Oslo here we come :)

Manana and I decided to go on one last trip together before we leave Lithuania - to Norway. As we both have never been to a Scandinavian country, Manana, I and another volunteer (who is currently doing EVS in Latvia but is originally also from Georgia), traveled to the capital city Oslo to spend a few days there.

As it happens, one of Mananas coursemates is currently studying in Oslo, and she agreed to host us while we are visiting the city and she was a great city guide :)

I guess I can speak for all three of us who went to Oslo and say, that we were all fascinated by the Norwegian nature, as it is incredibly beautiful. We were all a bit caught by surprise that Oslo wasn't how we imagined it somehow, but still, with it's access to the sea, very modern buildings, great public transport system and inhabitants who all speak and understand English, it is worth visiting it. We just would suggest everyone who decides to visit Norway, also to visit some more rural areas of the country, to experience the "real" Norway, as Oslo is an extremely multicultural city and you won't feel too much that you actually are in Scandinavia. :)

Nice view from the plane (by the way it takes just 1 hour and  15 minutes from Riga to Oslo)

living in Oslo city

Our Georgian friend in the most famous park of Oslo (with a lot of naked sculpture :D)

Manana, me and our host exploring Oslo in the evening

Hilly Oslo

I, our Georgian friend, and Manana sitting on the very modern opera of Oslo from which  you have a great view

Port of Oslo

At the sea side

Very cool University library :)

Rabea

Portuguese culture events in Siauliai (2012-04-04)

Today in Siauliai we will have two events about Portuguese culture. On 2012-04-04 at 15:oo the cultural attache of the Portuguese embassy in Lithuania and his student will present their poetry books. This event will take place in  P. Visinskis library in Siauliai.  

 

Later on at 18:00 in Centro Sokoladine cafe (which is located on Vilniaus gatve 134) will be an exhibition of the photos which Vita Grigutyte  has taken in Portugal.
As far as I know there will be also presentation about Portuguese wines :) 

I'm planning to join these events today and I also recommend you to join me :)

Manana 

My personal Hit-List of Disney movies

As I have recently written about the latest Disney movie, which sadly enough doesn't seem to be very successful, I thought of watching some of my personal favorites from my childhood again.



Here is my Hit-List of Disney movies which will always be nice to watch, no matter how old or young you are :)


The Lion King
The Beauty and the Beast
Toy Story
The little Mermaid
Finding Nemo
Mulan
Monsters
Mary Poppins
Robin Hood
Bambi
Dumbo
101 Dalmatians
Tarzan
Pocahontas
Winnie the Pooh
Ratatouille

... and many more :)

oh, and from the newer productions, my all time favorite:

Pirates of the Caribbean


 


To see the complete list of Disney movies, including the one's about to be released until 2015:
http://www.disneymovieslist.com/disney-movies.asp

Rabea

picture source:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/disney%20movies/StormyWolfBowler/DisneyMovies.png?o=11
http://www.tropical-paradise.net/pirate-of-the-caribbean.html

Presentation in the American Corner of Siauliai Library

We 4 volunteers usually attend the English Club implemented by the American Corner of the Siauliai Public Library every Monday. At our last meeting, Merve and Ömer presented their home country, Turkey. Merve even cooked a traditional Turkish dish and we all enjoyed to drink Turkish tea together :)


 










Rabea

picture source:
http://www.savb.lt/amerikos-skaitykla/3162-angl-kalbos-klube-savanoriai-i-turkijos-pristat-savo-al

Italian women - one year after their protests

protests in Italy one year ago

One year ago, more than one million Italian women took part in a demonstration against the sexist portrayal of women during the governing period of Silvio Berlusconi. The former Italian prime minister was involved in some sex scandals and questionable activities with underaged women. Many Italian women think that this portrayal of women at official event, on television and in newspapers created the impression, that especially young women are not more than some kind of dolls hanging on arms of older men. 

Silvio Berlusconi portrayed with two younger women

Now Berlusconi is not governing the country anymore, but he clearly made his point when it comes to women rights and the role of women in society. 
The new technocratic government fortunately presents a different view on those issues, as they claim that one of their main obstacles is to pull Italy into the 21st century when it comes to gender equality. 

