Czech Republic

This is the first time for last 2 or 3 years when I officially have holidays:) It feels great to know that you have 10 days to rest, do nothing (or do something important but not connected to my work). So first thing I want to tell is that I FEEL GREAT:) Today in Sunday and I still have 4 days of holidays ahead, but now it's time to tell about first week that I spent in Czech.Rep with my parents!
I was looking for it a lot for this trip since I haven't seen my parents for a 1,5 already, well, I know that the more is to come later. So I was counting days till 4th of August:)

I had my plane quite early, at 9.35 which means I had to leave Via Andora at 6 am. Everything went fine in the begining - taxi arrived on time, I got to Malpensa bus station safely, got into the bus, but then adventures started:)
Bus arrived to Malpensa airport (biggest out of 3 airports in Milan) and people started to get off. So did I. I entered building of the airport and started to look for my check in desk, but I couldn't find it. Then I found a note that I'm in Terminal 2 and my flight is from Terminal 1. It wasn't mentioned anyhow in my ticket. I had no idea where to look for Terminal 1, I decided to walkt there but then I realized I got is that it's quite far from the one I was in. I was about to take a taxi, but then I saw bus going there. Driver was a nice old man and he agreed to take me there for free. Indeed it was quite far from T2 - about 10 mins by bus.
I saw a lot of airports in my life, but I've never seen such mess as I saw in Malpensa - there were thousands of people, huge lines for check in desks(check in desks were also quite strange - all operated by Alitalia (have got no idea why), with one huge line for 5 check ins. I regret that I don't have a picture, but I was in the line with I guess more then 300-400 people and I spent 65 mins in line for check in. I was almost sure that I'm going to miss my flight. During check in I cross checked whether everything is correct and I have my trip Milan-Prague, Prague-Brno, my luggage was sent to Brno, so everything seemed to be quite ok. In plane I met a guy from US and we had very nice conversation. So even that flight was delayed for 1 hour I wasn't angy with that.
Flight was good as well, it was first time I saw plane passing trough soo many clouds - it felt like dashing trough snow mountains, shaking a lot, but very nice! I don't know why I never noticed it during my previous flights:)
When I arrived to Prague I started to look for my second flight but I couldn't find it in schedule, so I started to look for help. It took me 20 mins to get info that in fact I have not a flight but a bus to Brno, and they made a mistake in Malpensa sending my luggage to Brno. I spent terrible hour trying to get my luggage and I must say that I succeded:) 30 mins more changing Terminals, checking in for bus, 2,5 hours trip and I was in Brno:)
On my way in bus I was thinking about this strange habit to have challenges during all my travels:)dunno why it happens. But in the end, I have soooo many funny stories to tell about my travels:)
Time in Czech needs additional post maybe. I visited almost all big cities in CZ - Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc, Prague:) We stayed at our place in Roznov pod Radhostem - amazing small (22,000 people) town with beautiful nature, amazing view from my window at home and the oldest in Central Europe museum in open air. Rožnov is a sort of miniature Wallachia, at least as far as it concerns the history of its settlement:)
So about the museum, it's called Valasske Museum v Prirode, it includes 3 big parts: Little wooden town, The water mill valley and the Wallachian village. The Little Wooden Town is the oldest part of the museum. The setting roughly imitates the Rožnov square which boasted a number of local burghers’ timbered houses up to the second half of the nineteenth century. The Water Mill Valley is an area composed of technical buildings that have been located on the piece of land around the original millrace since 1982 – the Water Mill, the Woollen Mill for making cloth out of the wool yarn, the Saw Mill for sawing planks, the Oil Crusher and the Hammer Mill. The Wallachian Village occupies the largest area of the museum which consists of a lot of dwelling-houses and farmhouses that are showing life of a lot of generations of Moravian people.
I wrote before maybe that I get this feeling of touching history in all museums, but in this one especially since you have the chance to see real houses, real way of life of people. By the way, the funniest thing I've noticed is the fact that Czechs were really short and small - beds in houses were very small (как диван-малютка):) Even I with being quite small would seem to be giant for that people:)
I didn't spend a lot of time in other cities so I don't have a lot of stories to tell. Maybe only about Olomouc. A lot of memories connected to this city - I wanted to enter Uni there, I was there for my first Presidents meeting during my CEED in CZ, I got lost thousands of times there! Beautiful city:)
One of the most important places I've visited this time was famous place of battle between Russian and Frech troops in 1805 - Austerliz. Honestly saying, I never knew that this famous place of battle of three Emperors is in CZ. In fact it's:) Since CZ territory was part of Austriab empire in that times. Now the place is called Slavkov and there is a momument called Mohyla miru and museum of famous Austerliz battle with multimedia exposition!

