Day 1

Wednesday, March 30th brought for the students from Octavian Goga College, Sibiu, involved in the Erasmus + project, a series of special surprises, after welcoming the participants from the 5 partner countries. We had been preparing for this special visit for a long time and it was now the moment to get together to discuss the topic of “Land and Forest Degradation”.

Here are some images from the welcoming ceremony, during which every team presented their school and country

To get to know each other better, we had planned some interesting social activities,in which every student and teacher could give details about themselves and realised what they had in common with other partners.

Then came time to present the city. As it was expected, we started with the local town hall, where we had a short meeting with local officials. After the lunch break we went to discover the beauty of the town in an attractive and competitive way. The guests participated in a Scavenger Hunt in which they had to go from one sight to another and complete different tasks in order to find the next clue.

In the evening, we went home accompanied by our partners, thinking about what prize the winning team would receive the following day and looking forward to the next days’ events.

Day 2

Thursday, March 31st was the second day of the Erasmus+ project.

We met as usual at 9 AM in the room 30.We watched a reflection video about the previous day’s Scavenger Hunt. Some funny photos and impressions were presented there too.

We also reflected on a given video and picture and wrote our thought on the post-it pannel.

After the reflection all the countries began to present their work – the SWOT analyses about the soil degradation. All the presentations were special because the students highlighted their countries’ problems,but I was impressed by the French team’s movie because they said that in France the government and the population had begun to plant trees so the soil wouldn’t degrade.

During the workshops the guests learned many things about the forests and the soil. They did practical things like puzzles with information about soil and he forest and even created their own crosswords about the forests.

In conclusion the second day of the Sibiu meeting of the Erasmus+ project was fun and we learned a lot about how to be friendly to nature.

Day 3

Friday- 1st of April

We started the day, of course, by remembering the day before and by another Reflection moment after watching an awareness-raising video.

After this, we began to watch the Challenge Videos made by every country on the theme ‘The Story of a Tree’. Every short movie made us laugh or cry, each of them having their strengths. Then we moved on to a little bit more serious work, but fun nonetheless. Here are some videos of the story of a tree.

On the idea ‘Let’s Experiment with Nature’ we had 3 Practical Workshops

Kokedama – we made flower arrangements from soil, moss and a plant wrapped up with twine
Soil Analysis – we compared the Ph level of soils brought from different countries and made their own edible ‘soil’
Leaf Skeleton – we removed the fleshy part of leaves by using chemical processes and obtained beautiful skeletons

We couldn’t wait for the evening, ‘The International Evening’, where every country presented something specific for itself and its tradition. We had dances from Spain, Turkey, Italy, Estonia, a song from France and all kinds of performances from the host, Romania. After the show, we went back to the school for the After Party, where we had a traditional buffet, dancing, singing and many others.

In conclusion, we really had a lot of fun, no April’s Fools’ Day joke.

Day 4

On Saturday, the 4th day of the meeting in Sibiu, Romania, we had lots of experiences outside the city, while learning how to plant little fir trees and how to take care of them, admiring the scenery from above, from 1681 meters more precisely and then testing our strength in Arka Park.

At 9 o’clock, the entire group left with 2 coaches from the parking lot of Thalia Hall. Our first destination was Rasinari, a village near Sibiu. There, we stopped at a farm for trees, where some enthusiastic people told us stories about their work as forest rangers and also about what they were doing in the tree farm. Then, we helped them clean the soil from weeds between the firs. They needed special conditions, as they were only 3 or 4 years old. Then, we went to the planting sector, where firs of only 1 or 2 years old were planted. All of us managed to plant 5 firs but then we had to leave to continue our journey to Paltinis.

But before leaving, our hosts gave us some little firs, to plant in our gardens or in flower pots to remind us about that day. We were so surprised when we saw some little lizards in the grass, which were way more friendly than we would have ever thought.

Our next stop was at Paltinis, at the bottom base of the lift. We chose a partner and then we took the lift up in the mountains, for a length of more than 1 km. There we had a picnic, took some photos (phototos, as we liked to call them), had some ‘fights’ with snow, explored the nearby forest and then fought again with snowballs. We had such a great time there, but we had to take the lift again to go down. Even though we were sad that we had to leave from there, we got over very fast, because we realized that we were heading now for Arka Park.

At Arka Park, as I already said, we tested our limits, for real. We had 3 hours to try the easiest or the hardest trails from the outdoor park. We had so much fun there, even though, sometimes, our legs, arms and hands hurt. I managed to finish just 3 trials, because the time slipped away and we had to go back in the city. But I don’t think that any of us will be able to forget the experiences at Arka Park: being hung on a rope at 5 meters above the ground, jumping from tree to tree, trying not to let ourselves be scared of the things that we had to do

At 6:30 pm we came back in Sibiu, where our parents were waiting for us to take us home, after that extraordinary day. We went home, had dinner and a shower and then most of us met in the Large Square to celebrate the last day in Romania for some people of the group, the Turkish team, who were going to leave the next afternoon. After we have spent some time there, we headed home, waiting to see what other activities we were going to have the next day.

Day 5

Here, in Romania, Sunday is that day spent with family. Therefore, our great Erasmus+ family began the day with a lot of happiness and enthusiasm. Because of the fact that we were together, everything was different in a good way.

In the first part of the day, we stopped near our city, somewhere in the forest. There, with the help of scouts from Amicii Muntilor Association, we took part in an orienteering competition. Teams formed of 3 participants from different countries had to find 8 posts and then cross the start/ finish line as rapidly as possible. Even if only 3 teams won, everybody had a huge smile on their face before, during and after this event.

After that activity, we went to one of the most beautiful places in Sibiu: the Village Museum. There, that reassuring silence was waiting for us. This place put a little part of the beauty of the past in our souls. This could be seen on everyone’s face, as when you looked at somebody, everybody was smiling, enjoying the view and the fact that we could be together in that amazing place.

I can say that Sunday was the best day spent with family. I am looking forward to feeling something like that again.