On a spaceship travel :)

Monday 12. october

Monday 12 october !

Hello people, today our spaceship travel starts. Everything you have learn, realized and accived will from this day on give you the opportunity to be able to share, understand and perhapse teach other of how to be more active in a democratic way.

Last week was for me wonderful, to meet so many positiv people with so differnet backgrounds and with so much expirience to share.

I hope you all are ok and have got some sleep. So good luck with all work back home and hope to see you again sometime :)

Best regards and hug from coordinator Tove-Laila

10th October (Saturday) Our Last Day on a Spaceship Travel...

Today we had a free-topic discussion on European Citizenship and problems that are involved with the issue. Those include things like the lack of information and motivation among the European youth, death penalty, abortions, euthanasia and right to vote from the age of 16 years and for people with mental disabilities.
Mostly everyone was in agreement with the topic of people with mental disabilities and was drawn to conclusion that as every person is equal in their rights they are totally allowed to have children and vote. Though the opinions got different when we got to the topic of abortions, euthanasia and death penalty, as church doesn’t allow these actions but everything really depends on the situation. For example when someone was raped and is pregnant there are totally no reasons to keep the baby as it is not the product of love, but a product of violence. Also abortions may be really dangerous when made to young people and if the fetus is older than 12 weeks. As for the euthanasia – mostly everyone is quite sympathetic and say that people shouldn’t suffer for nothing and just have a right to pass away peacefully.
When the talks hit the theme of passive youth it was complicated. Young people are lazy, they miss the opportunities and sometimes don’t like the changes because they are simply afraid and don’t feel comfortable. Is it the lack of information or motivation? But people can be active without information.

After a delicious lunch prepared by the Spanish group (yummy!!!)

we spent our time tidying the school up and preparing the intercultural evening...

We learnt to dance, sing and a little bit of history and facts as well as cultural notes about Serbia, Montenegro, Belorusia, Norway and Spain. And...to explore the countries with ALL our senses we even managed to taste international foods, which was actually very interesting.

Our Travel will finnish tomorrow with our trips back to our countries...

We've learnt a lot, shared a lot, experienced a lot felt a lot...

9th October (Friday) Day 9

Today we got up early in the morning in order to live one of the most wonderful trips in our lives!!! Thanks to the local transport company we had an excursion to Gearanger and the Norwegian fiords!!!

We experienced Norwegian nature so pure and wild, we played with the snow (some brave even ate it!), had a cruise on a ferry with breath-taking views, went for a walk to see numerous waterfalls (main source of energy in Norway) and appreciated views of incredible landscapes decorated with fiords and autumn-coloured trees...

Simply...SUPER COOL!!!

After the trip, we went to UFO, where we experienced a very interesting debate (based on fish bowl technic) in which we discussed many interesting hot issues in Europe, as: the role of women in modern society and equality of rights, borders within Europe, religion and values and LGBT rights. We heard a lot of different opinions and some of us acted defending beliefs contrary to their own ones. Brilliant!!! At 8 pm. we met with local youngsters in UFO and joined a disco party in the center, dancing and singing spanish "Pajaritos por aqui..."and some other international hits...

8th October (Thursday) Day 8

Today...we actually overslept and missed our ferry at 8.00, so our trip to Alesund had to be postponed till 11.40 and our plannes changed...

It was not a great problem, however, as we used the time to tidy up a little bit.

After a breath-taking cruise in a speedboat we reached...Alesund- Tove-Laila's home town, which is just amazing!!! We visited its center with beautiful coloured buildings, did some shopping, learnt a lot about local culture and we also got to know a little bit about North Sea and its life as we visited Aquarium, where not only could we see local species of fish, like wolf fish...

...but we also fed and cuddled them!!!

Some of us went up the mountain and some just had a walk and appreciated the incredible views of the town.

The day was just great and was supposed to end with the intercultural evening but because of the weather conditions and a longer than usual cruise, we had to postpone it till the last day of our exchange.

7th October (Wednesday) Day 4

In the morning we learnt that people from different countries look at Europe in different ways which was shown on the maps we drew. We were also reflecting on our identity and European identity, what’s it all about and do we truly feel as part of it.

After that we took a trip to the neighboring island called Haroy to the hospitable family Ask Bakke and spent the whole day there. That was a delight! We had a chance to try some water sports and activities including canoe, boat riding and fishing. It was amazing to bear the big waves on the boat having a real chance (at last!) to feel the salt of the ocean, the wind and the rain and the beautiful Nordic sky over the water surface.

All of us experienced how to manage a canoe and it didn’t appear to be so tough (though we crushed one at other at times but that thing recalled a lot of laughter). Our clothes got a bit wet but we were happy, weren’t we?

After that we had a lovely barbeque and a drive to the windmills both contributed by the wonderful Ask Bakke family. We had a possibility to hear the sound of working windmills and the stars above giving us the feeling of being in a big spaceship, so surreal yet so visible!

And we also can’t miss a chance to mention the cosmic laughter of Maria keeping everyone smiling for almost an hour in bursts.

6th October (Tuesday) Day 3

Today we visited Brattvåg and UFO- a youth center, which is also our host organization in Norway. We were actually shocked by the size of it and a number of facilities and social and cultural alternatives offered to local young people. We had an opportunity to participate in four different cultural workshops:

Music...

photography...

loesje (creative writing)...


and roleplay...

We enjoyed the workshops enormously!!! Now, we are all humming: "Oh!, She's electric..." and thinking a lot about the life of refrigerators, bags made in China and recycling of hugs :)

After the workshops we participated in a debate with representatives of four local political parties, which was marvellous, one of the most interesting activities up till now, as we could taste some real politics.

Moreover, we learnt a lot about educational system, environmental issues, democracy, participation, economy, immigration policy and many, many more issues in Norway.

We see Norway as a country which could share many good practice with other European countries...