There are cities that makes you feel like staying there, Prague is one of such cities for me:)
I've been there 3 times already but never with good guide to get to know everything about the place. So I promised myself to come back next time for a real sightseeing! I wonder only when will it happen:)
Yesterday night I came back to Milan, of course with some challenges...:) But not very difficult - it's only about my luggage which was 34 kgs (shopping is not easy for me, you know:)) and since I didn't know how to call taxi and I didn't want to bother anyone on holidays I had to take metro.. On my way from Centrale to QT8(station near my home) I was cursing myself for being so shopoholic and so spoiled by taking taxis and using help of males with bags:) But nevertheless I arrived successfully to Via Andora, feeling extermly proud of being able to manage everything:)
Now I'm having completely lazy day, reading emails, unpacking and washing.. and planning the rest 3 days of my holidays... More will come soon!

Animal stories 2007-08

Today is a crazy day, definitely...:) It all started with the news about Matteo and by evening I found out that I have to share more stories about my team! Let's call it "Animal stories"...

Apparently, we found out that all members in our team have sisters and brothers from world of wild nature (not always wild in fact to be honest):)

Definitely all of you (especially VPXs 06-07) think that you know what kind of animal am I! But I have to disappoint you - I changed my image totally and now I'm (sorry, Lara, I know it'll hurt you:) what Italians call piccolo criceto (small hamster). It appeared after our nice adventure with furetto (polecat, хорек) that visited us one day! I'm too small and too nice to be furetto:) and this is the way how hamster assosiation was born:)you have the unique chance to compare:)

The next one would be our lovely TM girl Anabella or Annare how we call her! You can never imagine who this small blond nice girl can be...But the truth is that somewhere deep in the soul she is white (I'm not sure they are existing) monkey! See yourself...

Fedorka (no, sorry, Federica Rosi) apparently came our to be hyena! Till I went through couple of pictures while I was trying to find suitable for blog I found out that you can find some similarities:). But it's still unclear for me how this decision was taken about nominating Federica to be such a nice wild animal!

Dany is very nice, very soft and positive! Just not yet pink enough to be like his animal brother pig. We wind more connections with pork (but in Italy it has rather negative meaning, not connected to Dany).

The last but not the least of our lovely MCP. It took us quite some time to find out his essense:) The process was quite hard since he used to be grande furetto (big polecat), he himself wanted to be a bear once. But after long and tough discussion we found out his animal brother - skunk (скунс)

And I'm grateful to my team for these nice stories that we have together and experience that we pass trough:)

I'll be missing you during holidays, my lovely animal friends:)

My MCP Matteo Orsi:)

Dear members of AIESEC in Italy and all others who are reading my blog. Morning in MC Italian MC office started today with shocking news about our MCP....But it's better to know the truth later then never....:))))
For those who still doesn't know, follow the link to see and read info about Matteo! But we love him anyway:))
Follow the link to find out more information
http://www.matteo.orsi.esgay.com/
P.S. If you can't get in touch with me during 1 week, it means that Matteo killed me... :D))))))

Вниз или вперед?

