20.4.2012
A very good start. I went to party last night and slept one or two hours, then grabbed my backpack and cought a bus to Helsinki. I was supposed to do some studying, but tired as I was, it wasn't possible. One hour in Copenhagen and the trip continues to Berlin!
In Berlin I felt something I hadn't felt for 6 months - sun! The warming sun! It was some 18 degrees and I could finally take my leather jacket on. Good start. I'm starving and extremely tired, but luckily I manage to find the university easily, where the organizer Alexander comes and gives me some fast snack to survive until evening. Most have already arrived and he takes me for a short city tour. Finallyt I meat a group of ESTIEMers - most of them new to me while some of them I knew from beforehand. Already drinking beer at 5 o clock and giving me some as well! A good start, I would say. So, on the wind of German beer, we explore several places and sing our songs loud in public places (the usual). We have a dinner and a pre-party in IEM student's cafe and get to know each other.
During the first evening we are taken to a very typical Berlin beer bar, a small and hidden place with very friendly owner, who although was not very capable to speak English. A time to recall the German skills. Some 40 hours without sleeping and several beers, I can't keep my eyes open anymore. The first day is done, let's get some sleep.
21.4
Nice long sleep. My host Maria has a very nice house in "Eastern Germany". Time to get a real city tour! The city is huuuge, in one day there is no one I could get even a small idea how it really is. After some team building and embarrassing ourselves we end up drinking beer in the yard of the Parlament house. It's a beaaautiful day. The beer is served with some typical Berlin food - DÖNER! Some songs and games, we are getting in the mood. I manage to sneek in the parlament house even I left my passport at Maria's place. Berlin turns out a fucking touristic place and I don't get any connection with it. It's too big, there's too much everything. I should probably live there for one year to get some kind of grib. In the evening we go again to eat and drink beer in the IEM cafe. Snaps is played and people are getting drunk. At some point we get to tram and do the STRABAPARTY STRABAPARTY HEY HEY! When we get to the night club we can of course pass the queue and pay nothing. Because we're ESTIEMers. Because we can. Some more drinks. A lot of dancing. Small blackouts. Falling sleep in the tram during the everlasting tram trip back home. A very fun night it was!
22.4
It's 11 o clock... We open our eyes... FUCK! IT'S 11 O CLOCK! The train leaves in 45min! A quick packing and a quick taxi to the train station, jumping imidiatelly in the train. Bye bye Berlin.
Tired people. 20 minutes and we arrive in some sleazy suburb of Berlin. There's a kiosk, perfect, we buy some beer. Fortunately I have also brought salmiakki liquer from Finland. Party may continue! 30 ESTIEMers sitting in the side of railway, drinking beer at 12 in the morning. Not bad! Finally our continuing train arrives.
Games, singing, beer, tired but happy people. Finally we have to leave the train again. There's too many consonants. I don't understand anything. zchczx and so on. I try to find a toilet but I can't. We're in Poland, man. And in Poland it's highly illegal to drink beer in public. What can we do with the drunk ESTIEMer? Well, put the beer in apple juice bottle. Almost the same color. So we continue drinking apple juice.
After many, many hours we arrived in Pozńan. It's a wonderful city! We are taken to a very cozy hostel, our home in Pozńan. Some typical Polish food and of course drink. I especially like the "Zoladzkowa gorzka" or something similar. It has also very good effects. Tonight it's Polish karaoke time! Many things are illegal in Poland. For example drinking beer while singing karaoke. The Polish beer is excellent. So is the night. People get a bit drunk. A bit. A lot of ugly photos are made. Still, we manage to get back to the hostel, and even try to have a sleepy after party. Well, very sleepy. Time to take some rest.
23.4
First thoughts - I have a hangover woooOOooo! Well, pull yourself up and get ready for the city tour! A very nice city tour it is. We did some pretty interesting tasks, like painted a dick in Martin's face with Polish colors, made cardboard joints, wrote a story in 11 different languages, sang "iayiayiay" in front of huge crowd and hired some new ESTIEMers (cute Polish kids), made Polish people sing something for Serbian money (a money that was not from a country that any of us was from). And so on. The final destination is the Politechnika. The Poznan University of Technology. BBQ time! And some beers. Some people were disappointed because they were not able to drink beer during the day in the streets, because it's illegal. Some funny games again. I ate one full white onion in 30 secs. Martin smoked a ciqarette in 30 secs. Someone (was it Raphael?) drank a beer in a couple of secs. Then someone was running without pants. And Tim was hanging from a tree.
