Warm greetings

Quite long time since we met warm Romania.
Hope your New Year started well, main has started excellent and I believe it`s gonna be colerful and exiting.

Warm greetings to everyone from cold and snowy Latvia :)

ILze

Greetings from Zane

Some time has passed since the project took place, but the feeling and joy still is not lost. When e meet other project participants we remember funny jokes and funny events that we recall from our new friends and realize that we miss them. Romania lacks the warm air, high mountains and good natured people. Most I remember are many discussions in witch everyone had to defend their point of views and had to listen to others , it was not easy. One of the most interesting activities was the treasure hunt. The contest was very interesting and well thought challenges. The tasks were different and also varietd the level of difficulty, it was very good. The greatest tension I felt exactly when had the last task to be resolved - the pyramid. Were unable to resolve it for a long time, but in the end to we did it togather. Project games were very interesting.We've taught them to our friends, they also liked them very much.Of course the most popular was "baby shark". The project leader and all of the participants in the project were really nice and interesting. I certainly would like to meet you all and even if only once again go to Rumania. Projekts was fantastic.

Thenk you very much!

Zane

From Sandija after a while

It has been a while since we were in Rumania, but we still have good memories from the time we spent there. Most interesting is that for all of us it seams that only yesterday we left Rumania. It seems that only yesterday we were hiking feeling totally exhausted, but we did not give up. It seams just yesterday we were on a treasure hunt, looking for clues...

We arrived, had a great time and left, bringing home tons of memories to share with family and friends. Now all of us would like to go back to meet all the wonderful that took part in this life changing project. This project will always remain in my memory the fact that I met so many nice people and learned other national symbols and culture. Most, of course, I learned about Turkey, which I would like to visit as soon as I can and see everything Turkish told me about and showed me. I enjoyed making these Workshop presentations in each country’s group because they were completely different and it was also fun. It’s a pity that now, after a while, I can’t keep in touch with everyone. I loved energizers, which were taught in Romania, and now are often used as a good way to spend time with my friends. Most striking thing left in my memory from Romania is the common sports games, in which we got divided into groups so that only 1 person from each country, I enjoyed the treasure hunt so much, in which we had to cooperate with each other for the challenge to succeed. And of course within in memory will stay nice people who took part in the project and were always helpful and friendly. I gained a lot of English language skills and conversational development, because I had to speak English every day. I loved Romania itself as a country and I enjoyed the beautiful mountains and nature. Waking up every morning and seeing that magnificent view of the mountains was really great. There are much smaller hills in Latvia so I found it nice. Looking at pictures, or reading a letter with intention to turn the time back and stay there. But I hope that a similar opportunity will be given to me and I will see you all and share some more time.

At the beginning it was very difficult to return back to school. Strange feeling with no people from the project, no shared meals, activities, conversation, good time together. Even after a week got back home at night, my dad rung and asked whether I'm home, I was asleep so I began speaking English because I was used to speak English all the time. Leavening Romania was really hard but the memories will remain forever.

Best wishes to every one of you!

Merry Christmas :)
Sandija

Remembering...

It was my first international project and I can say that it was very intresting for me
and I'm glad because I was and I am in this nice project.
I met some people
with different ideas of life, different culture and not least different style and I learned
more thinghs about Turkey, Poland and Latvia and you, my friends, made me a very good
impression about your culture and your contry.
I really liked that days, and I hope to meet
you all again.Greetings from Curtea de Arges! See you my friends!

After U.S.E. -> memories and good friends

Ok, so here I am one month after that non-formal learning wich gathered us around in the small town of Curtea the Arges…yes, I am talking about “United Symbols of Europe” wich we had the honor to organize. Although it was my fourth exchange I can tell you that this one made me look thinks in a different way. Why am I saying that? Because I know how much we worked to organize this exchange…I am not complaining from only one reason…because the project was awesome in every way(and here I am talking about people, activities, the way we organized it, etc.). It’s amazing how a simple idea that Iulia had turned into this great way of spending our holyday and meeting new people or seeing old friends and discovering things that we didn’t knew about other countries.
I have this opinion about the exchange thanks to the workshops, their leaders, the activities (energizers, ice-breaking games, treasure hunt – wich, btw, I am so happy that turned out to be a success, the trekking wich I hope you all enjoyed, and specially the TB games).
In U.S.E. took part, as you already know, 4 countries: Latvia, Poland, Turkey and Romania. Those 4 nations brought, each, in my opinion, 6 of their best youngsters. They were all smart and with a lot of sense of humor, young people that know how to live their lives…that’s why we didn’t had any problems, or even difficult situations…thanks to those people. I think I will stop here writing because I can’t really find the appropriate words to describe this exchange…I think that I have only words that can’t be spoken about it, because I am so trilled that I took part in this magnificent activity wich we call “United Symbols of Europe” or the already well known name U.S.E.

At the beginning I thought it would be very hard for me , because it was my first youth international exchange, but I can say that it wasn’t like that. Besides the fact that I’ve really liked this exchange, I mean I liked its thematic about symbols and cultures, I am very glad that I had the chance to meet civilized people.
First of all we started to know each other, we played ice-breaking games and energizers and we talked about European citizenship, about tolerance, about ourselves and all during the exchange we tried to know our values an our defects (for tolerate them). For me, it was a great experience to organize and participate on this exchange, I can tell you that it changed something on me, made me fell more free in everything I do and in everything I think and say.
We have tried to understand that we are different, indeed, but still sowing, and our discussions have confirmed that to us.
During the exchange we had a lot of activities like: visiting Curtea de Arges‘s symbols, trekking +middle evaluation, treasure hunt, workshops, Brasov town, team building etc.
Nico

After

There is always an after… that’s because all the things come to an end some day and what is sad is that nice things end up earlier. That is what happened to our exchange, United Symbols of Europe, too which end up approximately one month ago. I am sure we all miss those days that passed so fast from our points of view.
And like in most of the “after periods”, we start to analyze and to think about what we have done and what we have learned during the period itself.
For me, “United symbols of Europe” was not just another exchange that I took part in. I didn’t just participate, but I had the chance to learn some things about how this kind of project has to be organized. There is a lot of work to do, but after you manage to accomplish all the things that you wanted, you stop thinking about the work you did to get to the aim and you only see the results and the enthusiasm caused by them.
So, after some weeks of preparing and trying to make everything go properly, the project started on 6th of September. We met the other participants and by saying “we met”, I mean we barely could remember each other's names. That was only in the first day, of course, before starting to interact, to talk about ourselves, our cultures, our issues which were more or less similar for all of us. We found similarities and differences among us: similarities brought us closer to each other and differences… (Not what you probably think)… differences made us curious, made us want to know more interesting things about the others.
We talked about many issues and we shared information about Europe, this way being able to express our opinions, to identify the issues and finally to find the solutions.
What I liked the most about this exchange…hmmm…hard to decide. I will choose the workshop because it was really pleasant to work with my team, to discuss, to find together interesting ideas and to practice them. As a leader of the Romanian Workshop, I can say that I was very happy to see Polish, Latvian and Turkish people wearing traditional costumes, to see them happy of learning a Romanian song, enthusiastic of acting the character of Hagi, curious to learn Romanian dances and nervous before the “European Fair” because they wanted everything to go well. It was great to work with such people!
At the same time, of course, we had a lot of fun! The energizers, the ice-breaking games, the parties and the times spent together in our breaks gave us the opportunity to know each other better and to get to nice friendships among us!
In conclusion, I want another U.S.E!