The top-ranking woman in Mario Monti's new technocrat government is Elsa Fornero, a former economics professor.

Ms Fornero is not just in charge of the equality agenda, she is also minister of labour and welfare. And Ms Fornero is not the only women who helds a powerful position in this governemt now. Mr Monti has also appointed women to the justice and interior ministries.

But having some women in powerful positions is not enough to change how a big part of the Italian society still sees the 'right place' for the Italian women. As long as the main mass media institution continue to portray women as objects with more or less no ambitions in political, social, or science fields, it will be difficult for the country to overcome their old fashioned picture of women. 

I wish the Italian women, and other females all over the world success with fighting agains politicians like Berlusconi, who damaged the image if half of the population when saying  : 'Ladies, I have a mission for you on election day: cook!'

So, my opinion is, Ladies, our mission is to take part in elections, to vote for parties which will work towards gender equality, and to become active ourselfs and stand up for our rights.

Rabea

more information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17289707 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7338415.stm 

picture source:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5552751/Silvio-Berlusconis-girls-gaffes-and-graft-appeal-to-Italian-voters.html  

http://www.reuters.com 

Dance Battle in Klaipeda, Lithuania

On saturdaysomething happened which was really amazing,, ;)

yesterday i went to watch dance battle in klaipeda , "house, popping, team"
it reminds me everything which i forgot(ignored). place was awesome, people were awesome, musics were incredible...

During to primary and high school years i used to dance "break" , then somehow had to give up, but i have never lost my ambition!

`feeling to music and behave as much as you like, try to dance and watch to dancers ` 

so just wanna share that i really enjoyed and made a decision about to start dancing again,, at least basic level..!

here videos you may check it out :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6cYGn-F2oE&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifVcIf8h9s&feature=player_embedded

http://youtu.be/msEhtqQnawI  

Video of our Volunteers Week

As Manana and I already wrote quite a long time ago, we participated and organised a Exchange project for students from Didzdvaris Gymnasium and another Gymnasium with IB program, called EKOLA Wroclaw, Poland. The topic of the project was volunteering and as Manana and I are in fact international volunteers in Lithuania at the moment, we shared our experience with the students. Moreover we asked the participants to develop a short video about volunteering.

As a matter of fact, one of the Polish participants asked us if he maybe could  the video, as he is really into cinematography. Unfortunately, somehow he did not send us the video until now, but we needed the video for the final project evaluation. In order not to let the national agency wait for longer, we sent them this raw material the students filmed during the project. Hopefully our video guru from Poland will eventually cut the video somewhen later, and also add subtitles to the parts, during which our international participants and project leaders speak in their native language.

So now the video is one Youtube, so we will share it also on the blog, for participants, their friends and everyone else who is interested in volunteering and what young people think about it. :)

Rabea

Short visit to Vilnius

Manana and I had the chance to accompany a group of students from Didzdvaris Gymnasium and from another Gymnasium (I have to admit I can't remember the name of the school now, but the students and teachers were very nice and active) to Vilnius yesterday. Manana has already spent some time in the capital of Lithuania at Christmas, but for me it was the first time when I really had the time to visit the center of the city. Of course we both visited Vilnius before, but except for the bus and train station we haven't seen much (not counting Mananas trip in December).

We started at 7.30 from Siauliai, which is very early for Manana and me. Actually, during the last 12 years of my life I always had to get up at 6am, because school starts earlier in Austria than in Lithuania (Hurray on the Lithuanian school system!). But now, after I have spent some month here, getting up between 8 and 9 usually, waking up before sunrise is torture. :)

But, it was worth it. At first we visited a presentation about volunteering with the students and surprisingly we met some of our friends, who are also international volunteers in Lithuania, at this event. 

Afterwards Manana and I separated from the students, who were about to have some guided tours (in Lithuanian). 

So we explored the Old Town by our self, visiting some tiny galleries, strange churches and a very nice arts museum with a temporary exhibition about the development of fashion.

I might admit, that the weather was not always very suitable for a sight seeing trip, as it was snowing heavily most of the time and windy and cold all the time. However, we saw some parts of the very nice city (We even found the Austrian embassy ... it was a coincidence, but still, we found it) and laughed a lot.

