The Diary of Nachenthaly Francisco

Day 7, 9th of July, Lithuania

The morning on Tuesday was captured by our dearest Mikela.
Mikela, maybe interesting for all of you to know, was the only name I remembered after the quick round of names when we arrived in Lithuania. I ran around the whole day yelling: Mikela, Mikela, Mikela! I thought it sounded interesting to "know" someone from Croatia, but thinking about it now, I must have sounded extremely stupid. Not that I care, much, or... So, back to Mikela!
Mikela had a wonderful game to start the day with, it involved three scarfs and believe it or not, we were able to collect three scarfs in Lithuania! Even with the sun literally burning outside, we found three scarfs! OMG! The game was called "non-blind people pretending to be blind by putting scarfs over their eyes!"... Now, the instructions.. 

0. Collect three scarfs (I forgot this one and was too lazy to change all the numbers, I normally start counting at 1, just so that you know)
1. Select a non-blind person
2. Make him/her blind by covering his/her eyes with a scarf
3. Select non-blind person 2
4. Make him/her blind by covering his/her eyes with a scarf
5. Select non-blind person 3
6. Make him/her blind by covering his/her eyes with a scarf
7. Let the blinded people turn around in circles for 10 seconds while the rest, who are standing in a bigger circle around them turn around too. 
8. Let the blinded people walk towards the persons standing in the bigger circle and start to laugh extremely loud when they are not able to guess who is standing in front of them.

That was basically the game! 

The rest of the program consisted of the two-stars presentation, where every land had to make a presentation about two national "Stars Down"! The Dutch group was not so obedient  because we decided that a two-stars presentation about two stars was too lame. This led to a presentation of three stars (Eva Simmons "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I9Ar6upx34", Epke Zonderland "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar0Yeidr9gs" and Marco Borsato "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz-UVQJ5Ujk") and the whole Dutch soccer-team. 

On Monday we got a paper with the name of an artist on it from Gaby, who planned a Starshow together with her Lithuanian friends. The idea was to be the artist on the paper for the night and everyone had to perform. We saw an amazing Michael Jackson dance-routine (made by Tarik and me), Shakira, Bob Marley, Queen, One Direction and many more artists came along. Monday was definitely our Stars-Down-Day and we all got a chance to shine bright at night. 

Much greetings from me (again),

Nachenthaly Francisco

The Diary of Nachenthaly Francisco

Day 6, 8th of July, Lithuania

Hogy Vagy! That is basically the only thing I have remembered during the morning-program on Monday. Guess that was caused by the fact that it was MONDAY! The most energetic day of the week. Anyway, for those who want to know what Hogy Vagy means, please look it up, because I want to know it too. It is in Hungarian by the way. I do remember though that Dobro means good in Croatian, but I am not quite sure if it is written correctly. I am not sure if it is obvious, but to make it obvious for everyone anyway, the morning started with a language-session. Everyone got to learn "How are you?" "Very Good" "Good" and "Bad" in all the five languages that surrounded us: Lithuanian, Hungarian, Croatian, Latvian, English and Dutch. I really want to learn you all these interesting words, but as said before, my memory is not that excellent. Especially not when we had to pay attention to the "school-board" inside, while the sun was shining so attractively outside. My apologies for that, but.. No worries, there is still an excellent program called Google Translate. 

I recall telling you all about an evaluation session in the blog of the 5th day, which was held on the 6th day. We did that as well! It was mostly FUN; not the evaluation, but the subject of the evaluation, being the Sunday. And almost everyone hoped that everyday would be like the Sunday. 

In the evening, when the sun was under, we decided to be athletic... We wanted to do all kind of sports, but since going to the supermarket for some Coca Cola, Chips and Candy was more attractive, we ended up playing Volleybal with the rest of the less Cola-addicted crowd at the training centre. The less-sportive ones of us decided to watch the others being sportive, now it is up to you to guess in which group I was! 

Much greetings from me, here in Holland, with 30 degrees outside,

Nachenthaly Francisco

The Diary of Nachenthaly Francisco

Day 5, 7th of July, Lithuania

It feels weird to write about the experiences in Lithuania, while being back at home and sitting at a computer with 100% internet-connection, but I think the effect will be the same. The last days in Lithuania were so crowded with assignments and road-trips that I could not find time in between the long lasting jamming-session with Elisa and Nauris to blog. I hope that you all will forgive me. If not...

So, Sunday, what a day. We did so much on Sunday that most people forgot the morning-session during evaluation the next day. In the morning we had the presentations about our experiences in Vilnius concerning dancing in the rain and crazy Dutchmen doing different tasks like dancing the Macarena with seven drunk Russian boys. One of them had the nerve to ask my Facebook, but he was so drunk that he still has not added me. When I think about my almost Russian Facebook Friend, I get sad right away! Uh-uhum!

