Wien: Reiseführer, Preise und kostenlose Unterkunft · 2026

OOOleksandra Onystiukonystyuko · 10.01.2023Lesen

Every marvelous adventure begins with a spontaneous decision. Once you’d like to try something new, even have a bit of fear or uncertainty, but then your lifestyle will never be the same. Young people are courageous explorers who are open to the world. Then, something that can change and fill the life of many students calls ‘exchange programs’. I’m not an exception, so I’m ready to get new experience in Work and Travel USA program. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Exchange programs are about significant personal changes that have an important influence on the future. Students get an invaluable experience combining new culture, exploring a new city and country, new people and community, and learning new skills and many amazements. Definitely, these expand the worldview, but they can also help in finding yourself and your purpose in life. I’m convinced that youth trips also pump up everyone as a person, so after this experience, the difference with other peers who didn’t participate in it is palpable. So it is about growing up, and I’d say in a speedy, inconvenient at times way. Students are the drivers of change because they have the power to build a better society around them. Therefore exchange programs can be a great tool to recognize what best young people can take from other cultures and implement in their native land. During intercultural interaction in programs, students are able to share their own culture, traditions, and different features with each other, so the result is a combination of something greater. By the way, I hope in America, it is possible to learn and understand their world (I’m sure it will be 100%) and also get to know exciting things from other students from different cultures. Next, exchange programs are one of the most significant types of non-formal education. In schools or universities, we used to have typical studying with books, lectures, teachers, and other standard things, but in youth trips, students have practical lessons. New conditions force you to take care of yourself independently. This is a kind of school of life where students face many challenges – from organizing their budget to finding the necessary place in a new city. Nevertheless, the moment of really growing up also can be great thanks to youth traveling. Everything I described above related to my experience too. In July 2022, I was in Summer School “Waves and Ebbs of Democracy”: Lessons learnt from Central European 'There and Back Again” at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, and it was a great three weeks. Except that we had an educational plan, I spent a fantastic time exploring a new country and communicating with new people from Georgia, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Serbia, Montenegro, and Armenia. Honestly, it was exciting to interact with them and share my thoughts and feelings about russian invasion of Ukraine. Sometimes I recognized that they didn’t understand the Ukrainian context, so my mission was to describe how it happens. I wanted first to introduce them to our culture and then tell them about our history and brave people. Nothing captivates people like food, so I decided to cook Ukrainian traditional cuisine borshch for the group. And they could give thanks by donating to our army. Two goals were achieved: in this way, we joined the victory of Ukraine, and international students learned more about my culture and Ukraine in general. (Video here) Furthermore, this program consisted of traveling in Central Europe, so we were in Budapest, Prague, and Vienna . The best opportunity to combine hard work and funny nights is to catch the moment as we did during our trips. Besides, I realized how similar we are: international students also can have responsible preparation for the test after a crazy night or submitting a task at the last minute. Because previously thought these related to Ukrainian students only, but fortunately, I

WWladekmariaalicenicols · 13.04.2010Lesen

So, our trip to Moscow. I was scheduled for 15:00, and so as not to let others down and leave earlier, I arrived early at 14:40. However, there were some "guys" who didn't care when they arrived or if they were holding anyone up... Haha. I don't know those guys, but some of them took seats on the bus, left their backpacks there, and went off somewhere... We waited for them for about 30 minutes, and then our driver made a very wise decision – he threw their bags out and drove off. Conclusion! If the fate of the group depends on you, you must be responsible and disciplined. Not even 50 km later, it turned out that we had another free seat on the bus, an interesting situation!!! :) I thought... The further you go, the more interesting it gets... The girl was lucky, good for her! She got to ride on two seats at once. Our bus turned out to be unusually uncomfortable; it was a "MAZ", "Maxim's House" as the Moscow homeless called it (I wonder why??? If anyone has any guesses, write to me). The bus had a number of drawbacks - starting with the fact that if someone wanted to recline their seat, you had to shout to almost the entire row: "Careful! I'm reclining the seat!". And as for legroom, you might as well put your feet on the ceiling, even though I'm 176 cm tall... The buses were probably built for Southeast Asia, but they didn't buy them, and the goods had to be sold... The second significant drawback was that the seatbelts in the bus worked poorly, the lights were installed in inconvenient places, there was no toilet, the seats were narrow (even though I'm not very fat, I weigh 60 kg at 176 cm), there were no comfortable headrests, only one armrest, and the button to recline the seat kept getting stuck for some reason. If anyone has had similar problems, write... Let's write a collective letter and send it to OJSC "Minsk Automobile Plant" with our wishes and recommendations. We arrived in Moscow at 03:00 AM. A small part of us decided to walk around night Moscow (when else would such a chance arise? For me, never again, only Saint Petersburg). First, the bravest ones and those who had already been to Moscow went out, then I followed with a guy from the back row, sorry I don't remember your name. We went to relieve ourselves, and just as we finished, our buses suddenly flew past us! "Achtung! Wir anstreben Kommandeur" (I don't know what this phrase means, but the feeling was exactly that!) We barely caught up... Well, we caught up, so we caught up, no point in sitting still, we went for a walk again. While we were walking around the consulate and the tall beautiful building, we were stopped three times by 9-series cars with tinted windows, and from there: "Hey, dear, need a taxi?" (maybe it's a fashion they have?), we decided to go back and take 5 more people with us, just "for certainty". We walked "very well", to our heart's content.... At 7:00 AM they announced – IT'S TIME... Hmm, I felt a little cold in my hands, and in one other place. We left everything, even money. I only took a lighter and one cigarette, and of course, my documents; I regretted not taking two cigarettes. While walking from the bus, I smoked it, saw a large number of people near the main entrance, everyone had numbers... I, fully confident in myself, took mine out, and then – "Kurwienski ojciec" (a terrible swear word) it turns out that the number had rubbed off!!! How will other people understand what my number is?! I started running around, looking for coordinators, because I knew that no one else had a pen (everyone left everything on the bus!). I found one, wrote down my number. Good. Special thanks to the coordinators for their ingenuity in resolving the queue issue, very well organized. Well done! 1. Heading towards the policeman, I take my passport, we get into a narrow space between the booth and the main entrance to the consulate building. The space is narrow, there is a draft, and the wind has a specific feature of accelerating in narrow spaces, w