On arrival training

Budapest Budapest Budapest. Here we are! Our on arrival training started on Monday, November 10^th. We and two other volunteers from Szeged met on the train station at 8 in the morning, caught the train and…. finally we reached the capital city of Hungary. Anitas’ friend met us on the train station and showed us to the hotel we stayed all 5 days. The hotel was far from the city, so we were a bit disappointed. The training started at 13.30 just after the lunch. It was the “Get to know each other” day. The day was full of activities and games! And after that we were a bit exhausted…

On Tuesday, our trainers represented EVS. We talked about rights and responsibilities of mentors, volunteers, sending/ hosting organizations etc.  It wasn’t so useful because we already knew that stuff. I mean, we are volunteers here, so we should know where we are going and whet we are dealing with, right? But, the evening part was good – at first we represented our countries, after that we just stayed at the hotel, played some board games, socialized…

On Wednesday, we talked about youthpass.  And other half of the day we spent in the city center. We took a bus, and then we switched it to a boat. Anita was so excited because it was her first time J There we were surprised, because we went to a Choco house, where we were able to take a part in chocolate making process, we also get more knowledge about chocolate, about the species of cacao beans, and we tried to degustate a real chocolate by following the rules.  So we spent here 3 or 4 hours, but it was really interesting and useful. At least we know how the real chocolate looks like J After Choco house we went to a karaoke pub. And we totally ruled this place! We were singing so many songs, and we didn’t care that we are more screaming than singing J After an hour or so, the all pub was singing together, and dancing together, It was just unbelievable! So great that I cannot explain it in words J And other adventure happened… Get ready for the story: so as we lived out of the city center, our last bus had to leave 1.30 we went to bus station on time. But… surprise surprise we went to a wrong bus stop. A nice guy, just walked towards us and asked if we need a help. So twenty people couldn’t find the right station, but that guy – after a few rounds in both sides of the street, he found it. It was 2min away from the place we were. But of course it was too late. So, we were thinking, what we should do next? And then the same guy found the solution – we took other bus and walked for an hour or so between the houses in 2am. It was so hard to orientate where we are, so we decided to use GPS, or Google maps (luckily, some of the guys had Internet on their phone). And finally we reached our hotel. We were sooooo happy to see that building again! At 3am!

On Thursday, we talked about Erasmus+ program and all the possibilities. That was really useful, because get more new information about EU funded programs. And I think that a part of us will use something else too. And then people from National Agency came. They stayed all day with us. They talked about the role of National Agency, we were able to ask any questions.

On Friday, we had an evaluation day. We evaluated ourselves, the training, the work of our trainers. Of course we said goodbye to each other, promised to see again, to visit Budapest, Pecs and other cities in Hungary. We really made good contacts there, and now we have a bed to sleep in many parts of the country J isn’t it great? J

So in that training we learned many new non-formal education tools, we will be able to use in the future; we get more information about Erasmus+ programs, and about EVS itself; we met more volunteers from Germany, France, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, UK, and none from Lithuania, sadly.. These people came to the same country us we did, they took a risk and decided to use this amazing opportunity. And we met them here in Budapest, and hopefully, we will meet them again.