Buffee
Finnish specialities
Finnish folkdance "Huutokatrilli"Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
The Finnish Evening 29.4.07
Yam, yam...
I love salmiakki.
Elviira, Justiina and Amanda from Finland.
Finnish song competitions election board from Hungeria and Estonia.
The audience."Május elseje" (=first of May) Photos
Early in the morning 26.4.07 in the bus to the Helsinki-Vantaa aeroport.
27.4.07 in Börcs
27.4.07 Györ Quis
28.4.07 Hungerians are cooking gulash.
28.4.07 Hungerian folkmusic band and Karoli from Estonia.
28.4.07 Hungarian Evening
29.4.07 Flowering field in Börch.
29.4.07 Finns are preparing Karelian pies to Finnish evening.
30.4.07 "Dont wake me up, I want to sleep".
27.4.07 Four flags
30.4.07 Pannonhalma Abbey
30.4.07 Pannonhalma Abbey 
Monday, April 30, 2007
Journey so far through Estonian eyes
It all started way too early in the airport in Tallinn. With bags full of Estonian candies and vodka and heads full of sweet dreams we headed off towards Börcs. It took us about 15 hours to get here, as we had to face flight delays, adventures in the local metro and missed some trains.
When we finally got here, exhausted as hell, we were greeted by the lordmajor of Börcs himself. Another "shock" was that people in here are extremely friendly. They are all trying to make our stay here as good as possible. And it is.
On the second day we had fun in Győr.
On the third day we had workshops and in the evening the Hungarians showed us some real Hungarian culture. They are like awesome dancers and great on wine and white bread.
On the fourth day we had workshops again and the evening was Finnish. Again we danced as if the floor was on fire and tasted some liquorice and Karjala pies.
On the fifth day we went to Pannonhalma to visit the monastery.
To be continued...
When we finally got here, exhausted as hell, we were greeted by the lordmajor of Börcs himself. Another "shock" was that people in here are extremely friendly. They are all trying to make our stay here as good as possible. And it is.
On the second day we had fun in Győr.
On the third day we had workshops and in the evening the Hungarians showed us some real Hungarian culture. They are like awesome dancers and great on wine and white bread.
On the fourth day we had workshops again and the evening was Finnish. Again we danced as if the floor was on fire and tasted some liquorice and Karjala pies.
On the fifth day we went to Pannonhalma to visit the monastery.
To be continued...
Sunday, April 29, 2007
How it began II ...
Györ through my eyes - after some palinka(s), March 2007Once upon a time...
... those beginnings always suck, don't they? I'll try once again. Twice upon a time... Hmm.. Oh, I'll just let it go and get to it!
I think it was in the end of September of 2006, when I promised to attend a seminar in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. An evaluation-seminar for a sub-programme of YOUTH (now Youth in Action, click here to check it out), called Crossborder Cooperations. I was defenetly damn glad I had a chance to go back to Slovenia, but I never even thought of meeting the people I met there or.. starting a project with them!
But I'm sure You want to know all the details too, right?
Ofcourse it was one of those lovely early afternoons in Ljubljana airport, I had just drank my last zip of water, after explaining to too many mysteriously charming taxidrivers I do NOT need their help and looking at time and thinking, how am I ever going to recognize someone Dimitri, who I had never even met and who should have been here already several minutes ago... That was the minute a happy face walked out and I knew - this is going to be a fun weekend! Meet Dimitri, a fabulous Estonian, who became a good friend and a great idea-generator in just a couple of days. A guy, who knows what a good joke consists of , for sure (egoboost?:D) And then, after arriving to Kranjska Gora there was this always-smiling guy with this very unusual name to me (I think I had to ask it over for dozen of times) who was calling everyone to this „Welcome Party of the Seminar!”. And the best part was, that all the people I needed, just came around - Merja was my roommate with that supermini toothpaste I still admire (and me with my pink bunny-toothbrush!) and soon after, Hanna moved in too:)
... those beginnings always suck, don't they? I'll try once again. Twice upon a time... Hmm.. Oh, I'll just let it go and get to it!
I think it was in the end of September of 2006, when I promised to attend a seminar in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. An evaluation-seminar for a sub-programme of YOUTH (now Youth in Action, click here to check it out), called Crossborder Cooperations. I was defenetly damn glad I had a chance to go back to Slovenia, but I never even thought of meeting the people I met there or.. starting a project with them!
But I'm sure You want to know all the details too, right?
Ofcourse it was one of those lovely early afternoons in Ljubljana airport, I had just drank my last zip of water, after explaining to too many mysteriously charming taxidrivers I do NOT need their help and looking at time and thinking, how am I ever going to recognize someone Dimitri, who I had never even met and who should have been here already several minutes ago... That was the minute a happy face walked out and I knew - this is going to be a fun weekend! Meet Dimitri, a fabulous Estonian, who became a good friend and a great idea-generator in just a couple of days. A guy, who knows what a good joke consists of , for sure (egoboost?:D) And then, after arriving to Kranjska Gora there was this always-smiling guy with this very unusual name to me (I think I had to ask it over for dozen of times) who was calling everyone to this „Welcome Party of the Seminar!”. And the best part was, that all the people I needed, just came around - Merja was my roommate with that supermini toothpaste I still admire (and me with my pink bunny-toothbrush!) and soon after, Hanna moved in too:)
By the way, the Welcome Party of the Seminar lasted several nights and it did consist of different national drinks, including viciously good palinka and there we were, with our palinka-heads on that sunny morning in Kranjska Gora, Cathy, our fabulous Canadian trainee pushing us to create fab ideas.. And it DID work actually!
