Feelings

Feeling is the strange thing, it just appears and you can't manage it... With your head you understand that smth goes wrong and you try to deal with it somehow, cause all your mind and body do not listen to your head.... You start behave as a child... You don't know what to do...
And you struggle with it...
Struggling me ;)

Back from ACT

Think it became already one of the features of my blog – writing in the air... Am flying now from Sofia to Kaliningrad from 1-week experience in Bulgaria...

I feel really sad, that it’s over now, and that I have to return to my work and study in Moscow and even to my real private life... Although not everything happened like I expected I am thank full to @ in Bulgaria, and especially to Cebula by letting me to see diversity and how life can be...

Still I have several impressions that I want to share:

Sofia:

This city is really well architectured and as you may be know, most of all I enjoy different building and bridges from outside, walking through pavements and looking how old and new buildings unite together in the city, making eclectics all around. Although my study tour lasted just 2h in the last day of my being in Sofia, I managed to build an opinion about it, thanks to Ivo, VPF of one of Sofia LC, our guide;)

Still there were other stuff that I noticed in Sofia (Bulgaria): First of all are the prices, coming three I felt like a king, for 3 levas ( 40rubles) you may have grand cappucino with croussan in cafe or have for 1 leva (30 rubles) the full lunch in student cafeteria, take a taxi from airport for 6levas and visit restaraunt with all delicious dishes and drinkings for 16. Really amazing.

Second thing is roads or pavements that I thought can’t be more destroyed anywhere in the world than in Saratov, athough they could – streets are really not well asphalted (with many holes etc) and really dirty, people just don’t care and throw things on the ground. As for traffic then I couldnt get the secret of crossing the road (eg in Moscow you can do just in underground or strictly at traffic lamp, in innsbruck wherenever and whenever you want – the car would stop), here are no underground or traffic lamps (very rare) and cars just dont stop, just if our faci-team of 10 ppl tries to stay across the road.

Then comes the language. Here I felt really like home, bulgarian sounds so similar to russian, every billboard is in cyrillic, so I undrestand everything, all people whom you ask can speak russian and are eager to train their russian skills.

Food in Bulgaria is really cheap as I mentioned and different, here you can eat national turkish, bulgarian, russian or chinese food... However, you can never get WARM food, I don’t know but I ate in several different places and got EVERYWHERE cold food. I think it’s the normal degree for them, as when we, foreighners, asked why food is cold, many of bulgarians or people who live there longer wondered and said that it’s normal.

Next astonishing thing is mountains, the view is almost like in Innsbruck and as far as I’m crazy about it, I couldn’t stop enjoying the view...

In general, I liked Sofia and an idea of spending there next year of my life is going slightly through my head.

AIESEC in Bulgaria: is really different from AIESEC in Russia, first thing that is falling in my eyes is their wildness, especially wildness of parties, loads of drinking games, kissing competitions, number of couples matched, addictness to fun rather than to learning during the conferences.Alcohol at their parties is free and people do not stop parting till 5-6. That is really not like by us.

People (I mean new members) are not much different to russians, the same mindset, the same stereotypes, same shyness. So as I mentioned people are like home, although wanna notice our more result-orientedness, here people are mostly oriented at process, they like to share much and “develop”, bring smth positive and good and numbers are not at much value, also meeting by us in Moscow, for example are more constructive, we know what we should do and at what time and strive for it, in Bulgaria you can appoint meeting, spend some time for it and get 0 outcome (or like Michal, my faci-teammate) fruits of their work.

I was really amazed by Bulgarian MC, people with whom I had chance to communicate, especially Ivo, MCP, Stelli, VP ER and Iva, NST (Cebula is not counted cause she’s special;) are really great, they are so friendly, positive, they are so close to their members, communicating with them, parting with them them together, approaching them. Their hospitability and friendliness to us, faci-team, was really undescribable astonishing.

Their office is the same little like ours (local one) but situated in the central square opposite the house of goverment with monument to Russian tsar in front;) Amazing!

I think it’s so great to be the MC of such little country like Bulgaria, to have 6 LCs where the farest is 8h away, where national conferences are same big as our local ones almost, where MC knows every member of your national association, when they are so near to them, can contribute, not just by msn-chats and are really touching the results made.

That really made me think about my future under the different perspective, however, we’ll see. Thank you, AIESEC in Bulgaria by giving me this amazing experience.

My faci-team: It’s when I felt for the first time, that I am really, the part of AIESEC in CEE, even before ACT when we had our online-meeting, when we were telling good night to each other in every of 5 languages, it’s when we dont know English words, but understand each other in our native languages without translation, it’s when we all used to old and cold venues and not complaining of lack of comfort, it’s more or less same way of work, high level of common understanding, same values, same ideas, same attitudes....

And surely, same hard drinks, called in different languages, but tasting and effecting the same ;)

I really enjoyed the commitment of people to the conference with whom I worked, our common jokes, which we all understand, our integration night, 6 people in Cebulka’s little room, our pre-meeting in dance-room, our roll-call at night made in the narrow corridor whispering the words, we all showed support to each other... We were so different but at the same time so same...