Прочла сегодня. Очень понравилось, но видно я что-то пропустила в школе:)
Это старая история. Ее рассказывают детям еще в школе, если не раньше. Но взрослея, мы часто забываем об этом.
Чтобы человек мог идти или бежать вперед, он должен все время падать. Делая шаг, человек наклоняется и нарушает равновесие, и только следующий шаг другой ногой спасает от падения. И так во всем: движение вперед сопряжено с риском и потерей равновесия.

Blog moving!

Please note that I'll not be using anymore http://www.dekabrina.net/!
My Blog will move to its old address www.dekabrinka.blogspot.com Please save this address for future:)

Непутевые заметки о Италии or Live from Pizza - Pasta land:)

Soo it has been already 5 weeks since I’m in Italy. I even can’t believe such a long time passed.
Today during the lunch I noticed the fact that I got used to being in Italy (and actually few people told me that I’m becoming Italian), to some typical behaviors, so I felt like sharing my observations here.

Italy. Italians. Italian way of life

People. Most probably the most difficult part to describe – they are so different and so far I haven’t seen any common qualities or values of Italians. They are definitely not like we think about them in Ukraine – not soo emotional, not sooo loud (apart from some cases). I almost got used to hear people (men) outside saying “Ciao, Bella” (hello, beauty) and they continuing with discussion of different parts of my body. It’s definitely not something what I don’t enjoy. Some of them are really helpful, even though a lot of people don’t speak Italian (when I’m usually trying to find my way after being lost somewhere), they try to help you:), sometimes by giving the wrong direction, but it’s fun anyways:)
Food. Italian food (or at least what I understand by now as Italian food = what we usually it in MC) is not so tasty as I expected. In fact food ingredients are more or less the same as in Ukraine, but the way they mix it is really strange. So the favorite dish is of course pasta – pasta with tomatoes, with tuna, with vegetables, with cheese, cold pasta…. Sometimes I think this is kind of obsession – to eat pasta each day for lunch:) And they think that putting ketchup into pasta is something like violation:) Salads are quite perverted here (those who know my addiction to salads with mayonnaise will understand:)). Pizza and ice cream are the only things that I really love here! Pizza is delicious and is quite different from what we eat in Eastern Europe! Here you can never find pizza with chicken meat! Ice cream is perfect also, very expensive I’d say – at least 1,5 euro, even 2,5 in city center. But it’s worth each cent you spend for it! The rest of the food I can eat:) aaaa, forgot my another addiction apart from pizza and ice cream – mozzarella and tomatos:)
Cars. Well, obviously you can see Ferrari on the street, but not so often, or at least not at places where I usually walk:) But biggest observation and surprise is that Italy is country of hatchback cars, I barely can see few sedans on the streets. Only hatchback (mainly hatchbacks:)) and family cars.
Milan. I broke quite a lot of my stereotypes here, especially about life in Western Europe;) So the city itself is very nice in center – I’m totally in love with Duomo, every time I pass by it I have a strange emotions - can’t believe that I live in city with such a beautiful building that is representation of history itself.

Every time I pass by, I have an amazing feeling of touching history! There are also few very beautiful places like Castello, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and others which names I don’t remember ;) In the area where we live, Milan isn’t much different from other cities I’ve seen, maybe it’s a bit cleaner. Milan is the city of foreigners - it’s something that is very unusual for me here. When you go to city centre, to shops during sales, in metro, you see more foreigners that Italians. They are everywhere – outside, on streets Africans are selling you D&G, Fendi, Gucci etc:), Arabs are cooking and serving in cafes, usually a lot of Asian people I see in metro, but I never noticed places where they work, a lot of Russians and rich Arabs in shops:) It’s something what makes you feel being citizen of the world and it in fact makes me personally feel not so alone, even tough I don’t know any of these people:)
Way of life. Italian way of life is quite an interesting storyJ Firsly, what was quite strange for me is their meals – they tend almost not to have breakfasts, then have pasta for lunch and then have late, very late (starting usually at 9 – 9.30 pm!!!!!!) and very heavy dinners! During the lunch time a lot of shops are closed, even markets are closed. Sunday is generally a “dead” day everywhere apart from city center, you can’t even to trade center or supermarket – it’s closed, it’s Sunday. Bars, caffess and restarautns work only during lunch time and then after 7. In between they usually are closed! Ordering pizza is quite the same – you can’t eat pizza when you want :) You have to want to eat pizza only when it’s the time for eating pizza:)
This is the end of “Live from Pasta land” report! Wait for more updates about “Life in Via Andora or Italian way of living AIESEC”
Your favorite journalist:)

