One of the best parts of the EVS is the fact that we have the opportunity to discover the surroundings and the country we are leaving in. Being a person that has lived her entire life close to the sea (pretty much everyone in Portugal does), it was one of the things I missed the most since I moved in Timisoara.
The summers here are pretty hot, and not having the beach is super strange for me. So, for one week, I decided to head to Vama Veche, a small place in the coast of Romania, close to the Black Sea and, curiously, a city with my name – Constanta.
The trip from Timisoara to Vama Veche is pretty long and a bit expensive, but totally worth it. The beach is very nice and, unlike Portugal, the sea is pretty warm. Of course, once again, I’m considering the temperature of the water in my country which is pretty freezing.
Anyway, Vama Veche is a place I recommend for everyone when visiting Romania in the summer. You can camp for very cheap prices, going to the beach during the day and partying there during the night. It is full of people from all over not only Romania but also other countries and it’s the perfect place to meet different persons.
I’m glad I had the chance to go there and enjoy the sea after some months without even seeing it. 🙂
As I mentioned before, this week FITT hosted the event to commemorate the International Youth Day. To celebrate this, we sent a special invitation to the EVS volunteers who are doing their projects in Romania, and to everyone else that wanted to join us. Pretty much my entire week was dedicated to the preparation of this event, as we had to take care of logistical aspects, prepare the concert and even making materials like bags and t-shirts.
During one weekend we had the chance to get to know other volunteers, go through Timisoara both during the day and night, as well as having a concert. We also did a workshop where, using stencils with key words related to youth, we made our own t-shirts.
We closed the event with a barbecue made by all of the participants together.
This was a very nice event and, for me, the first time I was in charge of organising something. I won’t lie and say that it was amazing to organise it, but it helped me finding out something that I definitely don’t want to do in my future, which is organising events in general.
For this, it was a good experience and I think that learning about what we don’t like is also part of the EVS. I was happy that the participants told me they had a good time, and of course I had a good time with them also, but I think in the end of the day I’ll pretty much prefer to continue to attend to other people’s events! 🙂
These weeks were been quite calm, which is weird considering the rush of things happening in the past few weeks.
I took this time to do some office work, like doing feedback reports for the project’s that happened during the past months and decorating my house a bit, so it feels more “like a home”. I went to buy some frames to put pictures with my family and some candles, just to make it a little prettier.
In the end of July, we had an event in the back of the Youth House to release a project called POCA, aimed at public policies regarding youth. The event was for Romanian people, as it is a Romanian project, but I sure enjoyed the food. :))
Besides this, I also have been planning, together with some friends, a trip to the Romanian seaside because, obviously, it’s not easy to be a Portuguese person without a beach during summer.
Very soon I’ll have an event organised by me, with the help of some colleagues, to celebrate the International Youth Day, for which we invited all the EVS volunteers doing their projects in Romania, to get together and enjoy this day, while getting to know Timisoara. These weeks, I’ve been preparing this event, with settling all the details for it.