After the Christmas holidays we concentrated on project writing. We and two local volunteers Marinella and Jacopo wrote a youth exchange for the last deadline of Erasmus+ projects (2nd of February). The topic is road safety and sustainable mobility. It is an interesting topic to discover in South Italy. The rules here and the traffic culture compared to the ones in Estonia are like day and night. It seems to a foreigner that here are no rules, but actually the Italians know what they are doing. Here we just need to adapt to the craziness. We are planning to make the exchange in collaboration with Ciclofficina. They are the best partner because our project involves bike culture. If our youth exchange is funded by Erasmus+ it will take place in October with participants from Italy, Estonia, Hungary, Spain, Greece and the Netherlands. San Cesario – A casa della nonna, della mamma e della zia di Sara One day, when we were working in KiioLab, our dear Sara invited us to San Cesario di Lecce. First we visited Sara’s grandmother in her huge house. Of course we had a coffee there and heard interesting stories about the witches of the Marzo family. After we went to Sara’s parents' house, and finally Tairi got the dearly loved guitar from them. It is a little bit old and had broken strings, but our dear friend Francesco repaired it and now she’s practicing a lot. She already knows one song: “Smelly cat” (from the TV series "Friends") :D. Our last stop was the house of Sara’s aunt. Che bella la casa! She was very kind to us. We tried her homemade Limoncello (lemon liquer) and Mirto (liquer of myrtle berries). We were speaking only Italian with all of them, this is the best way of practicing the language. Also, you should know a lot people want to try the famous Hungarian gulash soup version by me (Sofi), but all the time I had an excuse why I couldn't make it. The last one was: “I don’t have any bay leaves”, but Sara’s aunt had a bay bush in the garden, so I got some leaves (Thank you again!!). So I will make gulash one day, I promise. Focara In the middle of the January we visited Focara festival in Novoli (city/village near Lecce). It’s a 4-day fire festival held every year. We went on the first day and there was so much fireworks that it felt like New Year’s Eve (especially because on NYE there was almost no fireworks). Meeting a Minion, Tairi loves them, Sofi hates them.. In the end of the night I (Tairi) noticed that my iPhone was missing. Aaah, why mee! So everyone started looking for it on the square. Then I remembered that I probably left it in the toilet, where I was using it to show light. So we checked all of the toilets.. nothing. Then we met a police guy who said that no one had brought any phones to him. Sara left her number to him just in case and we started going back home. I was so sad, the previous month my bike was stolen, now this month my phone, what will be next? On the way to the car Sara’s phone rang.. “Hey, this is the police, we have found your phone”. Nooo way, thank you universe or someone, I was very lucky. At home I discovered that the SIM card was missing. We were wondering if someone stole it, threw away the SIM, but then lost the phone again?? Or threw away the SIM but then started feeling bad about it and returned the phone? Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I am so grateful and happy that I got it back.
The crew Trip to Otranto When Bogi (Sofi’s coordinator from Hungary) was still here, our dear friend Giorgio took us to Otranto by car. It is a beautiful city on the seaside, around 45 km south from here. We had an amazing day discovering the coastline of Salento, the city of Otranto and we had a good homemade lunch on the beach (Estonian and Hungarian food). MORE TRIP-POSTS COMING SOON!
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Next goal: San Cataldo – Torre dell’Orso. We were walking along the seaside and started to stop cars. There were not many and most of them went to the direction of Lecce. But then two women stopped to take us to the main road. The next driver stopped a few minutes later and when we opened the door, we heard Enrique Iglesias – El corazon. This has been a huge hit lately, so the first 3 minutes we were just singing. After the song we learned that the driver had been working in the psychiatric hospital for 30 years. And that he was not going to Torre dell’Orso :D After around 7 km he left us on the road to our destination. We started walking.. only 2 motorbikes and 2 or 3 cars passed. After walking for some time we decided to sit down in front of a garden of olive trees. Tairi was playing harmonica and the feeling was like we were the only people on that road. They were on their way home in Acaja (very near to Lecce). But they took us on the car and drove us to Torre dell’Orso (totally different direction from their house). On the way they explained how dangerous that road is for crazy motorbike drivers. They told us about the places and sights on the coastal area. We passed San Foca (a harbour) & Roca Vecchia - a place where we want to go swimming when it gets warmer, so probably in March. In the middle of the cliffs there is a hole, which is like a swimming pool, it looks amazing on the photos, so we can’t wait to see it in real life. So after 3 cars and one hour we arrived in Torre dell’Orso. Bellissimo! There were not much people but we were dancing on the sand, running along the seaside while trying to avoid getting our feet wet. We finished the wine, ate oranges for lunch and we were just chilling and enjoying the beautiful view. When it got darker we decided to go to our last stop in Melendugno. We were walking to find the right road and with the help of Carabinieri (a type of Italian police) we found the right way. One car stopped, they were with a baby so there was not enough room for us at first. BUT after 4 meters they stopped again and picked us up. They were a very cute family and spoke very good English. In Melandugno we visited Ruta (Lithuanian volunteer). She was very surprised seeing us in her doorstep. We were very hungry, so she cooked for us(!) pasta with pesto. After the dinner we started our trip back to Lecce. First driver who picked us up wasn’t on the way to Lecce, but he was kind enough to take us 1 km further to a better place for hitchhiking. 10 seconds after getting off the car, another car stopped that took us to Lecce. The driver was a very interesting woman. We were comparing the lives in different parts of the world, talking about food, politics. She was especially interested in what we were thinking about Putin. The 20 minute drive went very fast with her. She really loved to talk. Oh, we were speaking in Italian only, so sometimes we got lost and were just hoping “please don’t be a question” so we could just say something like: “sii, ahah, certo”. But our Italian is improving day by day, so 80 percent of the conversation was clear. All in all, our trip Lecce-San Cataldo-Torre dell'Orso-Melandugno-Lecce took 7 hours, 7 cars & 7 drivers with many interesting stories, 2 chicken legs (not eaten), 3 oranges, 1 banana, one pasta (all eaten) and loads of laughter and happiness. |
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November 2021
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