After a small accident with the bus-driver we got into the bus to visit a kind of market, which were packed with a lot of traditional items. At first Chantal and I tried to convince Moena and Marleen that we really wanted to visit the archaeological museum over there (because we are boring people who do not like to visit markets but want to look at stuff that other people found in the ground eleven decades ago), but Moena decided that she liked shopping for jewelry more, so we decided to drop the museum-idea with much heartache (I only slept eight hours that night!). After being dumped by the two, Chantal and I found Elisa and the three of us decided to visit a festival which was basically around the corner. The festival had a prehistorical theme and we were literally surrounded by "cavemen", who taught us to build a fire and to butcher a pig. It was already awesome before we got to see the amazing view from the top of a hill. It was breathtaking.

This was not the end of the day, though. The museum was next. Not the archaeological museum Chantal and I were "dying" to go to, but the museum which belonged to the observatory. We followed the guide around and asked him all sorts of questions, while he was praying that we stopped bugging him, because he was not that keen on speaking English. I still thanked him, though, because he tried to speak English with us and he learned us how a real alien looked like (a meteorite.. some brainteaser huh!).

The day ended in Trakai, due to the fact that we could not see stars that night, which was an extreme pity. I was not to excited to go to Trakai, because the last time we went there some brilliant minds came up with the idea to rent some water-bicycles and ended up being about half an hour late.
Gladly, it was to late to rent water-bikes anyway that late at night, so we ended up in a restaurant where we could not order pizza 'cause the kitchen was already closed and where Hot Chocolate appeared to be the same as Chocolate Dessert. In Trakai we got to laugh a lot about Guillaume' and Martins' role-play; they pretended to be a married couple and Martins had the most expensive diamond (invisible) ring.

Much greetings from me, daydreaming about my time in Lithuania,

Nachenthaly Francisco

The diary of Nachenthaly Francisco

Day 4, 6th of July 2013, Lithuania

Due to the fact that it was Elisa's birthday we started the afternoon with her energizer, after having a free morning because of the late night in Vilnius. It was a HOO-CHI-HA game, that she learned at her theatre group. Videos about it will follow. 

Afterwards, it was time for the preparation of our Vilnius-presentations. Due to a delay we decided to do the presentations the next day, because it was cooking time. We had delicious pasta with truffles made by the Croatian team and amazing Hungarian soup made by the Hungarian group. We, as the Dutch group, decided to make dessert in the form of "poffertjes" and I honestly think it was the biggest mistake I ever made in my entire life and I will never bake "poffertjes" again. It was the most chaotic experience of my life and I was so happy that we were done serving everybody that I almost ran out of the kitchen without having my own portion of "poffertjes". Like all experiences here in Lithuania, it is an experience to laugh about while looking back. Guess it was not that bad after all. Especially because we did not have to do the dishes. That was up to the Lithuanian and Latvian group! 

Much greetings from Lithuania,

Nachenthaly Francisco

The diary of Nachenthaly Francisco

Day 3, 5th of July 2013, Lithuania

The third day was an interesting day. We started up with a horescope assignment. Every group of about five people got two starsigns to work with. The assignment was to come up with a horescope. My group had the starsigns Gemini (a difficult name for twins) and Leo. We came up with tips like "Coam your hair, because you look extremely wild" and "Be different and not like your sibling". 

In the afternoon we went to Trakai for a while to visit a castle. In Trakai I literally sprinted to a small shop to get me some Coca Cola. It never tasted this good and it will never taste that good again. At the training centre we were almost drowned in water with lemon, so a Coca Cola was really needed. A cold Coca Cola in the shining sun in Lithuania, it was perfect. After the Coca Cola break, we went to see the castle. It was beautiful and I immediately imagined myself being a princess and walking through the halls of this enormous castle, which was close to a perfect lake. What a view!

After our Trakai experience we went to Vilnius, where we had a paper with assignments to complete. We had to, for example, make a picture with an animal and it was very hard to find, but we eventually found a lion in Lithuania (eventhough it was on cardboard). I even managed to change jackets with a boy and he ended up asking for my Facebook. I guess asking for telephonenumbers was too 2012. In the evening we were tortured by massive rainfall, but in the end that did not matter. We had fun anyway! On the third day here at 12 o'clock in the evening we sang for Elisa, because it was her birthday. After our one minute performance we noticed that we ruined the life of the woman, who came to tell us that we were too loud and that we had to go sing somewhere else. Because of the fact that we felt so bad about breaking her heart, we went away while singing YMCA as loud as we could, at least I did. We did not see much of the rest of culturenight, but we ended up following the chinese culture. Being athletic (we walked the whole night without seeing anything) instead of having fun. Guess it was a bit of a culturenight after all! 

Just wanted to let you know that we're still having fun and that we're still learning a lot here in Lithuania. 

