Naomi den BestenI have finally booked a ticket! On the 26th I will fly directly to Palermo from Brussels and I will arrive in the late afternoon. Many dentist appointments delayed my departure but it feels great to finally know when I will be in Palermo!
Ten more days in the Netherlands and I am spending them with friends and family, trying to see as many people before I leave. Very slowly I'm also learning a bit of Italian. I finally know why I chose to study ancient Greek and Latin in high school... it pays off. I understand large parts of written texts and a little bit of Italian television and I can say a few things.
In the pre-departure training, the trainer showed this cartoon as part of the intercultural learning piece. "Do you still want to go to Italy?" he asked.
I'll be living in Palermo (not Trapetto as the desciption of the project says). The well-known gap year, volunteering for a local NGO working on intercultural learning and peace building.
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean sea and Palermo is a city that has one million inhabitants when you include suburbs. The travel guides explain that it is blessed with beautiful nature, passionate and lively inhabitants, great food and a warm climate. On the other hand, poverty, corruption and the maffia made it one of the most underdeveloped regions in Europe.
A picture of Palermo:
I'll be working for Centro Studi ed Iniziative Europeo, CESIE. The EU pays the travels costs, room and board, insurance and an allowance (for the Dutch, see: www.programmajeugd.nl). In Palermo I'll probably have my own room in an appartment with another EVS volunteer and Italians.
Comments
Heel veel plezier in Italie!!! We gaan je missen, maar ik weet zeker dat je daar een top tijd gaat hebben. Zet hem op en we lezen graag je verhalen.
Grtz,
Nienke
Lotte
Great to read your weblog. Good that you already found Lotte's weblog on MyEVS as we are her sending organisation. Say hi from me to her. Another thing is that I saw that the pictures of above are not shown correctly. Could you please help me and tel me what went wrong? Hope I can help.
Cheers,
Robert.
Wat ben ik trots op mijn grote nicht(je)...! Een prachtervaring, dat zal het zeker worden en via deze blog kan ik je ervaringen volgen, da's helemaal top. Van 7 tot 14 oktober ben ik dichtbij, ben namelijk in Napels en aan het wandelen langs de Amalfi-kust.
Heel veel succes, plezier en geniet!
XX, Astrid