New time waster:)

Напишите мне коммент и по щучьему велению, по моему хотению...я
1. скажу, почему я вас добавила/не добавила в список блогов, которые я читаю
2. скажу, какая песня/фильм напоминает мне про Вас
3. расскажу случайный факт про Вас
4. расскажу про своё первое воспоминание о Вас
5. скажу, какое животное/фрукт Вы мне напоминаете
6. спрошу что-то, что всегда хотел знать о Вас
7. Если я это сделаю, Вы должны сделать такой же пост своем блоге

Gardaland - my dream came true

Yestderday idiot's dream came true (сбылась мечта идиота, это именно так называется:))!!!!
I'll start with the begining - some time ago Matteo told us that we are going to have teambuilding day out of the office, even somewhere out of Milan. Buuut he was refusing to tell us where exactly. The day before yesterday we were even kind of betting on the places - we had so many different ideas - Florence, Venice, lake Como etc. We went out of MC house at 6.30 am, went to Cairoli (metro station in centre of city), had a breakfast there (cup of tea and croissant are called breakfast here!:)) and then we went to a our bus.. you can't even imagine how happy I was when I saw a final destination " Gardaland" (2nd big luna park in Europe after Disneyland). You know, a big child that lives in me:) I was jumping like 7 years old girl, I was even about to kiss everyone:)

Travel took almost 2 hours and finally we arrived! I can't even express all emotions that I had when I saw all those roller coasters, side shows etc.:) I continued being like 7 years old, but now taking pictures everywhere;) People from former USSR can definitely understand me - as our nice parks (парки культуры) have nice standard sets of attrations like Ромашка, Центрифуга и Цепи.. I was always sure that I'm not afraid of big roller coasters, but yesterday I found out that I can be. It's quite scary to fly 20m above ground being constantly turned upside down:))) But I was soooo happy to experience it! We spent amazing 6- 7 hours there, tried almost everying! Once we were travelling in kind of boat, of course we took first line, and of course we were competely wet after few minutes! I looked quite nice in wet white trousers which became completely transparent of course:) Food was very italian - painini and pizza:)

5 of us made dogtags with our names, positions and term dates in AIESEC Italia:) so now we are all connected in a way:)

We came back home in the evening completely exausted, but absolutely happy:)

P.S. if you want to see pictures from Gardaland go here. Aaa. one more thing, I didn't post anything about our museum visit on Saturday (it was Museum of Science and Technology of Milan, very nice and interesting place). and guess whom I met there? Yuriy Lutsenko (Ukranian ex-minister, now leader of a political party in Ukraine). Of course I took a picture with him:) That and all other pictures from museum you can also find it at Flickr.
P.P.S. Svetul'ka, I can imagine how "happy" you would be to get to one of those nice roller coasters:)))bu-ga-ga:)))