Much greeting from Lithuania,

Nachenthaly Francisco

The Diary of Nachenthaly Francisco

Day 2, 4th of July 2013, Lithuania

The morning started with delicious eggs and tosti’s. We knew that it was a stay-in-day and the beautiful weather made the morning more than perfect. At 12 o’clock we started the program. We started with games to get to know each other. The name game was quite interesting with names like Mindaugus and Guoda, but to our surprise Chantal and Marleen were quite difficult names to pronounce as well. Nachenthaly is a difficult name in Holland, so I was not surprised that I had to introduce myself as Chenty. After that we were paired up and we had to draw each other and our hobbies. All the drawings were placed on the wall in the activitiesroom. 

After we have made some groundrules, we had a moment to listen to the rules of the training centrum itself. The best part of the day was the lunch. The Lithuanians eat warm food twice a day. The lunch was a buffet with rice, potatos, chicken, salad etc. Elisa and I are absolute fan of this custom. The Lithuanians take more time for their lunch than for their dinner. This is why it was not that strange to find pancakes as dinner meal. In the evening we had a coffee break (as if anyone would drink coffee with 27 degrees outside) and it lasted like 30 minutes. It were 30 minutes of massive cookie eating, which did not make sense. All the girls over here are like super thin and do not eat a thing, but when it comes to the coffee break with cookies everyone was stuffing their plate and building pyramids of cookies.

Obviously we did not only eat the whole day. First we were teamed up and we made collages about our goals in this project and our hopes and dreams. After our half man – half woman collage with all sorts of crazy things on it, it was time for the presentations:

The Dutch group, we, presented a quiz with all sorts of stereotypes. Every country represented one group and we wanted to find out which country knew the Netherlands the best. It surprised us all that everyone thought that the fact “The Dutch are known for their greediness” was false. Guess we made a good impression on the groups. It turns out that Latvia knows the Netherlands the best, but we are not completely sure if they cheated with their mobile phones or not. Let’s just say that they are good observants (of mobile phone screens).

The Lithuanian group began with a funny video about stereotypes in Lithuania and it turns out that there is in fact a Mac Donalds in Lithuania, that they have electricity and iPhones. After their presentation it was time to dance to the songs of their “Stars Down”.

The Latvian group kept it easy and showed us three videos. One about history, one about economy and one about Latvia as a whole.

The Hungarian group made a quiz and it turns out that Croatia knows the most about Hungary and the Hungarian culture. Did you know that the Rubiks Cube come from Croatia? We do!

The Croatian group had a Powerpoint with a lot of information. One interesting fact was that they have grounds filled with truffles which are about 2000euros per kg. They have like million euros beneath their ground. They ended with a song and a legend about a giant who shook the highest tower in town. The grave of this giant was found, but as soon as the discoverers opened the enormous coffin with extraordinary bones the bones turned to dust. Quite a legend indeed. One to really “believe” in, but still a nice one to have.

There can definitely be concluded that we learned a lot the second day, we filmed a lot as well, so more will be shown as soon as the video has been made. For now, we are preparing for a long day full of culture.

Much greetings from Lithuania,

Nachenthaly Francisco

The Diary of Nachenthaly Francisco

Day 1, 3th of July 2013, Lithuania

Honestly, I cannot tell anyone much about the journey to Vilnius Airport, because I was basically sleeping the whole trip long. I can even say that I have missed the landings. Due to this sleeping-mode, the trip lasted shorter than expected and before I knew it, I was here. In Vilnius. In Lithuania.

While singing as loud as we probably could in the bus to the training-centrum, I was just telling myself over and over again that I really was here. In Lithuania. Near Russia. In a completely different country than the Netherlands, but in some crazy way I could not get used to that idea. It felt like a road-trip with a few Dutch students, acting crazy, singing, yelling, travelling, etc.

The moment we stepped out of that bus and a tsunami of equally beautiful girls passed us with all sorts of difficult names, it hit us all. We were not in Holland anymore. We switched to English and the exchange began. I remember us running like crazy to our rooms to change clothes, because, believe it or not, it was about 24 degrees outside when we stepped out of the bus and it was like 6 o’clock in the evening. Coming from the Netherlands, where it was raining the moment we left, we were absolutely overdressed. I think it is pretty clear now why we were in an immense hurry to change our clothes.

After dinner, we were received as socially as possible. It took Elisa and me just one hour to find our private guitar dude and before we were completely aware of it, we were jamming with a lot of people around a table. Singing songs all night long, while Martins (guitar dude) was playing the songs on his guitar. We laughed, sang and went to sleep when we were out of songs to sing and play. There can be definitely be said that the first day was more than awesome and that the people were inviting and loving. Pretty good qualities to have.

Much greetings from Lithuania,

Nachenthaly Francisco