We didn't really need much to get to the point of Finno-Ugrians. I mean, when Balazs propsed the idea I felt some energy floating in and topics that I felt interested in, jumping around everywhere.
With my own travelling around and meeting people from all corners of the world, well - so many people even in Europe don’t actually know, that there is such thing as Finno-Ugrian culture, there ARE people, who don’t know that we have our own „bizarre” languages, that Estonians are not speaking Russian actually and that there are dozens of other Finno-Ugrian nations around Finland and Russia, who are dying out! And why should they, really? Yeah, that is one way of looking at it, but at the same time, why shouldn’t they? So, hey, why not to make a project connected to that, huh?
So, the aim of the project as written down in the ideal shape, was to help Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian youth to get to know each others culture and origin of the Finno-Ugric languages. The idea was to get closer to each other through investigation of our (similar) cultural background. Also one of our ideas was to fight against prejudicies and stereotypes (so blue-eyed as we all are), give the participants (=YOU) a possibility to become more open-minded in direction of other cultures and facilitate Your interest for (other) foreign languages. Also one of the important ideas of the project is to make Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian youngsters to give insight to the culture of EU member countries, where the spoken languages have the same roots (not only Finno-Ugric). We wanted to let You recognize the importance of protection of the cultural heritage left for us to be kept on. The main topics are Finno-Ugric issues, but there is an opportunity to get to know and experience other fields of culture as well. The applied methods are based on interactive and informal techniques so the participants aka You, would be able to explore Your own values, develop Your abilities in tolerance, cooperation and social conformity.
Reading this You may think – what?! But the truth is, even if You do not realize it just right now, You’ll probably feel a piece of it when You get back home and think back of this exchange. Maybe not even that Finno-Ugrian thing, but there will be something.. I promise! And well - in the end, itt’s really all up to You – how much You gain from this experience, how much You give away and how much You receive. As always – it’s all up to YOU.
We didn't really need much to get to the point of Finno-Ugrians. I mean, when Balazs propsed the idea I felt some energy floating in and topics that I felt interested in, jumping around everywhere.
With my own travelling around and meeting people from all corners of the world, well - so many people even in Europe don’t actually know, that there is such thing as Finno-Ugrian culture, there ARE people, who don’t know that we have our own „bizarre” languages, that Estonians are not speaking Russian actually and that there are dozens of other Finno-Ugrian nations around Finland and Russia, who are dying out! And why should they, really? Yeah, that is one way of looking at it, but at the same time, why shouldn’t they? So, hey, why not to make a project connected to that, huh?
So, the aim of the project as written down in the ideal shape, was to help Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian youth to get to know each others culture and origin of the Finno-Ugric languages. The idea was to get closer to each other through investigation of our (similar) cultural background. Also one of our ideas was to fight against prejudicies and stereotypes (so blue-eyed as we all are), give the participants (=YOU) a possibility to become more open-minded in direction of other cultures and facilitate Your interest for (other) foreign languages. Also one of the important ideas of the project is to make Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian youngsters to give insight to the culture of EU member countries, where the spoken languages have the same roots (not only Finno-Ugric). We wanted to let You recognize the importance of protection of the cultural heritage left for us to be kept on. The main topics are Finno-Ugric issues, but there is an opportunity to get to know and experience other fields of culture as well. The applied methods are based on interactive and informal techniques so the participants aka You, would be able to explore Your own values, develop Your abilities in tolerance, cooperation and social conformity.
Reading this You may think – what?! But the truth is, even if You do not realize it just right now, You’ll probably feel a piece of it when You get back home and think back of this exchange. Maybe not even that Finno-Ugrian thing, but there will be something.. I promise! And well - in the end, itt’s really all up to You – how much You gain from this experience, how much You give away and how much You receive. As always – it’s all up to YOU.
Hope You're doing great and giving Your support for the organizers too. As we all know, it's their first youth exchange and even though it's impossible to make You belive, but organizing a hole week for some people You've never even met before, is damn hard. So, smile when You see Rita or Adrienn walking towards You next time and don't forget to slap Balazs from me:)
Best to all of You and hope You enjoy Your week!
Hugs and head ööd!
Helen (those who haven't met me and have absolutely no idea, who am I, well, You will defenetly meet me in the next exchange! Do not even DOUBT about that one:)
How it began......
Hallo Finno-Ugrian friends!
Now you are in Hungary and I hope enjoying your time together in Börcs.
The picture you can see has been taken in Slovenia last September.
Among many youngsters from various european organizations I met there Merja, Helen,Hanna, and Dimitrij. Actually I think we met together with a bottle of pálinka as well. I don't remember clearly...:-)
On the picture you can see the balcony where we began to discuss about a camp with topic Fenno- Ugrian language relations at first.
We all found it fantastic and decided to work out the idea. To realize the meeting between you, we had to apply to our Natonal Agencies and all the three application had to win also, which was not so easy process like drinking a bottle of pálinka before.:-)
Fortunately all of them won and I'm happy you can be here and hope you'll make friends and you can see each other in Estonia and in Finland in the future as well.
Have a nice week!
Balázs
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