Human snake :)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wH8gZYH3vrU

Why I made a post about this comercial? :) Because it was filmed in Lisbon and a friend of ours is participating. I found it on Youtube mainpage and I had the surprise to see Anthony, our ex-flatmate staring as figurant. You can see him playing with 2 baloons and at the end hitting the door with the face :) Yeah! It´s nice to have famous friends!

Cheers Anthony! ;)

sent to Coventry!

Well… Coventry is NOT the most beautiful city in England. There are just several nice places in the town; in rest you can see typical English neighbourhoods and industrial parks. The city is coloured in brown and grey... and I was a little bit disappointed about the clean in the city as well.

The weather is not very nice, it's raining a lot... I am not depressed, but I am not happy either. I'm waiting for the sun to come... I want to go out... I want to go and visit something nice! I feel like I'm sent here... like a punishment for something.

A typical day here...

It's a famous expression in England, sometimes the parents are threatening their children that they will be sent to Coventry! :))

Here is the origin of the expression, taken from wikipedia:

"Hostile attitudes of the city folk towards Royalist prisoners held in Coventry during the English Civil War are believed to have originated the phrase "sent to Coventry", which in Britain means "to be ostracised"; although their physical needs were catered for, the Royalist prisoners were literally never spoken to by anybody."

We founded it in English- Romanian dictionary as well… at the word “Coventry”.

So... It looks like I'm sent to Coventry! :))

The road to Coventry

I took a Virgin fast train from London to Coventry. http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/travelling_with_us/our_trains/default.aspx It went so fast that I couldn't see almost anything outside... because the train was going too fast.

So I arrived in Coventry... at the train station nobody expected me. I was thinking... "what should be the correct reaction to this?" "what did I asked and what did I expect from the candidates for the Exchange program in an situation like this... :) Waw! I was living one! I had absolutely no stress and use my last coin to call from a public phone my landlord to come. He arrived after half of hour, telling me that all the traffic in the town was blocked because of a bomb from 2WW discovered in the center. Because I was out of credit I couldn't be even called on my Portuguese number, so I had no contact with AIESECers. I imagined that they were delayed by the blocking in the center so they couldn't arrive on time at the train station.

I went with my landlord to the house, (that one from the previous post) and I had a small surprise, the room wasn't available anymore, he rented meanwhile to someone else... a Polish lady. I had an agreement with him to stay in another room in another house for 3 weeks, until I will find something else... at least that, otherwise I had to stay in a hotel room which would cost me much more! I checked my house mates, 3 Chinese, one girl from Ghana and one British-Indian origin girl from Leeds. They looked OK, the only problem was the cleaning in the house which was a total disaster, I can tell you that in that bathroom Diana would never enter! :D ... and the hall was absolutely full of dust, the landlord had to threaten them to clean the house. My box room wasn't cleaned as well, I had to do that.

So, I was happy that I have a temporary place to stay, also the landlord provided me a PC with Internet access which was just great for me. After I checked my email I saw several desperate emails from the AIESECers trying to tell me how sorry they were that they didn't arrived and asking me if I'm OK and what happened to me. I could almost saw tears in that emails! :) After I chilled them up we set up a meeting for the next day.

London and my Worker Accession Card

I went to London, at AIESEC UK office, because I needed to solve my legal status issue here, I needed the worker accession card. I managed to arrive in London directly from the airport, helped by a nice guy (probably Polish). He told me where to get of the train, otherwise is kind of hard, in England there are lots of houses... I didn't noticed that I was in London... I was looking on the window and saw only houses...