The end is where do we start from

I’m a bit late with this post, to be precise exactly one day! Yesterday was a new AIESEC year, it was my last day of being officially member of MC Ukraine, being member of AIESEC in Ukraine! It was my first day of being part of AIESEC in Italy. And most probably the first day of my last year as active AIESEC member, Exchange would be something different for me definitely!
With this New Year came to the end of the whole era in my life – era of being student, era of being in AIESEC in Ukraine. Unique 4,5 years of discoveries, successes and failures, unique years of self development and learning.
I’d lie if I say that I don’t regret anything what happened to me during this time. I do regret a lot, but in the same time I’m thankful for everything what have happened, I’m thankful to each person I’ve met, I’m thankful for each learning that I got.
Reading blogs of Ukrainian AIESECers I got a feeling that a lot of people share the same feelings, a lot of people became alumni these days– even if that sounds exaggerated this is the end of certain era of AIESEC in Ukraine. Era of people that I joined AIESEC with, people that were together during all these years, people that’ve passed trough so many things together. It’s sad to realize that things for sure will never be the same again – that is the way how everything happens in the world - life will send us to different places of the world, will create a lot of challenges on our ways, most probably we’ll not see each other for a long time! But what is important that these people will stay in my heart! Right now I regret just one thing – that there are some words that I didn’t say, the words of gratitude to all people that I value and love so much! I’m sure that all those people who became part of my life during last years will continue being in my life even if our AIESEC path together is over. Because the end is where do we start from… Good luck and "may the wind always be at your back and the sun shine warm upon your face"

Better today!

I feel much better today then yesterday! In all bad things you can find something good as well:) What was good about failure of Ukrainian food is the fact that there is a lot of food left and I had a chance to eat today for lunch borsch and salad Oliv'e (which I really like) and not pasta!:)))

Since I feel quite good today I feel like sharing what happened yesterday in the morning! We had a nice teambuilding game:) I had few concerns at the begining (well, of course u can say that I always have concerns), but yesterday I even had a background for it.

Teambuilding started with leaving at home all money, mobiles and other stuff, taking only 2 tickets for metro and camera! We received tasks in envelopes so it all seemed like teambuilding in metro last year... You can imagine what kind of ideas and thoughts I had.

But everything turned out to be very nice - we were doing tasks in team of 4 people - me, Martina (NST member), Cardillo (bookkeeper) and Matteo (MCP). Our task was to go to Cimitero Monumentale di Milano (a big Cementry). There we were supposed to get to know history of the place by interviewing people (we had to have 4 video proofs), then make pictures of us cleaning toilet in bar, gain 4 euros and get to know each other by answering some questions!

So Cementry looks completely not like Cementry but like a Castle (at least for me). You can see pictures here and the history here. Unfortunately it was closed, so there were almost no people there. And we really faced challanges with finidng people who'd know at least something! I need to admit that I was even successfull in interviewing even tough I don't know Italian (well, maybe the one whom I was interviewing was a nice young guy?:). Later on we went to Garribaldi train station to gain those 4 euros. I think in Ukraine I'd work better (at least based on experience of last year). Buut I must say that nevertheless I was quite successful and managed to raise myself and amount of 1 euro (2 people gave 50 cents each) which I consider to be a good result for me with nonexistent level of Italian:))) I was so proud of myself yesterday!

A complete disaster

Today was a long day! First part was soo good - we had a teambuilding, I saw a very nice place in Milan. The second part of the day was Ukrainian and Romanian party.

Sometime I'll tell you more about challenges with finding cucumbers, beetroot and cabbage in Milan, but that's another story.

The main point of the day is the Ukrainin party which I was waiting for was a complete disaster. I spent the whole day in supermarkets, markets trying to buy all the stuff, then maybe 3 hours challenging myself and cooking. And in the end nobody liked it at all... Of course nobody said it, but I've seen it...

Presentation part was better I guess, but only people were watching and listening. The only one thing that everyone liked was vodka and Consume game (Zoom or as we called it here Puppa).

That was most probably the best part of the dinner for people.

I was waiting so much for this Ukrainian culture presentation and I was soo bad in it.

