GOODBYE!!

11 months are over and it is time for us to say goodbye to each other, to our flat and workplace, to people who supported us during this time and to our second home Siauliai.

Liudvikas is already in Kaunas for his Lithuanian Language course and after that, as you might know, he weill join the Lithuanian Army. Again a new and interesting experience for him in Lithuanian. For Annesophie and me the time in Lithuania is over and we will go back to our countries.

Finally I can say I really like Lithuania as a country. It is really beautiful, green and for sure a nice place to live but again I have to add - in summer. :) I am not really a winter person and the only thing which I like about it is to go skiing, Christmas markets and warm evenings together with my family. I missed my family and friends a lot wherefore I really look forward to see them again.

EVS was an amazing experience for me. I learned so many things about me, about culture, languages, history, mentalities,...and so on. It opened my mind in so many ways and therefore I can really recommend it to everybody.

During this (nearly) year it was not always easy for me and I would not have managed it if there would not have been some nice and supportive people around me. Thanks to all of you! For your smiles, warm greetings in the streets, for inviting us to events and lot of more things.. I hope also for the new volunteer that you realize with how little afford you can make the life as a volunteer here so much more enjoyable. :)

I am a bit in contact with the new volunteers and they all look very nice, active and friendly. Hereby I want to welcome them and also say goodbye or rather SEE YOU AGAIN to YOU!!

Aciu!! Iki!!

this was my first day in Lithuania and now the last has already started :P

this was love for the first sight! :)

i was so excited to see my workplace

lovely flowers in our flat as welcome present! :)

Lovely goodbye from my friends in siauliai!! 

summercamp week 1

The first week of the summer camp full of enjoyable is over and I got so many impressions about which i would like to tell yo a bit.



On Monday the teachers arrived and we just introduced each other, walked through the city and showed them the most important places.
Moreover the teachers prepared their homerooms and also on Tuesday they had some time to do so, before they went to the Hill of Crosses. As far as I know they enjoyed visiting it but also they have been happy when they could leave this wired place again.

On Wednesday the camp started!
As I had no idea of how this camp will be I was nearly as excited as the students.



During the first days of the camp we had already a lot of fun while getting to know each other and a lot of new friendships were built.

Not just the students but also I learned already some things about the USA I did not know before.
For instance:
Did you know that...?

• ... Florida's Length North to South is around 447 miles (720km)
• ...if you would spend one night in every room, in every hotel in Disney world , it would take you around 68 years! 
• ...s'mores and Reese's are AMAZING!
• ...measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada (which means around 150 times Lithuania)
• ...in America they do not really use public transport that much

on the facebook page you can always find a lot of pictures!!
https://www.facebook.com/AngliskasVasarosPolekis?fref=ts

... AND on the weekend I went together with the teachers and students helpers to Palanga and we visited the cold war museum.
It was a wonderful day and again a unique experience for me! THANKS GUYS!  

Work camp in Kurtuvenai

Last week I had the chance to participate in the work camp in the regional park in Kurtuvenai, organized by EVS - and other German volunteer friends.
Together, we made a lot of useful things: cleaned the shores of Lake Bijotė as well as build new places for fire, build bridge cross wetland, landscaped nature school Jutmalke..
I was shocked how much rubbish we found and how stupid and reckless people destroy these beautiful landscapes.

But not just during working we had a lot of fun.. We played a lot of volleyball, cooked together, made barbecues and so on. The whole atmosphere in the park and camping place was wonderful. I felt myself so relaxed, happy and totally satisfied. Since a long time I had not the feeling that I should already be on the next place again and I could really enjoy every second there.
The big surprise and my personal highlight was the horse riding!! It was awesome! :)

I really enjoy my stay in Kurtuvenai, and would like to say thank you to the other volunteers as well as to the organizers for the nice time.

skydiving

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” 

On 6.6.2015 I was together with one of my best friends Alex skydiving and it was just perfect!!! :D
First I thought that I will be really nervous but to my surprise we both were really relaxed. I enjoyed the free fall and the flying around so much. Now finally i saw the beauty of Lithuania also from above!! It was impressive and well... just perfect!! 

EVS in PLUNGĖS VIEŠOJI BIBLIOTEKA

Until September the two Volunteers Juan Manuel and Merve will work in Plungė in the “Viešoji Biblioteka“. Their Project is for 10 months and includes very different work from presentations, over organizing activities to ordinarily daily office work.