Exploring narrow streets in Old Town

Nice building of the Swedish embassy

Church, which had a door that was too heavy for us to open, so we saw it only from outside :D

Pictures from the opening of the American Corner

We volunteers with another volunteer from Italy and moderator Jolanta Vaitekuniene

US ambassador

Attending crowd

Mayor of the town

Official opening of the American Corner

We volunteers with the American Ambassador

Group Picture

Wishes for the American Corner

source:  http://www.savb.lt/amerikos-skaitykla/3134

r.s.

Mid-term Meeting (Late news:)))

Not that it took me 10 days to review our mid-term meeting. Just as usually I share information not on  time... But still...
10 days ago we came back from one of the most important (official) events in EVS life  - Mid-Term Meeting with other volunteers. Mid-term meeting is a part of the 'training cycle' in EVS program and it takes place in the middle of the service. On this meeting you can share with other volunteers how your EVS is going on and maybe even find some interesting solutions to temporary problems in your project.Well, as we already are in the middle of our volunteering service in Šiauliai the time for mid-term meeting has come.

Rabea and I were not really motivated to go on our Mid-term meeting because it was very cold and we simply were too lazy to travel from Šiauliai to DaugirdiŠkės which is located near Vilnius.. So it's quite far away from our beloved Šiauliai and there is no direct bus or train connection. Also we have no problems with our project or with each other..so far.. In short, we couldn't see a worthy cause to motivate ourselves for mid-term meeting.

Now we are back and I might say that we really enjoyed our Mid-term meeting and 5 days which we've spend in Daugirdiškės.

 We liked our group which consisted of 17 or 18 volunteers from all over the Europe and not only. We liked our trainers which have facilitated creation of a friendly and nice atmosphere during the meeting and not to forget - accommodation and food were also very good. The program of the meeting was also quite nice. It was flexible and also not overloaded. We've got some useful information about Youth pass. Most of the methods which were used to present our projects or problems during EVS were creative. We made some performances and some of them we'll remember for ever :D [Miki's performance for example.. Only participants will understand:P:P] Later on we cooked together for international dinner, it was really great! I helped a volunteer from Palestina Amjad to make Palestinian traditional meal "upside down", other volunteers cooked something traditional from their countries. Our dinner this evening was really international as we had food from Austrian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Czech and Palestinian cuisine. We enjoyed coocking and earting it a lot! :))) (I'll post some photos in the end of the article). Just one thing during this week Rabea and me didn't like was 1 hour walk in Trakai. Well, Trakai is beautiful place indeed and we really like it... but it was so cold, we thought we'll die there..:/ Other then that everything was ok :) We discussed different topics but in the end somehow concentrated on the topic "Life after EVS" as it seems to be the most important and actual affair for volunteers at this moment. I hope for some participants these discussions were useful and they found out some solutions for their problems or some ways how to lead their life after EVS. Well, for me the topic was not very important because I already know (more or less) how my life is going to be (or how I would like it to be) in 5 years. I plan to continue my studies (Public Policy and Administration) and find a job meanwhile in non-governmental organization which works on policy analysis. [Actually, there is another version of this story and by the way Rabea supports this version (about how do I see my life in 5 years). So I plan to become a housewife and I want to have lots of children.] We'll see which plan will work out:)))))


And I guess it will be a crime not to say few words about the place where our meeting was held. It took place in Daugirdiškės (I hope I wrote a correct name). It was really very nice village located in between Vilnius and Kaunas, and Mokimų centras Daugirdiškės is one of the nicest places for trainings or this kind of events. This center has three houses for different purposes. One is a quite big hall for trainings, another house is for accommodation purpose and third is sauna. So while one can have party after trainings, others who feel tired can sleep and they don't disturb each other. And of course for those who like sauna it's cool to have it there.


I'm happy that in the end our meeting turned out to be interesting and enjoyable. We met a lot of new volunteers and I think we've gained nice experience there. I wish to every participant good luck in their lives!

Manana




P.S. Some photos from our international dinner :)

Quiche (French)

Upside down (Palestinian)

Potato Soup (German)

Milk Rice (Portuguese)

Nussschnecken (German)

 That's all photos I have at the moment :)