Trips

During WWII in Ponar near Vilnius more than 70 000 Vilnius Jews were massacred and buried in mass graves. In this way Vilnius, Jerusalem of the North, lost almost the entire Jewish population. In 1943 an 11 year old kid Tamir won a ghetto song contest with his song 'Shtiler Shtiler', known as 'Ponar Lullaby', he devoted to the new graves in Ponar after the massacre.

For the purpose of this project students of different European countries will be invited to an event in Vilnius called 'Ponar Lullaby'. 8 groups consisting of 50 persons will be formed between December 2012 and April 2013 (on Sundays). They will spend a day in a former ghetto - a typical day of a Vilnius Jew. The aim of the project is to trigger a discussion among young people of different nationalities who are not familiar with neither the history of Jewish people, neither the Holocaust, about the lessons of the past and values of democracy in Europe and make them eager to build the future of democratic Europe.

More information about the project can be found here.

Ok ok ok ok ok do not panic… and again, what time is it? 9.45? Where are you all??? Lets check again, how much of time left? We suppose to leave in 15 minutes…!

That is how started an adventure called trip to St. Petersburg. Ten more minutes and people started to gather.. I (member of ESN KTU section) was organizing this trip and a mentor - Audrė from KK was helping me a lot. It took a few weeks to plan everything... So imagine how happy I felt afterwards… Nobody was late, everybody came, a great relief came to me.

People studying in KTU, KK and VMU universities who came to Lithuania from Turkey, Germany, Sweden, France, Poland, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Italy, Kazakhstan were ready to visit St. Petersburg and enjoy its beauty and oneness.

This is the day, the time and place. Now, hold on Russia, our gang is coming! We are going to be sooo wild and so furious! (10 min. later - everybody sleeps in the bus).

Well, I thought to myself, maybe we are not going to be so wild. But that is completely ok, we will take it leisurely, there is nothing wrong with that, maybe these guys just want to have some rest and peace but not parties and rave...

I have to admit, that it was a first and totally wrong impression of our crew, because just after a noon everybody started waking up, to eat, drink and talk. In brief, it was a habitual waking up time and activity for Erasmus students. Very fast, talks and chatters in the bus, going Kaunas – St. Petersburg, developed in to a massive and unstoppable feast with delicious drinks, foods and even dazzling camera lights, which as appeared later, was dazzling bus drivers so much ,that they even couldn’t see the road.

After a short bus stop for a brief moral education, we could move on towards the town called Narva where we had to spend a night and then, fresh as daisies, cross Russia border. And everything went this way, we didn’t even noticed as we were already going down the road towards the great and remarkable town – St. Petersburg. And indeed, St. Petersburg is amazing. Undoubtedly - one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Architecture, museums, people, everything is so different, exclusive and beautiful at the same time. St. Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great, that is why the most famous objects that we have visited was somehow related with this remarkable person or his relatives.

At first we went to see Peters and Pauls cathedral in which all the emperors and empresses of tsarist Russia are buried down. It is the first and oldest landmark in St. Petersburg which amazes you by its grandeur and abundance of affluance. Second, a very special place that we went to see was a Catherines summer palace, that personally for me, was the most amazing thing that I have seen in Russia so far. Its splendour, beauty and luxury made me rethink about those who had it and those who had to die because of it.

The last day in St. Petersburg started quite early by going to one of the world-wide known museums – Hermitage. Just imagine, what an extraordinary feeling you get when you go down those beautifull coridors, staircases and halls that used to be a homes for ones of the most famous historic personalities. Moreover, step after step you discover sculptures, paintings and other masterpieces of the artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Matisse, van Gogh and others... It is quite impossible to describe everything in words. I think the only way you can get visualize Hermitage is to go there and to see everything with your own eyes ...

After these adventures and spectacular views, tired but very happy, we headed towards Lithuania . I must say that because of a remarkable drivers skils, our way back to home did‘nt take a long time and was very decent.

And that my friends is the story about a trip to a land of great Russia whrere a city called St. Petersburg amazes everyones eyes who is lucky enought to see the beauty of its wealth.

Simona Puskunigytė

• 2100+ international participants
• 760+ cabins
• 40 local ESN sections
• 6 ESN countries
• 5 DJ’s – 3 dance floors
• 5 restaurants – 3 shops
• 4 saunas – 2 pools
• 3 days – 2 nights
• 2 harbors
• 1 unforgettable event!
 
ESN Lithuania is happy having an opportunity to offer an opportunity for 48 exchange students from Lithuania to be convinced that this is one of the greatest party you may have! Places were shared according to an amount of exchange students studying in that university, which ESN section belongs to. Here are the numbers:
• ESN Vilnius University - 10 places,
• ESN VGTU - 10 places,
• ESN VMU - 6 places,
• ESN KTU - 6 places,
• ESN MRU Vilnius - 6 places,
• ESN KuK, ESN KK, ESN ISM, ESN ISLB, ESN ŠU gets 2 places per section.
 
!Some sections might not to fill up all of their places, free places will go to the people who will be in the waiting list according to their registration time!