Anyway... I arrived at Kings Cross station with my 2 pieces of luggage and decided to take the famous London Tube to get at the AIESEC UK office. That was recommended by Jane, MCVP. It was a little bit hard to travel with the tube with my suitcases... but I had no choice, I didn't want to be robbed by taxi drivers just for one mile distance so I choose to take the underground. What I can tell you is that I will NEVER do that again, with luggage. It's very narrow and pretty hard to go like that, I had to enter using the disabilities ways, cause the normal entrance was to small for me and my bags. They have lots of stairs... I don't want to mention how many people I made discomfort... :)

I met Jane in the metro station near the AIESEC office and she took me there... They have the office at 4th floor, so I felt something like Jesus walking on Golgotha (at small proportions of course), I was so happy when that stairs ended, for 2 reasons: one I think is obvious... I was f***ing tired and the other was that I met Codru (Codruta Stefaniga) who is MCVP Projects 2007-2008 in AIESEC UK. I knew her from NTS 2003, our first AIESEC national conference. We met I don't know how many times at conferences, having also a kind of tradition... we used to make sharing in 3... talking about our experiences and A-Ha moments, our plans, etc... don't think at nasty things! :)

After completing the BR3 application form for WAC (14 pages) that Jane gave me we went at AIESEC City Elections. It was nice to see young energetic people wanted to do something more with their life and also to contribute at AIESEC growing in London! I remember the times when I was a candidate too, all the emotions during the presentations and satisfaction after being elected. Because I was a trainee, I had the right to vote... :)) I was for 6 hours in UK and I already voted! Waw... I felt so honored... :)

In the evening they took me at the trainee night, the trainees weekly meeting. I had a nice beer, meeting some familiar faces :) like Alma, Cornelia Raportaru... remembering some old experiences... Unfortunately the evening was ended soon, I hope I will have the opportunity to spend some time with these guys another time as well!

Codru took me at her place, where I was hosted for the night, her colleague from MC was outside London so she arranged a room for me! Next day I found out that she lives in the neighborhood where Jack the Ripper was operating in the past... nice huh? :) I couldn't see nothing special, just houses...

As planned, the second day was entirely for solving my WAC. After double checking the application form, I took the underground and a train to the Home Office in Croydon. I arrived one hour before my appointment was set, but it was just fine, cause I forgot to write down the code which I received for the appointment, so I need to find a ciber cafe, 'cause that code was on my email. I did that, so I returned happy to the Home Office. There... I saw a big row of black and Asian people... I was wondering what I was doing there with that people... probably they were wondering as well... I have to tell that I felt awful, like everybody in the row... it was like remembering modern slavery... people being numbered and being told when to advance... I felt like a material or something... I was "sorted and put in the right box"... but where is the human feeling? Outside was cold and windy and people were numbered and separated... and being told when to move forward... I didn't liked that... that was just... humiliation! Inside there were 2 filters, like in airport. After that I had to stay in another line, to wait my number for my application to be processed, another half of hour of staying in line, this time it was warm, not like outside. After that I was sent to the second floor where I had to wait for my application to be proceed. I had to wait 2 hours on the chair... at least there were chairs... (I still remember my number... "170A") ... I felt it was like an evolution from the row in the cold and wind outside to the row in the warn inside and finally waiting on chairs! Just to fill the time with something I had a chat with a nice Iranian girl, a young future doctor. We spoke about our history, current reality, etc... anything just to have a nice time waiting. I was so relieved when I had my pink card! "Now I could finally go to start my traineeship"!!! Yupee! :)

I returned to the AIESEC office and prepared to go to Coventry, in the same day. I didn't saw too much in London, that will be for my next visit, when I'll have time for that.

England! Oh Englaaaaaaand! :)

Well... I guess I will start to post my impressions about England and UK from now on.

I'm in Coventry in my marketing internship, at a Non-Destructive Testing service company. Translation? I guess there's a need for one :)... it's a company which offers services in new technologies regarding materials testing without destroying them. But about the company and my JD I will write in another post.

For now... just my first impressions, after that... random thoughts and places we will visit.

So... England... here you are! :) Even from the airplane you could feel that you enter another country, it's very cloudy in this area and windy as well, I could saw almost nothing on the plane's window and I noticed that the plane was a little not stable since we were over the island... anyway I was ready for my new experience!

I was a little bit surprised of so much gray outside, and the continuous rain, like in Poland, but stronger. I was expecting more from this country, but I can say I was a little bit disappointed about the trash I saw outside... yes, the English are not the cleanest people on the planet! I didn't wanted to judge them from the beginning, but I saw dirt and garbage (rubbish I mean) in lots of places I've been so far.

So... as I promised... random thoughts and some details from my experience in the following posts!