I go to sleep, disappointed today

Historical transition

Yesterday the event that we were looking for so much – historical part of transition started.
This part contains of few parts here – historical transition itself -MC members from MC teams from pervious 10 years (meaning from 1996 -97) are coming to tell about their year, achievements, problems, team experiences etc. The idea of this part is quite interesting, but the delivery seems to be not on the top. Most probably because people are experiencing difficulties with speaking English and that’s why sessions seem to be a bit boring (at least for me).
The other part of this historical block is historical football match that takes place each year between MC team current (previous, current and elect MC) with alumni of MC. That was a match that was expected, a match that was discussed. Quite a lot of people came to see it.
Despite the fact it was a football match I enjoyed watching it:) Of course MC team won with 5:4 score! I even started to think about the fact that we can once practice with girls to play football:) Of course we are (again at least I) tooo bad to compete with somebody else!
There is some kind of tradition for a team that looses the match to kiss the cup that is given to winners’ team, but I think I missed this moment yesterday! The other thing that is typical for Italian AIESEC culture is “formal dress” culture for boys – when they are happy (I think this word somehow unites all possible cases when it can happen), they take off their trousers and stay only in pants. I don’t really understand here, but it’s typical here.
After the match we went to very nice restaurant. I told you that I broke a lot of my stereotypes about Italians after I arrived. But this one got its confirmation yesterday – this party was exactly as I imagined Italians having meals – big – big table, a lot of people (of course speaking very loudly), a lot of food ( of course pasta or pizza) and vine! I tried pizza second time yesterday, it looked and tasted very – very nice:)
After that we went to city centre for drinks. Pubs here are quite strange – extremely crowded, people are standing on streets, inside there are huge queues, everything is of course very loud, and there is almost no chances to get menu. But anyways what I valued in this time were conversations that I had with MC members and alumni:)
As for my general impessions – I think I already pass the stage of being in love with everything. Language starts to be a major problem – they respect foreigners and try to speak English, but all the free time, during lunches and dinners, right after session ends they only speak Italian.
What I also noticed here is that there is no limit between saying something only to one person or saying something to everyone – whatever you say to somebody in few hours reaches the rest. I yet don’t know whether it’s good or bad – it’s just the reality;)
The next point is pasta – these people are really in love with pasta. Since I arrived here each day for lunch we have different types of pasta – it’s easy to be cooked for 20 people. But if it’s going to be the same till the end of the year I think I’ll not be able to fit into any of my clothes:))
Seems like these are all my emotions and news for today!

My Italian Contacts

Just in case you want to send me a postcard, call me or sms me:)

My address in Italy is
Via Andora, 4
20148, Milan, Italy

My mobile is
+393313421214

Good news!

Past two days were extremely successfull for me! Why? Because of 2 events(ok, let's call it events)

Yesterday I was elected as Chair of AI Exchange Quality Board 2007 -2008! The decision was delayed for 4 days, so all this time I was so nervous waiting for it. Thanks to everyone who supported me in application process and during this waiting period! We had a really nice celebration yesterday in MC house:)

Another good piece of news is that today was the first time when I tried Italian pizza! So many people were asking me if I tried it already! Yes, I spent 4 days in Italy, ate pasta 3 times and only today tasted real Italian pizza!!!!!!!!!!

You of course will ask whether it's really that tasty as people say. I'd take responsibility to tell you it is:) Pizzas are really big, I didn't even expect they are sooo big!

Ok, no more words, better have a look at it!

Discovering Italy

Yesterday was my first full day in Milan! I woke up quite late in the morning - only me and Anabella were at Via Andora, all the rest went to WENA PM. So I was chatting whole morning (and actually whole day- all the time when I connected to internet) with people, telling about my first impressions, the team, etc.
Then we were cooking lunch for delegates - around 60 sandiches, we made a nice sandivch production line, I'd say! :) Then we had a lovely trip with Anabella in the centre of Milan - we saw Castello Sfozesco, Arca della Pace, Duomo. Everything was so beautiful! Especially I was amazed by Duomo, as it was written it served as a symbol of Milan since 1387.
The story of Duomo is Here , I'd say that this is one of the most gorgeous and majestic places I've ever seen! These are some pictures of Duomo