And for sure our vocabulary invented:

Fachi = faci ( Ema, Romania)

Prolongator (prolojatore) = удлинитель (Malina, Romania)

Fruits (vegetables) of the work = outcome (Michal, Poland) and many others...

That easteRn EuRopean english accent sounds so funny.

Special thanks I’d like to tell to Adash (Poland), Iva (Bulgaria), Agus (Poland) and Tony (Bulgaria)....and Cebula for sure, you all, guys, made my conference to be unique, thanks for support, help, work together, sharings and ideas.... Where will be our next meeting point? Perhaps, St. Pete in April ;)

One, I love you CEE,

Two, A lil bit louder,

Three, I still can’t hear,

Four, more, more,more...

Now I understand the words of Araz : Growth Networks were actually created for Growth ;)

With such people CEE will grow for sure,

I’m a CEEtizen ;)

The ACT was an amazing XP for me, I realised it just after returning from there, after reading e-mails of my bastardinos team, again that reflection, those loads of sugar-cubes, and many – many thanks (almost in every 2^nd) for creating positive atmosphere... I can’t believe I do it (that’s really how I changed. Thank you, Katya;)

Still wanna back to ACT, and don’t wanna jump in the stream of my uni-matters and already tomorow @-training, meeting and so on....

How fast that week flew over....

This experience was really FACInating...

And then my plane already landed in Kaliningrad (ex-Koenigsberg), amazing Russian city, that’s really that I haven’t expected is warm reception of this LC.

Slava, VP X and Vika, LCP met me in the aiport and we went to bar, having pizza,beer and fun and I was really happy to talk to them, discussing strategies, people we know, X-results, gossips about MC... This evening was really filled with Joy, I just thought that I havent seen them since Summer and I even couldnt imagine how much I missed them, they are really cool people.

Slava has changed so much since May, he became more mature and solves every problem possible, Nari-Nari became so result-oriented and wise, but they still stayed Koenig-style, crazy people, enjoying fun.

I really couldnt stop being happy for this evening but it was just the beggining... Later on, I was supposed to oversleep by one of their interns, Lucka, and she just returned from Prague from conference and wanted to share and show me fotos, first she told me mainly about conference, how great it was and so on, and when she started with fotos, I saw Lukas there (we were in 1 home-group in ITC) and then Ira, really exctiting to hear so much about conference and then saw people whom you know and know their contribution, I was telling to her more of AIESEC and she became more and more amazed by that... So we discussed different things till 2 am, after all I got sugar-cube from her when I got up and breakfast, and when I arrived home got already e-mail of her... It’s how we just get so tightly connect to each other in AIESEC...

The owner of the flat, 80-year old woman, was telling me much about war-times and about Koenig as it’s the territory of the Germany in the past and belongs to Russia just after WWII, as I’m fond of history, I could listen to these stories since hours, how germans were put to carriages and sent away and how they returned in few years and searching by map their houses and returning there and so on.... But then Slava came to pick me up for Study Tour around Kaliningrad, so 2^nd astonishing study tour in 2 days, also not bad...

The city looked almost like I imagined, but 10 times nicer, old german houses almost everywhere, alleys, parks, monument, restored castle and harbour... The view is really great, architecture is incredible, so if you have chance to go to Koening, just use it, both of people and sightseeing.

My flight was supposed to be at 15.15, however even by sightseeing I noticed that it’s a kind of foggy, so the airport was closed the whole day and I had to wait 7h in airport till late at evening for my flight, returning after midnight to Moscow and taking taxi to dorm...

However, not for a single second in these 7h I doubted that Koenig didnt have to be visited...

Thank you Slava, Vika and Lucka for great hospitability....

Guys, if you have chance Koenig is a must to visit.

Жизнь налаживается!!!

Сегодня я подала документы на визу в Болгарию и 7го ноября она уже будет готова. А я думала не успею, потом я ожидала 2 дня на поезде и еще визу в Румынию надо было делать....Транзитную, а об этом узнала только вчера и в след пятницу уже уезжать и непонятно успела бы сделать 2 визы за неделю или нет... Вообщем очень волновалась...
Вообще транзитная виза это жесть.... А аэрофлотовские билеты без транзитной визы стоят 15 тыс!!!
Так вот,я нашла вариант лучше не бывает! Москва -Калининград-София-Калининград-Москва :) И всё на самолете, на обратном пути даже заеду на денек на родину Канта в гости к Вике Гумировой :)
Вся эта комбинация обошлась мне дешевле чем билет на поезд, который едет 2.5 суток :)
На самом деле так здорово, так как я вчера еще сомневалась поеду я в Болгарию или нет. А сейчас вот эти билетики лежат передо мной! И еще я очень давно хотела слетать в Калининград :) Я прямо представляю его желтые покрытые листвой аллеи и такие немецкие улочки...
И рада, что попадаю в Софию...
А еще я постепенно выхожу из осеннего настроения и возвращаюсь к работе :)
Спасибо всем, кто поддерживает меня морально и физически :)
Для тех, кто хочет поддержать материально, пишите в личку, скажу номер своей карточки :)
ПС Почему-то, когда собираешься в какой-нибудь маленький город Европы про него столько всего в инете написано. И на русском, и на англ. и на нем., а про Кёниг ничего не могу найти. Куда ж пойти, кроме могилы Канта?