Registration form >>HERE<<

DEADLINE to registrate - 21st of September, 23:59.
You have to give money to your section coordinator.
Deadline for sections to transfer money - 24th of September, 23:59.
 
Who is responsible in your section?
ESN VMU - Sandra Baltkojytė, [email protected];
ESN KTU - Justina Krauledaite, [email protected];
ESN KK - Modesta Džiaugytė, [email protected];
ESN VGTU - Simona Aršulytė, [email protected], [email protected];
(more soon to come)
 
Participators must agree to the rules of the organizators. Every participator will have to sign a contract. Documents are attached below.

ESN Sea Battle 2012 Fall for exchange students from Baltics will be held on 18-20th of November.

Official event Facebook event HERE.

For more info contact your section or Sandra Baltkojyte, ESN Sea Battle national coordinator by email [email protected].

Sea you on the Boat! And traditionally... it's time to start learning the ESN Sea Battle Movement!

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

From 14th to 16th of November ESN Lithuania delegation was participating in an International ESN event "Sea Battle", which is organized two times per year by ESN Sweden sections. This time Lithuania was represented by 50 participants (including 2 Group Leaders) from 7 different sections of ESN Lithuania: ESN Vilnius University, ESN VGTU, ESN MRU Vilnius, ESN ŠU, ESN VMU, ESN KTU and ESN KK.

In the morning of 14th of November our delegation finally arrived to Estonia, where they were met by cold sea breeze and a unique old town, which is included in the list of UNESCO's World Heritages Sites. Having a few hours before departure, it gave them the opportunity to explore the city. In the evening everyone gathered around in the Tallink Cruise ship Terminal-D, where they have shared tickets and signed participant contracts which binded to take responsibility for their own actions. Time to step in to the Tallink Silja Cruise ship "Baltic Queen" has finally come!

All the participants were settled in 4 place cabins, which were located on the same floor. This allowed them to communicate more conveniently. First evening they headed to Stockholm with only about 300 students from ESN sections of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The program of the first night invited everyone to parties, which were located in two different ship clubs: "Starlight Palace" and "Ibiza Club". Culmination of the evening was then few exchange students encouraged by hot blood and unfading enthusiasm were running on the deck half-naked :)

In the morning of 15th of November they have finally reached Stockholm. Here students could already feel the spirit of Christmas floating in the air, while Christmas Trees and Christmas Towns were being built in the centre of the city. After having some time for sightseeing, they came back to the cruise ship terminal, where it was very hard to get through queues, formed by Scandinavian students, who were waiting for their checking and getting on board.

After students from Sweden, Norway and Denmark have joined them, there were more than 2000 students on the cruise! Each of them had a great opportunity to participate in the informational meeting, where the NR of ESN Swedenn was teaching everyone the already so extremely popular ESN Sea Battle Movement dance. Later the evening program offered activities for everyone – starting from Speed Dating, Crazy Games, Pub Quiz, ending with a Karaoke event which turned out to be quite popular among international students, Salsa lessons or two different parties in the two clubs of the ship.

While foreign students were having fun, Group Leaders and security of the ship (in other words "the people in blue or yellow T-Shirts" as they were called by passengers) were taking care of everyone’s safety and maintaining order in corridors and territories of clubs.

In the morning of 16th of November ESN Lithuania delegation left the ship. "Sea Battle’11 Autumn" was over for them, but continued for students from ESN Sweden, ESN Norway and ESN Denmark. During those days and nights many things have happened. Some of them were funny, some – painful, but all in all everyone came back safely, with many adventures to tell and ready to repeat ESN Movement in up-coming "Sea Battle" events!

Julija Garšvaitė

Even after more than a week, participants of the ESN Summer Camp, which was held on the 11-15 August, are sharing their positive experience and photos on social networks. That shows the Summer Camp was really successful and memorable! ESN members are therefore grateful for organizers from ESN Lithuania and for KTU, VDU and KK as these universities supported the event and in this way contributed to a great success.

There were totally 59 ESN members from Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Turkey, Sweden, Germany and Lithuania. As the Camp was based on team building, both lectures and games were organized. Organizers invited Nijolė Petkevičiūtė from VDU and professional trainer Andrius Jarašiūnas to conduct some lectures. During the trainings, it was concentrated on the personality, team building and the problems related to this. Participants were learning to cope with their fairs, work together etc. Funny team building games were played as well.

For sure, various attractions also help to build a team, so organizers thought about this and prepared some nice surprises. Participants could use sauna, hot water tub, drive water bikes, play basketball or valleyball. Eurodinner was organized too. Campers were extremely happy to have the water fight as well as night orientation game. For some of the participants it was completely new experience. After the busy day, it was possible also to spend the evening nicely sitting by the fire place.

Summer Camp by ESN Lithuania was organized also in 2010, but at that time only Lithuanian members of ESN could participate. So, this year the conception of the event became broader as it became international. With lots of positive experience, fun memories, bigger motivation to work further on for ESN, participants promised to come back to Lithuania once again. Organizers are also happy about the success, so ESN Lithuania is seriously thinking to continue this nice tradition of having Summer Camp for ESN members.