Bienvenidos a Madrid :)

Arrived in Madrid Puerta de Atocha we took the metro to go to the hostel. It was very nice hostel in an an old traditional building in Madrid with a very special style, I'd say close to arab architecture! Anway really really nice and most of all in the city center...finally!!!

After leaving our luggages we went for breakfast in a bakery, it was so tasty and so cheap!

We spent a good moment there before going eating with Kenny in a spanish sandwich bar close to the place where, at 15h we were going to meet 40 young latin americains who are studying in Madrid for 2 months. They are part of a special program for latin american students ;) it is quite interesting but I really don't know the details! That afternoon Juan Carlos, Mari, Maru, Jenny, Lucas and Alejandre had to present their projects. Me and Elena presented EUforIA.

We had a very good time there, the 40 students had so many questions and we had some time to discuss more in detail, with the people interested, the three LA projects + EUforIA.

It was quite interesting because these people were very impressed by the projects and talked a lot with us for discussing about their project ideas. In fact one of the objective of their student program is to come up with social prjoects at the end of the 2.5 months!

I think we all made a great job and spent a great afternoon with great people!

After "working" we went out drinking something all together and then went eating with Dani (one of the founder of EUforIA) in a very typical place in Madrid. The night continued in some bars dancing and drinking ;)

Last day of the trip coming soon!!

Barça!!

Our arrival in Barcelona was at the train station Sants, it was so late that we were all very hungry so we decided to go eating some tapas outside the train station. We find a nice restaurant, we were sitting outside as the wheather was very good and we stayed almost all day in a train! Alejandre and Lucas ate a sandwich with chicken and french fries...they eat that almost in every restaurant we went for all the trip!!! I don't know how they do to eat always cheaps and chicken!!ahah!:)

Anyway see how smily we were :

After that at 23h30 we wanted to go out after changing our "smelly" clothes in the hostel :P but...we found out that our nice hostel was 30 minutes away from the city center!!!!:S Imagin our reaction knowing that we wold probably arrive at 24h in the hostel and that we had to take a train the day after at 7h30!! Well, we asked several people how to get to this hostel because there were no more trains..finally someone told us to walk till Plaza de Espana and get a night bus. 20 minutes walking and we found a bus in the direction we had to go to.

Unfortunately the drived didn't know where the hostel was...and other people on the bus didn't know either! Ghost hostel! In order to help us all the catalans on the bus started calling home to ask their wife or husband to check for us where the hostel was! It was amazing how helpful people were! Finally we understood more or less and the driver left us (After be sure that there werre gus with us and not just girls...) in front of the police station where we asked how to get to the hostel and we were luck!! It was two minutes away.

We made the check in at 1am....check out at 6am to go catch the train for Madrid.

It was an adventure..finally we coudln't go out and see barcelona... we didn't have the time not the envy after 30 hours travelling :P more..it was so far away from the city center!

You can't imagin how tired we were the morning when we woke up..after just 3 hours of sleeping! We arrived at the train station in time to meet Kenny (Guy from Ashoka that accompanied us to Madrid) and catch the train...2 hours and a half...you should have seen us : everyone sleeping like an angel during all the trip :)

Madrid coming soon.

Last day in Paris & long long trip to Barcelona!!

Hello everyone!

We are very sorry not to have written before about our days in Paris and Barcelona, unfortunately we didn' have a lot of time because the timetable of the trip was very very hard ;) But now let's catch up!

The last days in Paris the morning we all went to visit the city a bit more, more in detail we went to the Moulin Rouge, to Montmartre and to the Sacre Coeur!! Such a nice sunny day in a wonderful part of Paris!

We ate some sandwiches sitting in the sun on te stairs of the Sacre-Coeur listenning to a guy singing and to another guy playing with a ball...he was amazing!

After we went to Notre Dame and to the "Quartier Latin", passying by the University "La Sorbonne" in Paris...unfortunately they didn't let us visit the buildings! Just students can get in.

We also visited the Pantheon and walked until we found a really nice french style café where we had a hot drink all together and where we said good bye to Jeronimo who was in Paris before I arrived to join the group to go to Spain.

At 18h Elena, Juan Carlos & Mari went to see a network of distribution of organic products in Paris. As they told us it was really interesting.

At 19h we finally got to the hostel to check out and go to the train station, we were a bit late and so it was a bit stressing!! ;) ..but the worst had to come! Once at the train station we found out a very bad truth...the train was cancelled due to strike!!! :S After asking for what we could do to get in Barcelona they told us that the only possiblity other than renting a car (800euros for one day..) was to catch a train on the day after at 7am without knowing at what time arriving in Barça! After considering all the options we decided to stay in Paris and take the train at 7am of the day after!

Fortuately they proposed us to sleep in the train in the train station!! It was actually fun and strange! We were all in the train without moving...lol. We bought some pizza + 8 bottles of wine and the night passed :D

The day after they woke us up at 6 and we went to take the train.

The trip was quite long , 5 hours from Paris to Perpignan (changing train in Montpellier ). Once arrived in Perpignan they told us to take a bus to a village that is in the very south of France. We ate in a brasserie in Perpignan and took the bus after two hours. The trip was very nice, there was sun and the weather was amazing! :) even if we were really tired!

