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OAT - Okay? Capito?

3/23/2017

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​8-15 March we had on-arrival training course (OAT) in Nola, city near Napoli. It is a training for all the EVS in the beginning of their service. To know what are the duties and rights of a volunteer, how to adapt to the environment and the culture. It is about learning how to get the maximum of your volunteering service. The most important part for us, is to get new connections all around Italy. Together we were 65 volunteers, who are working in different parts of Italy. Now we have a big network and always a place to stay all over Italy.

​The week past quickly. Every day the activities started at 9.00 and ended at 20.00, at dinner time. We had energizers, team building games, problem solving, training about conflict management and the most important, Italian classes every day. It was great, we have been missing having a teacher to learn with. But it was very difficult of course. We were learning past forms, future forms, articles.. there are a lot of things to remember. The good thing is that we improved our Italian a lot during these 7 days. 
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The volunteering map of Italy. Here is just a small part of us, the 65 who were together in Nola. In reality there are so many more volunteers all around Italy.
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Sunday, funday visiting Napoli
On Sunday we had one free day in Napoli with all of the volunteers. When everybody went to visit the most famous places in the historic centre and the seaside, we decided to go out of the "map". So we  started walking randomly and  arrived to the not so fancy district of Naples (ghetto), but it was a really interesting experience to see the opposite side of the city. 

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​When we came out of the dark streets, we found a huge park. We bought some beers and chilled on the grass in great company (Ruta - poor volunteer from Melendugno, Prune - an amazing girl from France, Adrian - Spanish guy who hates Spanish music and Dion the English guy with lesbian hair, who is very english indeed (bad jokes).
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​After 2 hours talking mainly about food we started looking for napolitan pizza and the sea, but unfortunately we failed. We did not have the best pizza or not even napolitan pizza, but it was quite enough to solve our hunger problem. ​

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​​After the training we went to Napoli for three extra nights to explore the city. To our luck Lola and Eleni (EVS in Napoli) took us into their apartment. When we arrived we went to a very good pizzeria and then straight to bed for siesta. The funny difference between life in the south and north is that the northern volunteers don't care at all about siesta time, it pretty much doesn't exist. For us siesta has become a very important part of the day, without it there is always the danger that we turn into zombies. 
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<-- this serious moments you don't see often, but when you do, it's probably us staying outside during siesta time. 
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So after some amazing pesto pizza, we slept around 4 hours and later went out for a walk to see Napoli at night time. ​
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For some reason the winner of the most popular drink in Napoli was Spritz. 
​The next day we woke up early to discover the city. Like already had become a tradition, our style was to walk somewhere and see what happens. First we arrived to a gallery, it was beautiful. 
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​Then we asked some policemen where we could find Palazzo Reale. We had heard stories about this place that you need to cross it with closed eyes. 
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We did some research on the square, asking locals what they know about this tradition. Finally we got info from where to where we needed to walk. The legend says that some queen in the past made her slaves walk blindly from one side of the square in front of the palace. But they needed to pass between the two horses. Anyone who went around the horses died. Everybody died. The other legend we heard was that this system was used for trials. If the criminal passed between the two horses, he stayed alive. Everybody died. We are not sure what is the true legend, but we tried to do it. None of us managed to pass between the horses. We have heard from locals that noone has actually ever succeeded. ​
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Trying to stay alive, while crossing blindly a square full of people and cars
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The two horses behind us & the palace which is the finish line

​Next we went to the seaside and visited some castles until we got very hungry and started looking for a pizzeria. Of course when you need one they don’t exist. After some time walking, we found a pizzeria with not the best athmosphere but a very good Margherita. Our lunch was followed by some amazing ice cream.

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After the heavy lunch Sofi looked like she will die without having siesta time. But no, there was no time for it. Let's go up the hill and see a castle! On the way to the train station Tairi stopped to buy sunglasses (after looking at every table on the streets the whole day, she actually decided to buy something). Because of that, we missed the train that takes people up the hill. Okay, it was not a problem to wait for the next one. The problem was, that the next one never left the station. They closed the whole department, we spent 40 minutes there and after when we went to the ticket booth to get money back it was closed of course. The workers knew a lot of trouble was waiting for them, so it was easier to go home and avoid the problem. Great job! So we took our tickets and started climbing up the stairs, many-many stairs. 
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When we finally arrived up the stairs it was already night time. But the view was great. We made a picnic with mandarines and started our journey back downstairs. ​
Friday was meant to be dedicated to volcanos. The plan was to visit Vesuvius, but after talking to a local we decided to make a trip to the other direction. We took a train to Campi Flegrei to visit Vulcano Solfatara. We chose the place, cause we thought it's for free, we wouldn't have to walk so much and would see some real volcanic activity. None of the 3 reasons were actually true. We paid 7 euros, walked the whole day and there was pretty much nothing to see. But, the smoke coming from the ground gave us an opportunity for a cool photoshoot. 
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Indie rock band
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Another band
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The famous slavic squat
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Spanish squat

After a long photoshoot and lunch in the volcanic area we started looking for the sea. So we got on the train and jumped off when we saw the seaside (first stop). We had arrived in Bagnoli. 
We were sitting on the rocks, gazing at the nice view when we spotted an island. It was quite big and didn't seem very far, so Tairi said: "We are going on that island". Okei, let's go. 

