Post # 5 – “Light Up Entrepreneurship”
Hola a todos ! Its almost end of the spring and its strange how fast time flew.Finally I found a moment to share with you my experience of past few weeks,which where quite intensive and vivid with moments and emotions.
I started May with the travelling to the beautiful city of Barcelona – one of the most well known cities in Spain and probably in the world. The first thing that I want to point out is that Barcelona is friendly for exploring it by foot – it is mostly flat and you can explore a lot of areas without getting tired. And there are a lot of things to see – old town is full of historical buildings and tiny cozy streets,where you can easily get lost. Port of Barcelona is very interesting place to visit,where you will find the monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus,pointing towards sea.
Another must see place is «Arc De Triomf», which is a real piece of the historic heritage. As you may probably guess, the most fascinating place to visit is «Sagrada Familia» or the Cathedral of the Sacred Family,which is difficult to express in words – all the shapes,all the ornaments and figures make unforgettable exposition,which you should see at least once in you life. Very interesting panoramic views of the city are available from the area of the Park Guell and the mountain Mountjuic,where you can also find «Magic Singing Fountain», on the way to Plaza Espana.
After coming back home to Pontevedra for a day I hit the road once again for a 2,5 hour bus ride and arrived to Porto – city of colorful houses, hilly streets and Azulejo. For those who hear it for the first time, Azulejo is a form of Portuguese painted ceramic tile-work that can be found anywhere around Porto – interior and exterior of churches, palaces, houses, schools, and nowadays, restaurants, bars and even railway stations. Most fascinating for me turned out to be Sao Bento railway station, which is a piece of art – lots of mosaic azulejos creating marvelous pictures of the most important events of Portuguese history.
The next place that absolutely fascinates is view on Ribeira from «Ponte Don Luis» bridge – you can see tiny ferries crossing Duero river between its banks,full of visitors enjoying vivid colors and vibe of the area.This place will make you come back – one way or another,but for sure it will.
After the trip,back in Pontevedra ahead was the youth exchange, being organised by our association Ticket2Europe. To be honest,before the project I was taking it for granted as another ones I already had more than dozen times before, but you never know what the next day brings you. «We are all timebankers » presented the concept of social collaboration,where people can share their skills and abilities not by the mean of money ,but by the mean of time – giving each other «helping hand» and exchanging skills and knowledge like in a bank of time. From the very first day the project started in a friendly environment,where participants from 5 different countries were caring for each other as the first priority.
I also was the part of the local organizing team and tried to be as useful as possible by dedicating my time – starting with dinner preparation and arrangement of the session area, finishing with local tips and exploration of Pontevedra night life through different bars and pubs with the participants.And its so much rewarding and motivating to do more when you see appreciation of others for your actions – thing that you can’t buy with money. We had very interesting sessions exploring topic of time-banking, self-consciousness and ability to improve local realities of societies we are living in by active participation and paying attention to the community.
One of the greatest results while the project itself where self-organised sessions of the participants,during which they shared their knowledge and things they are passionate about. You could find anything you like – blind portrait drawing workshop, creative writing techniques, physio massage session,language exchange and even national dances session! The process turned out to be very enriching and proved the concept that «sharing is caring». During the last day guys came up with the action plans back in their home countries in order to share the knowledge and philosophy of the one incredible and fruitful week in Pontevedra. And then came the moment to say good buy -you know,you always think that you have time until its over, but «no pasa nada».
This week and this project turned out to be very crucial experience for me as I learned a lot about myself by being useful and helpful for others.It also taught me to stay in a moment,enjoying it without thinking and looking into a blurry future,which will probably set the things as they should be. In Galician and Portuguese culture there is a specific emotional state called «Saudade» which can be explained as the recollection of feelings, experiences, places that once brought excitement and pleasure,which now triggers the senses and makes one live them again.I think now I can understand what this feeling actually means.
Stay tuned and until the next time !