The Library is located in the oldest building of Plungė in the middle of the wonderful park. The red brick castle was renovated for two years. Almost 4 Million Litas cost the project but now it is since two and a half years it is the beautiful home of the library. Very special seems to be the clock tower, which mechanism was invented in 1741 by a French watchmaker.

About my day in Plungė

When I arrived in the morning Juan Ma was in a school for a Presentation of EVS and his country Spain. Therefore it was my challenge to find the library. I asked some Lithuanians and with my little knowledge of Lithuanian I managed to the find the library quite quickly. The mentor and tutor welcomed me so friendly and one woman was really happy that she could practice her German with me. She showed me a bit around the library, while talking about the work in the library, Plungė and Lithuania itself, Austria, and a lot of other things. Moreover I get to know the two local volunteers and talked a bit about their life in Plungė, their work and activities. When I met them, they were scanning old pictures and digitalizing slides, which is of course not their favorite work but still they want to try different work to find out whether it would be the right kind of job for them.

After some time Juan Ma came to the library and he showed me his work and we visited the exhibition with very nice paintings. We went to lunch together and then there was an event at the library. Students from Plungė Gymnasium sang some songs, played piano, and then there was a presentation about their ”tradition workshop”. They learned and told us how to bake Lithuanian bread, how to weave cloths and other issues about traditional clothing and celebrations. Everything was in Lithuanian but with the presentation and concentration I got what they were talking about.

Every Wednesday evening Juan gives lessons in Spanish, which was due to my wish to learn Spanish very interesting for me. He has two groups with different levels and his lessons are professional. This time they were focused on speaking. Actually I understood everything what he and the others spoke but to speak is still quite difficult for me. I was really surprised in what a short time he taught them already so much.

Sadly Merve was sick that day and could not work. Because of that I could not explore here project in the library. Usually she organizes every week theatre for the children which I really would have liked to see but maybe another time when she is healthy again.

Nevertheless I enjoyed my day in Plungė, the nice Spanish lessons and the event in the library a lot and I really wish to visit the town, the nice woman from the library and the volunteers once more.

100 days left

333 days in Lithuania... Time went by fast and suddenly there are just 100 days left!

When I look back to the beginning I have somehow the feeling it is so long time ago.
My arrival in Riga, meeting my flatmates and other volunteers, slowly getting used to everything, my first travel to Vilnius, Riga and so on, visits from my brother and boyfriend, my first time trying to speak Lithuanian,... everything seems so long time ago because so many new things happen every day.

As I showed you my last month was quite full of travel and I had again so many impressions and experiences that I did not realize how fast the time went by.
It is already again one month that I have not seen my little volunteer family from the other Cities and I have to say that I really miss all of them..

One friend has now been in USA for two weeks, the other in Stockholm, others in Amsterdam,... and I wish to see them soon again. But I think these meetings with them are in some cases already the last once.

Sadly now the time has come to say goodbye to a lot of them. Projects ends and several volunteers already leave back to their country. We are starting to organize goodbye parties but to be honest a lot of us really do not want to think about it.

When I look now also forward to the next 100 days I am a bit afraid. Saying goodbye has never been easy for me and usually I prefer to say "See you". Because I think if it should be you always meet twice in life but this time it is different for me..
With a lot of volunteers I had a lot of fun and they inspired me in so many ways but to stay in contact will be very difficult and also not really the right thing. Everybody is going to have a new life again and should live this and not still stuck in old memories in Lithuania. I hope this saying goodbye is going to be easier then I expect. Nevertheless I am sure that with some volunteers I will meet for sure and they will always be part of me now.

one crazy and unforgetable month

One Month full of traveling is over but for sure I will always remember this wonderful time.
First of all there was my trip to Poland, then to Germany together with some students and finally St. Petersburg.

Here you can read more about all my trips:

Poland 
5 days in Warsaw and Krakow together with6 other volunteers...

Germany
Berlin, Serengeti Park, Bremen, Heidepark and much more...

St. Petersburg
awesome trip which is impossible to describe in another word than BIG!

St Petersburg

St. Petersburg

After two short days in Siauliai it was time for my trip to St. Petersburg. Together with one other volunteer from Germany Antonia I was going to explore the city for six days.

In the evening of 4.April I met with Antonia in Riga. She lives in Vilnius and because of that she came a bit later to Riga as I. From there we started our loooong bus trip to St Petersburg where we arrived totally exhausted in the morning at 8 o'clock. We were unbelievable happy when we met our host Kate. It was a really crazy night with some adrenaline because of the pass control at the border and not to know what to expect.
We brought our stuff to Kate's flat and went together with her to the first little city tour. At this moment we already forgot all doubts from the night and how tired we were. Immediately I felt in love with the Church of Savior on Spilled Blood.

