More fundamental experiences

I can't believe it has been more than a month since my last post. Time is passing so unbelievably quick and it has been happening recently I'm not properly following everything that has been happening. Continuing the story from the last post, I have been at the EVS on-arrival training last week and I have to say it's been one of the best, if not the best part of my EVS. I have spent eight days with 30 incredible people and already the first day I have found people with whom it simply clicked. Incredible. I felt so so sorry I won't be able to visit any of them, at least not in Italy, as I am leaving in less than two weeks and then moving abroad again, so I guess it would be quite difficult. However, despite having the on-arrival training at the end of my project and strongly doubting how much I would actually learn, I have learnt so much, it's quite ... wow! More or less all the activities were based on games and group work and everything portrayed the reality so well, it was very easy to apply the games to every-day situations. Having strengthened my inter-cultural and team-work skills have been two main things I will benefit from the most and I'm happy I was able to turn the training into a positive thing regarding how doubtful I was prior the departure. Thanks to to amazing EVS trainers it was quite easy to do that. At this point I'd like to thank again the whole group and trainers, Carmine and Michele, for making my EVS even more special and bringing it to a whole new, higher level. A special thanks goes also to Anna, Burcu and Marta for the photos below.

The hotel where we were staying was ... a bit special. Considering it was a four-star hotel, I definitely did not have the feeling it really was. The rooms were very small and the food was far from a four-star menu. Healthy four-star menu. Fried dishes almost every day were killing my stomach as I'm not used to fried food any more as I never make it neither eat it. Then, dinner was actually heavier than lunch (what sense does that make?) and sometimes we had very strange combination of plates - for example, one evening e had risotto as the first dish and a hamburger as the second dish. How does that go together?! Not mentioning the amount of meat in the hamburger which could easily count as a single dish. My stomach has been refusing food ever since I arrived from the training. I guess it's because we were having pasta and stakes every day at least once, if not twice a day. I am so content to being able to cook by myself. One dish, no desert and nothing fried. Ah well, after a few days of complaining about food the cook changed the menu a bit, so it got sort of healthier. There was another special thing about the hotel restaurant. At every meal they were playing the same Christmas-songs CD. Every day. Three times a day. After one day I (and also the others) were pretty annoyed with it. Now, whenever I hear Michael Buble's song Christmas (or whichever it was), I think for a moment I'm back in Rimini having breakfast or lunch. At the moment it seems like an unerasable memory, but I guess after some time it will fade.

After coming back from Rimini my first and most important mission was buying a train ticket to go back to Slovenia. A mission that at some moments seemed impossible. I have easily bought the ticket from Firenze to Villach, but the buying a ticket from Villach to Ljubljana ... oh dear, that's quite a drama. First, I went to the Prato Central station where I was told that the train system does not find any trains from Villach to Ljubljana, so I should find a different way to buy the ticket. Buying the ticket in Austria is out of question as I was supposed to have only six minutes to change trains (at 4 o'clock in the morning, pretty please). Then I was trying to buy the ticket online at the ÖBB website, but, again, it turned out as impossible. Unfortunately, I was too late to buy the ticket, so it could not be sent to Italy in time. I was slowly running out of plans. Then, I asked one of my lovely flatmates if she could check (and possibly buy) the ticket in Firenze. Yet again, it turned out the train is supposed to be full, so no more tickets were available. I was quite freaking out by that moment. I had no idea what I can still do except going to Firenze myself and somehow trying to get the ticket. Anyway, I still had a spark of hope for the Prato Central station and I tried my luck there again. First, the man at the ticket "office" (it's not really an office, it's just a window) tried finding the train himself, but the strangest thing came up - the train-ticket system was able to book me a seat on the train, but could not offer me a ticket. Yeah, hard to explain, even harder to understand. I already saw myself going to Firenze tomorrow and, again, turning back home empty-handed. But then, a sort of a miracle happened. Another man came, obviously the other employee's supervisor, and together they have managed to get me a ticket. I cannot remember when it was the last time I was so happy and relieved at the same time. I literally wanted to squeeze myself through the little hole in the window and give both men a big kiss. So, now I have more than an hour to change the trains in Villach (going to Austria in order to get from Italy to Slovenia still seems absurd). 

It has definitely been two very very stressful days thanks to Trenitalia and ÖBB, so I should get to bed. I'm making a spicy white-chocolate cake tomorrow, trying out a new recipe, so I should be full of energy. 

Marjeta