...when you decide to come to Lithuania by bus from Portugal, Sweden, Italy or wherever else within the area in blue:
From today on Lithuania has become a part of Schengen area, which means that you will be able to cross borders without any special controls while travelling inside the area. And people living outside this area, but having a Schengen visa, can freely come to visit me without any additional visa paperwork :) Woot woot!
KaosPilots - where creativity and innovation go to school
Time for catching up with some important updates. This is where I`ve been a few weeks ago - a school for new business design and social innovation. A school for young entrepreneurs, about which you can see :
I've been hearing from my friend Henrique and Anna so much about KaosPilots, and I thought I have to experience it myself.
Henrique has picked me up and we went to the school. It was snowing like crazy and I thought of getting new shoes. But soon we have reached a yellow building saying "Kaospiloterne" on the door. The inside looked like anything else, but not a school (see the video!). No professors, just students and staff. And all of them "living" there as a happy family.
The week I was there had a topic on developing own business ideas and making them a reality. I think I was lucky, as the guys said it`s one of the best courses. The sessions were delivered by consultants. The one that I found very good, was by Dave from Startup Company, who provided a very structured but at the same time very flexible framework for setting up a new business. It went to different sections, from marketing to execution, I loved the simplicity and professionalism. After the session kaospilots were able to talk with teh tutors, consult with them, etc. I thought that if every week there are different people coming from various companies, that must be a great networking opportunity.
Another thing I was amazed about, is how everyone is determined to make the most of their experience, sharing their ideas, connecting with others, helping each other and actually making those ideas work on the spot! I am sure almost all of those guys will have their own businesses running by the end of their 3-year studies!
Overall, I was inspired! It was quite mind-liberating week for me. The people there are amazing! Henrique was saying that is so like AIESEC, and indeed there are lots of similarities.
So I know now, that one day I will start my own business, and KaosPilots convinced me that I am capable of doing this. Even though I am not applying for this school this year, after I came back, I took a chance to go to KaosPilots workshop in Amsterdam, as they are forming the first student team in the Netherlands! Interested? Check out KaosPilots.nl.
It was not planned to be that busy. But it was. And it turned out to be very very good!
My dear friend Piret was in Rotterdam for SSGN board transition and planning, and it was the only spot when I could actually meet her before she goes all the way back to Brazil. So I had to make it! It was soo fascinating, I met her in Baltic Synergy in 2005, when we both applied for international MCs, and now we got to see each other after a whole year!! We had lots of things to talk about, to catch up with our experiences and news.
Apart from that, was also nice to come to the AI office and catch up with other people, with Lithuanian gang, with other long-time-not-seen ones. And get inspired again, I think AI office has something special in the air. There is about 60 AIESEC people in Rotterdam now, including task forces, regional boards and new AI team. Meeting the people that inspire - absolutely amazing, what else I can say! By the way, the African restaurant that Araz and Abhinav took us to, was excellent! Itw as in Dutch, I dont excaly remember the name, but it means 'Taste from Africa' ('Smaak van Africa'??, strongly reccomended.
I have spent way more time there than I've planned, but got to catch my last train to Brussels and still see Michal in his farewell party.
Next morning - sleep in, get up, shower, pack and back to the station. Luxembourg this time, and taht was a Rock-A-Field festival. And yes, it was totally in a field somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Luxembourg. Get off in a city, take a train to some village, walk for &.รจ km to parking lot, get picked up by bus, go to the festival site, walk another 500 m, get your bag checked, ticket, enter.
I was early, not too many people. Extremely hot. Everyone is baking and intensively consuming beer and other beverages. Bands start to play. First one - i don't know it, was average. It was cool observing the moves of the vocalist though. I should try to sketch something like this some time. Second band - some german one, also don't know, but I liked them very much!! That girl has a super good voice! Rocks! For sure i have to find out more about them.
Then we had an interruption of rain... then interruption of 2-3cm pieces of ice falling from the sky... man, it hurt! It went totally out of control, everybody started hiding anywhere they could, and there was not too much of a choice, as it was a grass field... well after the storm it became a mud field :) And all people had mud all over themselves :) Luckily i got around just with old jeans and shoes.