Perfect. We finish quickly 10 liters of some weird home-made wine. And take a sip of ESTIEM spirit from Trondheim. And some more ESTIEM spirit provided by Poland. Zoladskowa gorzka that is. We take a tram to the hostel and make STRABAPARTYSTRABAPARTY HEY HEY! Polish start to hate us, definitely. Soon we will be probably banned from the whole country.
A middle party in the hostel. More Zoladzkowa. The trip continues to the bar. For some reason I end up following wrong people and end up in a wrong bar. It takes more than one hour for someone to find me and take me to the right place. That is no problem, I spend the time by talking shit with strangers (so typical me).
24.4
Several ESTIEMers are experiencing pretty drunken moments in the bar but in the morning by 8 o clock everyone has somehow found their way back to the hostel. Although most of them not remembering how that actually happened. Most still agree that the previous night was funny as hell! Some even find energy to go shopping, I don't know how they did that. That is followed by 8 hours in a Polish bus. Perfect.
It's 10 o clock in the evening, we arrive in Warsaw. The second part of this trip starts - PIWO, WODA, POLIBUDA, SECZ, MUZICA, POLITECHNIKA! (not properly spellt for sure). I'm so tired I almost loose my laptop and passport. At 11 I finally get to the hostel, and even find some hidden energy to go to the welcome party to see how many survived here. Well, a few.. Around 250, in fact. A lot of familiar faces, a lot of new faces. I'm exhausted. I have a hangover. Well, I went to sleep, as I was too dizzy to even stand on my feet.
25.4
The night was awful, still a bit mixed from the previous nights and not much sleep. Still I needed to pull myself up and get to my first General Assembly. That was torture. A true torture.
Well, good news, at some part it was finally over. And some more good news - some pretty amazing people that I met during Kamfest in Slovenia lives in Warsaw - Maciek and Natalia, and I'm about to see them that night! It was so great to see them again. That evening we were having an international night at the university canteen. It might sound like bringing foods from different countries, but it was more like bringing drinks. Natalia and Maciek were pretty surprised to see this huge and loud party in the canteen, with everyone singing their national songs, sharing their national drinks (the Germans wearing lederhosen and carrying 5l cans of beer, the Serbians giving out rakija..). That is the ESTIEM spirit at the best, I would say! One table breakes down, also one big window. Well, I want to go to a little bit more calm place to talk with these friends are recall some memories that were made in Slovenia. So we end up in a kind of alternative underground place, a very cozy cafe. It was incredible to see them there after all that time and laugh at our inside jokes that were made in Kamnik!! Time flies and I want to catch up another party the ESTIEMers are going, and Natalia and Maciek manage to sneek in for free as well to the geekiest club of the city (only engineering students go there, they say). It turns out quite a lot of fun and quite drunken people, again. I go home (or to the hostel) with some Dutch people and we end up stealing a huge beer advertisement. It's a customary habit in the Netherlands, they tell me. A fun, fun night, again.
26.4
7 o clock, one tired person, although not that much hangover. Some others had, though. Another torture day of General Assembly and workshops. Although I found myself quite productive in the workshops! The days are getting warmer and warmer, the temperature reaches already 25.
How about a party? 70s style party that night. I get dressed in my flower dress bought in the flea market, and some other find also cool hawai shirts and even monkey dresses (how is that connected with the 70s?). On the way I end up taking photos of the huge soviet building with Marius and it happens that we loose the rest of the group. So we end up sipping illegal beer from plastic bag and visiting Hard Rock Cafe toilet. For one hour. Then we are saved and taken to the bar by a Polish guy who's English causes some fun. So does Marius trying to talk Polish to some guards and wanting to get into trouble. The night contains some kamikaze shots and dancing Abba. But the tiredness takes over and I need to catch a taxi to get some sleep at the hostel!
