Kaunas

For 11-18 of November North-South Centre of the Council of Europe organizes “Global Education Week”.

This year Erasmus Student Network of Lithuania also joins this event providing the society information about the Erasmus exchange possibilities and its’ importance to the development of the global citizenship.

Here you can find short movie how ERASMUS, and exchange programs at all, can be benefitial for the person, local society and all the world! ;)

Attention: exchange students did a great job - explained everything in Lithuanian!!!

Thanks for all participants for educating our society!

This year all Europe celebrates Erasmus 25th anniversary. Let’s hear and see how about her Erasmus experience feels current student in KTU. Here is Valina’s from Greece story of Erasmus life:

“Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to be. You never know who these people may be (possibly your roommate, neighbor, co-worker, long lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger) but when you lock eyes with them, you know at that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way. And sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first, but in reflection you find that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, willpower, or heart. Erasmus life can prove to you that everything happen to you for a reason and  to make you to think more that the today will never come back so make every day count!!! I will never forget how I felt the first day in Kaunas, it was midnight -25C degrees and I was thinking that I had to enjoy it because I will be here for 5 months. So I started to laugh and here I am to say my feelings for the five best months in my life .What I say to myself and it will prove to me that Erasmus life is not only 5 months with people and some good moments but something special and wonderful is that after all this period in Lithuania I will understand who are my real friends and who are people that I just met here …. So don’t forget to show to your “Erasmus friends” how much you love them because moments never come back and you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
Ps.  The following few words that I heard from some people in Lithuania make me believe that there are real Erasmus friendships: “Why did you do all this for me?" I asked. "I don't deserve this. I've never done anything for you. - ”You have been my friend” - replied  x friends.

Photo called: “Erasmus is the cold weather with warm people around you…”

Written by Vasiliki (Valina) Traikapi

April 27, 11:00 am everyone wakes up and starts to prepare for the “Culture sauna party” that’s how it should have been, but as always Spanish were more “lazy” than anyone else so they were taking they time to wake up and prepare for the event. 11:15 am I reach second dorm doors expecting that there will be a bunch of people and we will be able to move to the bus stop, but I was wrong. Outside were standing only 5 people. Naturally all the mentors were worried where are  the students and right about when we were thinking to go inside the second dorm to wake everyone up. Like the rain from the sky a lot of students from the 5th dorm came in the meeting place. So with the calm stone in our hearts we were able to move to the bus stop. We left a few mentors behind to wait for the other Erasmus students (most for the Spanish). So everyone was a lil bit sleepy but excited and thinking about they adventures in the trip. After “early morning walk for about 1km”, the ship dock were reached and everyone could take a deep breathe of relief. Viktorija (the Head of the event) met us at the ship dock and carefully counted us as we would be her little ducks.

When registration was over we entered in the “Caribbean pirate” ship, put our stuff in the corner and quickly took our seats in a deck. The journey with the boat took something about 1 hour or more but it felt like it was 10 minutes. The greatest thing was the heat of the sun and terribly good weather, so that most of the students were chilling outside, taking sun bath with cold drinks.
 
Some of the students were singing or playing with the guitar, so we had some live concert too! 2:30 pm we reached our destination for handcrafts, get out from the ship in the place, where you could see plenty of trees and untouched nature by humanity. At some time you could really thought that you are scouting somewhere far, far away from the loud noise of the city and cars. Everything was so calm and relaxing and you could even hear the beautiful melody of birds. Yes, we have reached our first goal “Rumšiškės”! Every Erasmus were attracted by old houses, which were brought here 100 years ago, big fields of freshly cut grass and fantastic smell of the forest trees. By the lead of good experience we get to the center of handcrafting place and separated all Erasmus into 2 groups: first group went to make some pots, animals or any other figure from the clay; second group went to make traditional Lithuanian candles from wax. 
 
From the picture above you can see what kind of stuff were made from the clay and how people were interested in making of candles. Little by little our cold drinks “went off” because the day were very hot. Thank goodness we manage to find a refill were we could refresh our thirsty bodies and to wet our dry lips. With knew refill, went to explore a lil bit more of “Rumšiškės” and you will not believe than I will tell you that most interesting or I should say unseen thing was outside toilet. Yup, yup the real wooden outside toilet, which, for most Lithuanians, who are living in private houses, are still quite natural thing, for the Erasmus it was like an archaeological finding which was extinct from the earth more than 100 years ago  After such an “amusing” finding we went back to “Kauno marios”  coast with the smile on our face and good memories from handcrafting and more. Near the ship were waiting the captain and his one person crew with the warm smiles, which were saying: “Welcome back from successful journey my adventure warriors”. The trip back home to where we started was also relaxing and full of sun bath with a brilliant seaside view. 5 pm reached the ship dock were the bus was waiting for us take to the last trip destination “Šaltupys” homestead. After about a half an hour we were standing in front of this beautiful homestead which personally for me was like a dream hose just with the dancing pole inside :D The ground of the yard was covered with well-rounded wood and smooth stones. Here we were waiting for the last attraction – traditional Lithuanian dances, songs and games. The professional traditional dance group “Gauštauta” arrived at 7 pm so we had exactly 1h before our dinner was ready. “Gauštauta” kindly introduced us to old Lithuanians dances and games. Probably most funniest dance was “Bear dance” because you need to join the hands with other person and scream like a bear: “Urgh, urgh, urgh …”. In the picture below you can see how our Erasmus succeeded to dance this dance.

In the end of the show/presentation we took a group picture to remember each and every of us who were in this wonderfully crazy day. 
 
After that, took our dinner and shared our experiences of the trip. The food was great and cold drinks were really refreshing. Later everyone had an opportunity to enjoy traditional Lithuanian sauna, hot tube and to try dance po…. Heh hem it’s a different story.

Written by Evaldas Jankus

ESN Lithuania knows how to combine fun and work. A little bit of this, a little bit of that and you get a perfect team;) So, here we want to keep you a bit updated what happened during our last National Platform, which took place on 7 May, 2011 in Kaunas.

Firstly, we would like to congratulate our two members, who now took important positions on our national level. In our National board we now have Edgaras Žydelis as ESN Lithuania Treasurer and concerning other national positions, we congratulate Cihan Keskin as our IT coordinator! It should be mentioned that Cihan is from Turkey, so as you see, ESN has no borders! Congratulations to both!

What other topics were covered:

- Evaluation and presentation of the most important events of ESN, including AGM;

- Presentation of Sea Battle. From now on, Lithuania is the permanent member of it!

- Project RIDE FOR YOUR RIGHTS. You can find more information about it in speacial article on our webpage or on facebook.

- Presentation of Responsible Party which took place in Kaunas. The next such party is planned to be organized in Vilnius! We will inform you about it!

- Is it worth to have reports, annual plans of the activities of ESN Lithuania board? Unanimously voted for it.

- Presentation of Paintball which took place in Šiauliai on 23 April. Winners - KTU "hunters". Congratulations once again!

- ESN ISM as section candidate.

- PRIME report. Results of Lithuania are very good: we have 338 answers!

- some reports of the sections and other questions which make us keep going further and further.

- Summer Camp. Registration will start on 15 May!

Next National Platform of ESN Lithuania will be held on 24 September, 2011. Organizers: ESN KuK. It is planned to last for two days, so get ready!