Alexandra Corbu: Two weeks in the city whose name I didn't know how to pronounce

In September I participated in an youth exchange project and I spent two weeks in Hungary together with other 28 participants from Romania, Ukraine and Georgia. The project was called "Be entrepreneur" and the purpose of it was the exchange of experience and knowledge among young people from the participating countries interested in entrepreneurship. I liked the fact that among the participants were also young entrepreneurs, including from Romania, which were open to share with us their experiences, give us advices and encourage us to put our ideas into practice.

The project was held in Vásárosnamény, a city in eastern Hungary I didn’t hear about before and whose name we didn’t know how to pronounce. Therefore, on the road it was really funny how we were replacing the name of the city with "there", "in that town", “at the destination" etc.

We were 10 participants from Romania and together we formed a beautiful and united team with whom I felt great during the project. It was a nice feeling of friendship ever since the first time we met, and during the project we were like a little family – everybody kept asking us if we knew each other before the project and were surprised to find out that we met for the first time just before it.

Romanian delegation

I had the pleasure to meet smart, friendly and talented young people with whom I spent the most fun and interesting two weeks in a long time. I still keep in touch with some of them and I hope that we will see each other soon, maybe in another project, discovering together another country in Europe.

"Be entrepreneur" project participants

I miss so much this experience, but who wouldn’t? I felt so good and free. We had a large yard with green grass and the weather was great, thus we did most of the activities outside. During the project we had bikes available and the organizers encouraged us to ride them as much as we could and discover the surroundings - one of the aims of the project was also promoting of the area.

Every day we were playing the guitar and listening to many beautiful songs from Ukraine and Georgia. To our surprise, the Ukrainians already knew how to play Andrii Popa (a Romanian song) and we were so happy to listen to it and to sing along. Of course, I took advantage of the opportunity and took some guitar lessons for the first time. In the category "what new things I learned" are also included the Ukrainian and Georgian "lessons" that I took (and, of course, in return I also taught them some Romanian words).

Vásárosnamény

During the project I had the opportunity to visit some areas in Hungary; besides Vásárosnamény, I visited Debrecen, Nyíregyháza, Tokaj and Erdőbénye.

Debrecen

Tokaj

Erdőbénye I liked the most, where we visited a local wine business and after that some tasty traditional food and wine tasting were prepared for us. The atmosphere was so special, the food delicious and the wine really good.

Erdőbénye - wine tasting

In the agenda were also included intercultural nights. There were presentations about the culture and customs of each country, we tasted traditional food and drinks and learned traditional dances. During the Hungarian evening, besides the traditional food that was prepared for us, we also had the great surprise to learn some specific dances from two professional dancers.

Intercultural night: Romania

Intercultural night: Georgia

Intercultural night: Ukraine

Intercultural night: Hungary

Intercultural night: Hungary. Traditional clothes

Intercultural night: Hungary. Traditional dace

At the end of the project, Tim – Ukrainian participant - wrote a song about Vásárosnamény - the city whose name, as I said before, no one knew how to pronounce it initially - and we made a funny video for the song. The result is the video down below (Andra, Romanian participant, helped with the voice - I told you that I met talented young people):

Also, Katia, a participant from Ukraine and one of my roomates, surprised us with a short video about the experience we had in Hungary:

How we had fun_YIA Project in Hungary from Katia ModaKvoda Vodopianova on Vimeo.

"Be entrepreneur" project was organised by Ajak Ifjúságáért Közhasznú Közalapítvány and was funded by the European Commission. I attended this project through GEYC. I highly recommend you to take advantage of such projects because they are a very nice experience and they help you develop in many ways. You have the opportunity to travel, to interact with other cultures and with different young people from Europe with common interests, practice English, practice other languages, benefit of training on the project’s topic, you develop your love for your country and you have fun! Oh, and all this is almost free. I encourage you to take advantage of them and believe me, once you go to such a project you will not be able to wait until the next one!

Monday, 2 February 2015

Two weeks in the city whose name I didn't know how to pronounce

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