Traveling to experience the world is one of the things I always wanted to do and i try to do anyway.
But to travel when you don't have money isn't easy, that's why I choose the European Union programmes (Erasmus, Leonardo, National and European Civil Service, Evs ecc ecc) not only as a funny way to travel, but also as an opportunity to get back some of that money that all of us, with taxes, we gave to finance these projects. Traveling doesn't mean nothing else that know better themselves, test our skills, try our limits, feel ... The best thing of travel is socializing. Sometimes it happens to meet people even just for a few moments, a few days or a few hours, sometimes you are sitting around a fire in the middle of a forest and you are sharing the deepest emotions,the more hidden secrets of yourself with men who, with certainty, you won’t meet anymore ...brothers and sisters for one night, one day, and then everyone on his way. The trips are road, our lives are maps and a return trip is always a way to find again. Nothing is more the same after a trip.
When I travel, I always try to leave behind me a good pretext to return ... The pretext that I will seed somewhere in the land of Romania will probably be the memory of the beautiful days spent together with my friends, my mates for 7 months, wonderful people, Lithuanians, Estonians, Austrians, Jordanians, Spanish, French, Uruguayans, Georgians, Armenians, Italians, Latvians, Moldovans and Romanians; roads crossed with my own and that I will draw on the map of my life forever. During this last trip I discovered the other face of Europe (and not only Europe) that I did not know, the northern and eastern face … and I learned...
I learned that Estonians are simple people and nature lovers, they eat fried pasta and don’t have donkeys in their land; that French always put the stress on the last syllable but have no idea what the “bidet” is (It’s French!); that Austrians instead put the stress on the first syllable and love to avoid the rules of volleyball; that Lithuanians love silence but when they decide to speak they always tell the right thing at the right time; that Romanians take off their shoes when they enter into their homes and thanks to them I discovered "smantana"!;that Latvians have their fantasy concept of geography; that Georgians are lovely people, have excellent cheese and curious words in common with Italian language; that not necessarily all Jordanians have 4 wives and indeed it is very difficult to have more than one; that Armenians are stubborn, but they know how to be good friends; that Uruguyans don’t know that bears are very fast and all their verbs conjugated at the present tense mean only one thing (i cannot say in this article..ask them); and, finally, that, even if I believe that Italians are unfair, despicable and dishonest, I learned that some of them have the strength to chase dreams and believe that change is possible, that some of them have a warmth and humanity that makes them unique. My brothers and my sisters here in Romania ... roads crossed with mine.