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The hill
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​On the way we met a guy with a huge and scary but super friendly dog. After playing with the big puppy for a while we told the guy about our plan to go on the island. Unfortunately he told us that it was not possible to enter the island because it was a juvenile prison and the police wouldn't let us pass. 
Okei, new plan. Let's go to the beach! While we were enjoying a banana and sandwiches on the beach our crazier part of the company went swimming. For that moment Tairi stopped feeling like a northern person, because the swimmers were from Spain and Greece (well done, Fernando & Eleni). 

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The seaside seemed like a perfect place to watch the sunset. But it was too early to stay waiting on the beach and too late to return to Napoli for the sunset. So we made a decision to hitchhike on top of the hill (the one you can see on the previous photo). We were 6 so we split into two groups: team "Fernando", with Eleni & Tairi and team "Blonds" (Zsofi and Ruta) with Adrian. 
After some minutes every team got a car and was heading to the top of the hill. Tairi’s team arrived to the place with the view of the sunset. 
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The children prison island
Where was team Sofi? Somewhere lost on the other side of the hill. Then of course everybody’s phone died, and there was no way of contact. ​
​The story is, that they arrived on the other side of the hill and were enjoying the view of Napoli or something. Then the masculine part of the team, guapo Adrian, stopped another car that took them to the right part to see the amazing view of the sea and the adventurous team was reunited.
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​Of course after some time everyone needs to go to a place called toilet. So us and Ruta found a very modern wc, that turned out to be a house of horror. First there was a sign that said: pay 50 cents or pee your pants. Okay, we paid and entered all together. The door closed and the lights went off (it was like a lift door). After sofi stood up from the pot, the door opened. It was very confusing and while Tairi was stepping out of the toilet the door closed again, almost smashing her. Next moment from Tairi’s perspective: very loud screaming and water splashing sounds. It was like in a horror movie. After 5 seconds the door opened and Ruta & Sofi ran out. Their legs were soaked from water. The water had come from somewhere on the floor (luckily just water). Probably it was a punishment, because we just paid 50 cents for the 3 of us. But in the end only one of us had the luxury to actually use the toilet. 

After these adventures we became very hungry. We took a bus and a train to get back to Napoli. Eleni suggested going to pizzeria Lombardi. When you are in Italy and you want to eat really good food, you need to look for a place without tourists. That place was really simple, traditional and of course we ate pizza. 
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​It was our last night in the city, so quickly after a shower, we were in Piazza Bellini with spritzes in our hands.
The next morning we had a shopping tour. Pretty much like every day, but this time we at least bought something - postcards.

​​And then we went home. The end. 
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The trips continue...

3/4/2017

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One day our dear friend Moe from Germany (Unfortunately he finished his studies in Lecce, so he left, but you know we will meet soon on our rooftop!) organized a great bycicle trip with the Erasmus students. We woke up very early to catch the train from Lecce to Poggiardo. When the workers in the station saw our crew with 12 bikes they told us that it is not possible to get on the train with them. When the train arrived we understood why – it was so tiny! But the driver was very excited to see us. He asked if we were some kind of a biking squad and said that let’s go! Packing the bikes on the train could be compared to the game of tetris (Simpsons style), but they did it. All 12 bikes in that small train.
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Getting the bikes out of the tiny train
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When we arrived to Poggiardo the weather was perfect - sunny and warm. Our first goal was cicling to Santa Cesarea Terme.
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Santa Cesarea Terme

Luckily the roads we took were almost all the time next to the seaside, so we could gaze at the amazing view during the whole trip. This gave compensation for us, because sometimes we felt really tired thanks to the hilly roads.

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When we were almost in Castro, we decided with 3 guys to visit one cave under the ground. It’s called La Grotta Zinzulusa. There are many stalagmites and stalagtites from more than 5000 years ago. Since it is not a touristic season right now, we were the only ones visiting and had a private tour with a guide.
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We stopped many times for a few minutes to admire the beauty of Salento, but our next bigger stop was in Tricase. At first in a port and after we went to chill and eat lunch in a wonderful place between the rocks. We saw an Italian man, who was swimming and also some sunbathing Italians. It was a big surprise, because so far we have seen only foreigners going swimming and Italians staring at them with big eyes. 
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Sunglasses commercial
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Roma (EVS in Melandugno) was with us, so of course he did WATERslackline. He was like a tourist attraction, people stopped to make photos of him. 

​The last sight was in Leuca but in the end we stayed only with Moe and Roma, because the rest of our company took the earlier train home. We bought a bottle of wine, rustico and chocolate …mmmh perfect. We sat on a hill and watched the sunset. It was an amazing moment sitting in front of the meeting point of the ionic and adriatic sea. We were listening to Motta and the lighthouse behind us created a very cool athmosphere and gave us some more wonderful feelings.
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The last survivors
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No photo can show how beautiful it was

We were enjoying and appreciating the beautiful view and totally forgot to check the time. We had to catch the train from Gagliano which was around 10 km from Leuca.  It was very dark and the sound of barking dogs was following us almost the whole way. We managed to catch the train and as we entered and sat down, every one of us fell asleep.

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Tired, but very happy!
IN TOTAL: More than 50 km by bycicle (without musclefever), uncountable and unforgettable marvelous places, and we became heroes… THANKS A LOT MOE!

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We are travelling a lot in Salento by hitchhiking, bus and bike and we really like to try new things here. We have „happy tree friends” in Lecce and one of them, Ernesto, has a sailingboat, it’s called Tom-Titi. So one Sunday we went to Porto  Cesareo to have a trip. We did not go alone, we had another boat accompanying us. We brought food (pasta and potatoes) and we stopped somewhere near to Porto Sant'Isidoro to have lunch. It was the first time we tried super fresh oysters, they were delicious.
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