At any case, I didn't pay money for the rain, same as others, so we got to see the other bands as well :) Mando Diao. I didn't know them, but they rock!! The crowd went crazy, and their music is worth it! Raphael - French siple guy, very lyric and sentimental. Nice and soothing. Franz Ferdinand - frickin awesome!!! Since I love every single song of this band, it was more than great to see them rocking the field live - with Take Me Out, Matinee and Walk Away... ah, yeah! And finally, Placebo - the top of the concert. They were good. However, my expectations were higher than that. I was hoping to see that black-dressed mystic guy that i see in pics and videos, but I saw a guy in a suit! Mystery revealed. However, that didn't spoil the show itself - music was great, stage effects also great, and crowd also went crazy. By the way, crowd was surprisingly young - I even got to run into 16-year old Lithuanian girls and around 20 of their schoolmates. Quite funny :)
After the concert my adventures didn't end, as still I had to get back somehow. The transortation by bus from the field to the city was terrible, so luckily i got to meet a local family who kindly took me by their car to the station of Luxembourg. Where I also found out that there are no night trains to Brussels! However, it was more of a nice adventure, as Luxembourg was quiet, and I met two exchange students from the US who have missed their train to France, so having some conversations was a good way to kill some time before our first trains.
Monday morning I was happy to find my bed in place:)
I liked London the first time I went there, and the second time last weekend I fell in love with it! Me and Rasa took the Eurostar train, which was almost like an airplane - luggage check in with metal detector, then going really fast with my ears almost closed and passing through the tunnel very fast. We were easily falling asleep until... Suddenly there comes an announcement, which states mainly 'Ladies and gentlemen, due to technical problems, now the passengers going to Paris change with the ones going to London!' Yey, let's run, see who wants to get to their destination faster!! The arrival got delayed by half an hour, then we made it to Vilija's place in a cool section of the city.
...the weather was incredibly awesome - not a single drop of rain, +24 degrees all the time. ...it's nice to understand the language people speak in the streets ...catching up with the news in friends' lives ...girls night out in a cool Rumi lounge bad ...forgetting about everything and everyone that was giving me a hard time recently. At least for a bit. ...shopping!! Portobello Market, Primark, NEXT and everywhere else. My MC salary budget cannot hold expensivo brands, but it's about the shopping experience anyway ;) ...seeing the variety, the mixture, the liveliness of the city!! ...visiting Salvador Dali experience and realizing even more that this guy was a sick genius. I love his works, probably because they are so disturbing ...visiting Sherlock Holmes' house, which was missed the first time ...sitting on the bank of Thames with a beer and philosophies about the purpose of life. ...realizing, that I am not a tourist in London anymore, and this is a city I could live in.
I love to go to teh countries where I understand the language :) More or less, at least. After 10 months of planning we finally found a spot in our agendas to go to Bonn and visit Eva! Me, Amritha and Eric met up with Eva and Bonnie, another DHL/DWPN intern in Bonn, Eric's former teammate (as we joke 'boyfriend') in Malaysian MC.
Firstly, I would like to ruin your perceptions of German punctuality - almost all trains and buses there are LATE! So, Eric's train got delayed, out train got delayed and then we managed to get the wrong connection from Koeln, luckily, the conductor was nice and let us come back with no extra fee. First night we went to one of the cool restaurants in Bonn, then joined other interns for a drink. We got a chance to compare Belgian beer with German one, glass of which had a weird twisted shape.
To summarize the whole weekend, it was chilled out, a lot if socializing with local trainee community, former AI members included (seeing Amit always brightens my day :) ), got to visit two most famous things in Bonn (well, there is only two of them actually) - Post Tower and HARIBO store. First one was high, and it had a collection of post boxes from all over the world (I found the one from Lithuania!!), second one was big, like a wonderland of Gummy Bears and other sweet stuff. Eva was so nice to show us around and host us during our stay, it was super! Then we hung out in Starbucks (yey!) and Irish Pub, just chilling out.
BTW, about Starbucks. So strange, that Germany, as country which ahs it's own coffee culture, still has Starbucks chain there, while in Belgium coffee culture is not that strong, and there is not a single store here! And people still drink coffee, and still many internationals are here, I just wonder...
Cologne (Koeln) was way bigger and lively city comparing to Bonn. We met up with Chrisi's (my MC successor!!) friends, Adrien, Jana and Alexa, very nice people. We went out with Jana and her friends to have some Happy Hour Cocktails (they had everything there!). And their house looks like a lounge bar. And thanks to them and the football table in their flat me and Amach started liking football! (10:8 I win, 5:3 Amach wins). It was so in line with all teh FIFA fever that is all over Germany!
Monday Morning, Adrien took us to the station, we had some time for another Starbucks caffeine infusion, got the train and wents straiht to the office. Week flew liek crazy.
From today on Lithuania has become a part of Schengen area, which means that you will be able to cross borders without any special controls while travelling inside the area. And people living outside this area, but having a Schengen visa, can freely come to visit me without any additional visa paperwork :) Woot woot!
