for more democratic educational systems in Europe finds points out that the student population is the majority of all educational institutions and are very much affected by their decisions, so they should have an ac-
Even though at that point in time I was already becoming a victim of urbanization and had moved to the city just to study in a better school, I was able to understand people who did not have the courage to do so. Students in the
countryside represent a quarter of the student population and one of major issues back then was transportation to and from school. Since distances can be big and family incomes are low, students are not able to go to school unless there is a school bus. School bus meaning transportation that would function on an individual route depending on the schedule; sometimes it can be up to 40 or 50 km to the nearest school and many of those families cannot afford to have a car and the nearest neighbor could not be found in 5 km radius. In conclusion, the student representatives and the ministers came up with some compromises that would say that every student should have access to primary education within 35 km radius from home, and the school bus' route should not be farther than 2 km from the student's home. Examples likes this and many more have showed me that everything is possible. Even though some improvements are small or seem to be insignificant, they are still improvements. I remember when the law about the weight of a school backpack was signed into law in Estonia, it seemed back then very funny to write how many kilos a students’ school bag should weigh, but now when looking at my sister’s bag going to school,
11
I see why it is important. It is about taking care not only about your life, the life of the government, school, people who work in schools, but it is most of all about taking care of people who will be part of that school tomorrow. Seeing a 7-year-old girl going to school with 7 kg on her shoulders cannot be tolerated by saying that "our country is not the worse, look at some others". The health of young students, accessibility to education, quality of education, education maximizing your potential, is something that cannot be compensated even when it is far from worse. If we would be able to improve something, then why don't we? If we are not able to improve something, then why should we ignore it and don't do anything to make it happen? Seeing my close family members going to school with less weight on their shoulders in such a young age makes me often feel good about all of those nights that I used to catch up with material covered in lessons that I had missed because of attending meetings and trying to make a difference in a world that never seems to change, in a world that can always be blamed to be bad, unfair and too much lead by "the big guys". Please get involved and try to change things for the better.
MEP International in Madrid
The Adriatic Times
12
Somehow I ended up in Malta By Michal Ben Ami
The Adriatic Times
Three days ago I was standing in the train station in Venice, surrounded by five other people with whom I spent a wonderful week in Malta. We were waiting to get on our train to Monfalcone, heading back to Duino. We were all tired, exhausted from the week and the journey that followed, full of thoughts about going back to school and receiving our trial results, excited to see our friends, happy to be back in our rooms, sad to leave the beautiful sunny Malta, and most of all - completely calm about the whole situation. Many times during my UWC experience I stopped myself for a second in order to try and really understand where I really am. And honestly – most of the times I fail. The fact that I’m spending my life with people from all over the world became absolutely normal in September 2012. And the thought of living independently when I’m surrounded by friends and the sea is nothing new. But when I travel, little moments and thoughts come into my mind, constantly trying to make me feel like this is a dream which I’m about to wake up from. It is sometimes extremely hard to realize that I am in a different country. I just got used to the fact that I pack my bag (very quickly too, I must say), show my passport, and
somehow a few hours later I end up somewhere else. The people around me and the reason for my travel change all the time, but the concept pretty much stays the same. My parents always tell me that these experiences are going to benefit me for the rest of my life. I began travelling the world as a 16 year old – and right now it feels like the most natural thing to me. And I’m sure that many of you feel the same. The fact that we get so used to moving around just makes us forget how abnormal (or in the words of a certain economics teacher – supernormal) we all are. Just a few years ago a week-long vacation with my family abroad seemed like a crazy idea. Weeks of preparation, excitement, money to be saved, bags to be packed… and now all it takes is a group of people and one apartment. Everything else is really just a bonus. I’m not sure if my tentative thoughts also apply to all the EU passport holders amongst us. Moving around from one country to another seems much easier when you possess the golden ticket of a Schengen passport. But I am sure that most of us feel that excitement when we count the number of countries we have visited in the past year, or brag about the number of hours we spent travelling to
that exotic place, where we never forget to log on Facebook. And finally, I would like to share some (very) important things I’ve learnt in my last travelling experience: 1. You can find some very interesting characters on Ryanair flights. 2. Always bring a jacket with you when you travel in winter, even if you don’t think it’s going to be cold; it will be. 3. Some countries drive on the wrong side of the road (which is the right side, is open to debate). 4. British colonial impact on former colonies is often not former at all. 5. Just because street food is cheap, it does not mean you must consume it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 6. After you finish packing, close your suitcase. Then open it again and take out two things. 7. Make sure that when you go to McDonalds for the free Wi-Fi, you sit in the back, so you don’t get awkward stares from the employees. Love to you all, from the flying Israeli.