Piazza del Duomo (a square in front of Duomo) is really crowded, you can see lots of tourists there. It brings you this feeling of internationalism, it's something that I have a chance to experience only abroad, unfortunately it never happened in Ukraine.
In the center there are a lot of people, foreigners mainly, selling different stuff - bags and wallets from "Dolce Gabbana, Cavalli" and lots of other falsifications.
We came back home tired, but happy! It was my first Get to Know Milan and I liked it a lot;)))
Today was the first real transition day, by real transition I mean physical one - it was even better then the virtual one that we had with Federico before!:)
Then I volunteered to go to Bonolla (a big shopping centre where we do shopping for a week). I went there with Cisco (current MCP) and I think I looked quite strange, because I was staring like wild person to lots of things ;)) Of course I didn't remember everything what was new for me - my biggest impressions so far are: the whole line with different kinds of pasta ( we took at least 4 different ones and I'm going to try the rest till the end of the year!), different sauces to pasta, 4 or 5 types of salads etc. What amazed me apart from prices (prices are really - really high) was the thing that people use gloves when they take fruits and vegetables (they put on gloves because some other people were touching this bananas or whatever). So by the end of our shopping tour I decided that next time I go for it as well, because I'm sure that there are lots of other things to discover!:)
Then we had dinner.. at 9 pm, was quite strange for me to eat so late. but seems like I'll have to get used to meals here - Italians have very light breakfasts, normal lunches and heavy dinners that usually start at 8.30 - 9 pm. A big room for changing and weight gaining:)))
The last but for sure not the least what I'd like to mention are people. Of course 2 days are far not enough to draw any kind of colnlusions , but here a lot of my stereotypes about Italians are broken. So far they show really good professional approach to evertything we do connected to work. And the same with personal approach and relations that they have. I really started to feel like home here (Anabella, you were completely right), I love this friendly atmosphere that is created here. I really envy, in a good way, to current team Cisco, Stuart, Cinzia, Gege, Laura and Carolina Boromero (Matteo will forgive this wrong spelling of his nickname:)) to the relations that they have within the team, it really seems like they value each other a lot, they know each other a lot, the way they make fun from each other. They are really like brothers and sisters here and I really hope that we can have same realtions and attitude to each other next year in the new team:)
So, maybe it's how the honeymoon stage of cultural shock looks like but I fully enjoy it for now!
And I feel happy, really happy!

First day in Italy

Finally it happened, yesterday I arrived to Malpensa Airport in Milan! And now I'm starting almost a new life, a new year in AIESEC Italy!

What was strange is that there were no surprises during my flight (usually I have lots of it).
The only one I had was connected to the fact that I was changing airport gates in Vienna from part for CIS countries to EU countries and I got a stamp in my passport there. So when I arrived to Milan I was expecting to pass lots of custom and passport controls. But it didn't happen, so I went out from there, nobody was waiting for me, so I had a strange feeling that I came to a wrong place:))) Everything was ok later, guys were waiting for me near arrivals of CIS countries.

Then a 30 min trip to home - I haven't seen a lot, was mainly talking then:) And finally arrived to Via Andora (Andora street) a place I'm going to live and work for next year!

Welcome from Via Andora was cool, and really unexpected - there was a big flip chart with Welcome Masha message on it, I loved it! Then Federica went out and told that she wants to take a picture of me and Ana entering the garden.. While we were posing for picture Eugeniu poured a whole wash basin of cold water on us!!!!!! This was the most original welcome I've ever had:)

After that I had a "house tour" - it has 3 floors, or 2,5 I'd say;) 1st is 2 office rooms, 2nd - living room and kitchen,3rd - 3 sleeping rooms! The house itself is really nice,well equipped comparing to what we had before:)

After some time at home , changing clothes at least, we went for Global village party at WENA Presidents meeting:) Guyes were going absolutely crazy:) I got a chance to talk to different people, dance andget to know WENA culture a bit. What is funny - I'm far not the best in drinking in Ukraine, but here I managed to be first I guess 3 times in "speed drinking competition". We are going to have Ukrainian night soon - and that would be definitely a place for people to try real Ukrainian vodka and get completely drunk:))he-he!:)

Then, completely tired and a bit dizzy we went back home to sleep! Before I felt asleep I was thinking about the whole day - I woke up in Dnepropetrovsk, managed to do a lot of things there, managed to see and say bye to a lot of people and move to other part of Europe and meet a lot of people here as well!

