EuroXpro 2007 in Serbia!

Some weeks have passed since the amazing conference in Serbia took place, and I feel it is time to write down some thoughts. Since the weeks after the conference have been quite busy, I have not had the time to do scheduled reflection. The thoughts I have might therefore be a bit random...

The conference experience all started with a bus trip from Budapest, Hungary, to Belgrade. We were picked up at the airport by a nice Serbian guy from the bus company. Well, this is where I got the first cultural encounter with the ways of Balkan. When coming from the airport cafeteria with some food for the girls, Camilla and Kirsten, and me the "situation" happened. Picture this: We have all put our luggage on a trolley and this trolley is, at the moment, in front of the Serbian guy and right behind the girls. The guide tells us that we have to hurry because there are other passengers waiting outside. I take the hint and start moving towards the door. Then the "disturbing" thing happened. The guide yelled: "Hey, what about the trolley?” "What about it?” I thought. Then it accrued to me that even though both of the girls were closer to the trolley than me and not even carrying anything I was the one that should do the driving of the trolley... I remember thinking "Kenneth, you're not in Kansas anymore..."

It took some time to recover from the cultural blow, but by the time we got off the bus in Belgrade I had recovered. We checked in at Hotel Slavia for the first night in Belgrade, and went out for dinner. This is when the second cultural encounter with the ways of Balkan slapped me in the face. When you order a dinner course - you get that dinner course and only that. No salad, no French fries and no sauce - but hey, it could have been worse - the meat was fantastic!

So to the conference, which started in Belgrade with a Global Village, on the warmest March day since recordings started, before we went up to Tara Mountains for six days of conference and enormous amounts of blog worthy topics... But since this conference was so great - I will only comment on a couple of topics that made a particular impact on me.

The fantastic AIESECers that took the trip to Tara and made this conference a reality. For me the key to having this amazing experience is the ppl. For one there was a special connection between the Scandinavian countries, it's just the strangest thing. I know that we have at least some similar external realities and that we pretty much come from the same ancestors, but I am pretty sure that the old Vikings did not see this coming. I hope that we have made connections that last here, and I cannot wait to get to ScaLDS to reconnect.
For two there was the Swiss delegation - I just miss you so extremely. I knew a couple of you from before, but I had never expected this. It's like WOW... Looking forward to seeing most of you again in Konstanz in two weeks!