27.4
Needless to repeat the GA and workshop part. Although, that night we had an especially good WG about awareness raising about the inequity in the World. Thanks Anne-Lise for that! I really enjoyed it, despite the hangover. The days are getting hot, 30 degrees are reached and people are melting in the yard of the university. The air-conditioning doesn't work in the university which makes the GAs even more painful.
Well.... how about... some party? After dinner I join some alumnis from Lyon to buy few beers in the bar for the way (finally we are not obeying the rules). They tell how awful it is to work and how they miss the student life. Here they feel free like back then. I wanted to buy 3 beers, but as we get there they want to correct me - oh, you ment 3 six-packs? and a couple of bottles of zoladzkowa gorzka? Ok, here we go again! While queuing I go to toilet in another bar and during that I of course again loose the group, but after asking a couple of times I manage to find it. A cool alternative underground place. We find out that in the neighbour bar they sell shots for 2 zlotys, which means 50 cents. So, we go to take shots there and then return to the club for dancing. The drinks in the club are made super strong, and the place is kind of strange too. Not really sure what to think of it, but I like it. After a lot of dancing I find myself being one of the last ones there, but luckily find a couple ESTIEMers going home. I don't know how we managed to get home and eat some kebab on the way, but when we reached the hostel the sun was up and the German guy with is realised it's not even his hostel. So the poor guy slept on the floor and probably everyone in the hostel woke up to our laughing.
Another hilarious night!!
28.4
The last GA. And a workshop fair. I'm satisfied, the Work Hard- part is fulfilled. And it's freaking hot outside. We do a city tour doing some pretty interesting tasks, like playing in the playground with Polish kids, teaching locals to sing the ESTIEM song, proposing an old lady, begging money and making pictures in unappropriate places.
Cool.
It's a very beautiful day and we sit down for some Breezer in a park. Oh, breaking the law, again. We continue to the old town to dance Macarena out loud with 200+ ESTIEMers and also all the other unappropriate songs we ever know. People are curious about us and ask who the hell are we and what we think we are doing. Something even better - we hitted a tram with all this group and started to have... STRABAPARTYSTRABAPARTY HEY HEY! The tram trip took some 20min and we sang all the drinking songs from all the possible countries, jumping. The old poor tram was about to break.
Time to get ready for the gala dinner. Everyone is dressed up fancy and the last night spent in the beautiful Warsaw University of Technology. This place was so truly amazing that there is no words to describe it's beauty. And a very good food. And a lot of sparking wine! A great band, dancing, limbo.. Time passing. Finally time for good buys. This exhausting trip is coming to an end. Well, before that we went to kiosk close by and bought some beer. Police nearly cought us. It was funny to be hiding with the beer in nice dresses and guys all suited up. My feet were dead and I finally walked home.
29.4
Time to say good buy to the city. With Jenny, Laura and Thomas we went to the old town to relax a bit before my leaving. Well, I fell asleep in the park and nearly missed my plain. Again I was running around the city with my backpack, no one able to speak English and help me. I just couldn't find the bus to the airport. Finally I cought a taxi and the driver cheated me. Nice.
In the airport there was a group of ESTIEMers heading for Finland. In Finland the Wappu time was coming so also some German and Dutch people were curious to see it. With Arjen we bargained for a beer in the airport for the last money we had. Two beers. Last minutes in Warsaw. The air comany had messed up with their tickets but finally they got seats in the business class. Polish Airlines provided us free warm beer. We were happy.
ESTIEM song in Helsinki airport and time to go home. Although the week was fun, I was so ready to go home! Exhausting, teaching, a lot of new friends, a lot of alcohol, not much sleep, high spirit quaranteed. Well, waiting for my next ESTIEM event!
Actually another funny thing on my way home. Because I'm a bit silly, I decided to go to party just after I got to Tampere to see my friends. Of course I left my key inside my flat and needed to sleep and my friend's place. And then she reminded me I had a deadline for 5 pages learning diary that day, which I hadn't even started yet. So, I payd 40€ for door opening, wrote 5 pages in 2 hours and went to celebrate Wappu.
The end.
In high ESTIEM,
Anniina.
Next trips:
30.7-8.8 Southern France
9.8-20.8 Khibiny, Russia
24.9-30.9 Norway-Denmark-Sweden
November Serbia!