It was completely happy day for me!

Wait for more updates here and have a look at pictures at flickr!

Italy Tomorrow!

I don't know how to express my feelings! I told to many of you that I didn't have feeling that I'm leaving for one year abroad. Now, just 12 hours before the flight, this understanding came to me! I feel scared, I feel unsecured, I feel uncertain, like coming from terra firm to terra incognita.

But this is the way how it's supposed to be, this is the way I've chosen. All people say that everything is going to be great, so maybe I should realy on collective wisdom?:)

I'm trying to remember all the positive moments but eventually I want to cry when it all comes to my head.

Ok, so this is my experience and I'm responsible for what I make out of it, so I'll try to do my best to make the best possible out of it!

But I'm afraid anyways.

P.S. tomorrow I'll go to sleep already in Milan.

Bye - bye party in Dnepropetrovsk

Nice people, nice evening, nice talks! Enjoyed it very much! Very Dnepropetrovsk culture:)

No more words, I'll be missing them a lot!

Journey to past

I rarely walk alone, I almost never do it for reason, especially in Dnipropetrovsk, but still sometimes it happens. The same as today.. I had to go to a library (Tanya, I almost see your big eyes full of surprise now when you are reading that:))) On my way to library I was passing Kirova avenue – the avenue where all my EB 2005 – 06 lived, on each stop near smb’s house I was remembering us stories that we had in our flats – all our EB meetings, EB nights, drinking meetings etc.
While walking to library I passed by Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Authorities, and I couldn’t help memories coming to my mind - I had university practice there after my 3rd year. I was so proud to get there as that was a place where I was supposed to work after graduation. I remember being happy at the beginning of my first day, and completely disappointed after finishing the practice. Since that time I know what for sure I don’t want to do, and where for sure I don’t want to work. Fortunately, I found out it before graduation:)
Then city library - of course they didn’t have what I needed in this department (why wasn’t I surprised? :)) so I was asked to go to another one. It was too close to take marshrutka, so I decided to have a walk.
I had no urgent things in my head, so I just let memories come to my mind. Occasionally, I had so many memories connected to this street (apart from already mentioned). I was passing Yanka’s house – I clearly remember when I came there first – during lunch time at my practice, she cooked borcsh for me, I was afraid of her big parrot Gosha. But soon I felt in love with him – he was eating completely everything and enjoyed sitting on my shoulder or head:)) I remember the time when at her place we were cooking food for our LTS – I was cutting smoked sausages and cheese ( I guess around 5 kgs each), I wasn’t able to move my arm afterwards but that was fun:))
Then I passed the horror of my teenage years - children orthodontist clinic. But at least after all that it’s not possible to make me scared by any kind of dental units:)
Another stop was – old yard in soviet style, where we spent a lot of time with my LC when I was LCP. After walking in park (it is very close to our previous LC office) we usually went to this yard – it was always challenging because to get there you need almost to clime up to quite big hill, which was always not convenient for girls on high – heels because they usually were stuck in the mud of this hill:) Many times we were playing “bitches – bitches” in Ukrainian (yes, Ukrainian in Dnepropetrovsk) – «шльондри – шльондри», «з парасолькой» etc. these memories still make me smile;)
Almost near the library I was Pouline’s language school – most probably the best one I’ve ever attended. Sergey Ivanovich and Alena are heaven – born language teachers and I remember my time spent there as one of the best learning experiences I’ve ever had. I haven’t skipped any class during one year:)
They my journey ended up with librarian asking about my library ticket….
I think this walk and memories were one the best things that happened to me during past few days! I never thought that 20 mins walk trough just 2 streets can evoke so many good and pleasant memories:)

Last 3 weeks

Казалось бы как мало осталось – всего каких – то 3 недели или и того меньше. И ведь понимаю, что и это пройдет, и будет у меня написанный диплом, защита, оценка.. и мой последний день в 9 корпусе на Научной 13. но так это все тошно, что противно становится.