We have been in so many places that it is even hard for me to remember. :)

• HERMITAGE (you could go there every day!!), 
• Faberge Museum, 
• St. Peter and Paul Fortress (Cathedral, Trubetskoy Bastion prison, mint building,...), 
• in the St. Petersburg Mosque (which was once the largest in Europe), 
• on the top of Isaac Cathedral (such a nice view), 
• theater (beautiful place and the ballet was nice. The only problem was that I was reeaaallly tired :P ) 
• Smolny Institut,
• of course in many good restaurants, 
• in the deepest Metro station in the world Admiralteiskaja (Адмиралтейская),...

Believe me I could talk for hours about our special trip to St. Petersburg, but the pictures show you maybe more the real beauty of this amazing city.

St Peter und Paul Cathedral inside!
Just wonderful!!

Admiralty

one of hundreds of beautiful rooms in Hermitage

Smolny-Institut

we even went to the theater to see a ballet

St. Peter und Paul Cathedral, Admiralty and Hermitage

I really enjoyed the City, for me it was the biggest City I have ever seen and also one of the most beautiful once. Nevertheless I was really happy when we crossed the border again and I knew I am going home to Siauliai. This was a really special feeling for me. :)

Germany

I got the opportunity to travel together with some students of our school to Germany. During four days I had chance to visit Berlin, Bremen, Heidepark and Serengeti Park.

We started in the night with the Bus from Siauliai to Poland. It was a pretty long drive but the students were very active and so the time went by quite fast :).
We played some games, talked about everything, listened to music, made several stops, ate a lot of sweets and as you see in the end there was even not a lot of time left to sleep. Because of that I went to bed as early as possible when we arrived in our wonderful hotel in Poland. We just went to a small, reaaaally small store to buy some food and then I went to bed. Of course the students enjoyed their first evening of the trip and so they were a little bit more quiet when we continued our journey to Berlin the next day.

Berlin
We made a short stop at the "Berliner Mauer" to take some pictures before we finally went to the center of Berlin to start our sightseeing tour. :)
Thanks to the History teacher the students got always some information about the different sights and thanks to some students, who were willing to translate for me, I also could learn something. Well the language was again a kind of challenge for me. Not just because I was the only one out of nearly 50 people who can not speak Lithuanian but also because I could speak German again and I realized again how much easier life can be when you can communicate with people as you wish.
For example in Berlin I met one of my friends form Austria who is working in Berlin at the moment. During our break we went together to a restaurant and we had a nice conversation with a couple next to us. Absolutely nothing special but for me it was so nice that I was able again to just join a conversation easily.
So simple as it sounds but for me this experience and hour together with my friend was the highlight of Berlin.

For the students of course it was the amazing city itself. We have seen the Parliament, the TV tower, the "Brandenburger Tor" and so on. Hundreds of pictures where made, some nice moments I could also catch.

After sightseeing we went to Hanover where we stayed in a Motel.

Bremen and Serengeti Park
On Tuesday the 31.3 we started early in the morning our travel to Serengeti Park where we explored "the jungle". With a bus we drove through the different areas of the park and our bus driver told us a bit about the animals we could see. The man could just speak German and so it was my turn to translate. It was a really special experience for me and I enjoyed the tour a lot. We had the chance to see so many awesome animals from normal goats and pony, over Elephants and Giraffes up to Lions and Tigers. Very impressive was for me the white Tigers which are very rare. Our bus driver told me that he had raised one of this unique creatures at home some years ago. He said it happens often that someone from the park had to raise a animal at home. He also had already a Giraffe and at the moment one college has a monkey at home. For me it sounded very interesting but like a huge challenge

After the Serengeti Park we went to Bremen to walk through the city. Sadly we had really bad weather and we were all wet and so happy when we reached the bus again to go back to Hanover to our Motel.
Nevertheless Bremen is a really nice City and really enjoyed the bell song and the cute narrow street "Schnorrstrasse". 

Heidepark
Bad weather and storm warning- not really the best conditions to go to a fun park like Heidepark. We were thinking and discussing long but finally we decided to give it a try and we were lucky. It did not rain a lot and a lot of roller costar were working. I think for the students it was a special and memorable day. I could not join them riding the coaster but still it was nice to walk through the park and see happy faces everywhere.
Not as funny as the park was the bus drive after it because a lot of students felt sick. Fortunately soon everybody felt better and was ready for the long journey back to Poland, where we stayed one night before we continued driving to Lithuania.