Once arrived in the small village all the people on the bus had to take a taxi until the first spanish village! Really close..4km..it took 2 hours because there were to taxi for all of us...!!!We finally got to Portbou in Spain and from there we took the last train until Barcelona, it took 2hours and a half. We arrived in Barcelona at 21h30 in the night..we should have arrived at 7 in the morning of that day! Not bad...more than 12 hours late after a really tiring but fun trip :)

From Berlin to Paris..

COMING SOON! :)

El ultimo dia en Berlin

The last day in Berlin we split up into groups, Jenni and Maru got up early in the morning in order to make their museum tour through Berlin, to see the places of interest of german history. Lucas benefited of this first free day so as to go and have a coffee with some friends he made during the Ashoka event. Alexandre, Juan, Mary and my humble took the opportunity to see the famous flea market in the Mauerpark and having a last turkish meal for a long long time...

Thereafter, to relax and reflect about the past days (and also because the weather was not very nice), we took the U2 metro tour through Berlin, to see many different parts of the city. With a Club Mate in our hands, we talked about anything and everything and the next steps we want to take in our lives.

We met all together at 1800 in the hostel, in order to get our bags to take the train to paris. This was also the point where we had to say goodbye to a person which was the organisator of almost all activities in Berlin, a complaisant friendly host, a never-sleeping working man and last but not least a person who became a good friend during the time in Berlin: Tobias.

Thank you very much Tobias!

At the train station we realised that because of the strikes in France our train just will get to Hannover, where we must take the bus to Paris Disney Land, from where the metro was our means of transportation to the centre of Paris... But these are no reasons to worry!

At this point, it is my turn to say goodbye, Elena is going to write at my place...

Gracias Mary Juanita, Juan El Molino Choripan Vargas, Lucas El Despertador Pinto, Alexandre El Camel Johnny Cash, Maru Maria Elena Ostili y Jenni El Pajarito por el tiempo con ustedes! Espero de verles pronto en Argentina, Brasil, México, Suiza o donde sea!

turn your ideas into action!

We all were tired the next morning, but after a little breakfast we all were bright and early in the morning in the impakt office in order to assist to the Ashoka Youth Venture's event 'Leading Changemakers', which brought together a network of young people who share a common vision: building a "everyone a changemaker" society in Germany. This event took almost the whole day and finished with a diner in a near restaurant. I don't think I have to mention which traditional cuisine it was. :)

After diner, Tobias joined us with two friends at the hostel, where we started the last night in Berlin with a little concert of Alexandre with his new guitar. After having a couple of beers, Tobias took us to a party in his friends house.

At this point, i think i have something to share with you.. I know we all have dreams, ideas and convictions, but sometimes we don't feel capable to achieve these goals, problems appear and stones are on the way to our inner happiness..

It is important to believe in ourselves. This is what we did, we all turned our ideas into action. And the result was even better than we thought, we surpassed all our expectations....

We drank 35 different german beer brands!!! :)

Movies & links

During ELAYS every participant had the chance of sharing movies they liked or interesting links. Here you can find the final list of what they recommend. If your own advice doesn't appear or if you would like to add some more, you can contact us at elays.blog@gmail.com or leave a comment!

Movies

The Pianist - Roman Polanski

Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate) - Alfonso Arau, based on a Laura Esquivel’s novel

The Bubble - Eytan Fox

The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos) - Juan José Campanella, based on a Eduardo Sacheri's novel

Heart of Time (Corazón del tiempo) - Alberto Cortés

Machuca - Andrés Wood

La Double Face de la monnaie (french only) - Vincent Gaillard, Jérôme Polidor

Elephant cemetery (El cementerio de los elefantes) -Tonchy Antezana

Home -Yann Artus-Bertrand

Lord of War - Andrew Niccol

Across the Universe - Julie Taymor

The Lord of the Rings - Peter Jackson, based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels

Road to Perdition - Sam Mendes, based on Max Allan Collins’ graphic novel

The Cove - Louie Psihoyos

Story of Stuff (see also the related website: www.storyofstuff.com) - Annie Leonard

Shank - Mo Ali

The Coconut Revolution - Dom Rotheroe

Links

http://www.la-ruche.net/

La ruche is a space in Paris for Social Entrepreneurs

http://www.palestinesummer.org/

http://www.holylandtrust.org/

The Palestine Summer Encounter is an extraordinary opportunity to experience life in the Palestinian Territories not as a tourist but as a guest and a participant in the community.

It is a program coordinated by Holy Land Trust: “through a commitment to the principles of nonviolence, HLT seeks to develop spiritual, pragmatic and strategic approaches that will empower the Palestinian community to resist all forms of oppression”

http://the-hub.net/

“a social enterprise with the ambition to inspire and support imaginative and enterprising initiatives for a better world”

http://www.youphil.com/fr

http://altern-actif.blog.youphil.com/

« Youphil.com, le média de toutes les solidarités, vous donne rendez-vous pour un décryptage de l’actualité du monde de l’engagement sous toutes ses facettes, qu’il soit associatif, humanitaire, philanthropique ou entrepreneurial. » It is hosting Christophe Place's blog.

Please note that EUforIA is not responsible for the content of movies or websites suggested by participants.