Youth Exchange Blog: "Palette of emotions" in Osijek, Croatia by Eliise

I decided to participate in this youth exchange because I am interested in psychology. “Palette of emotions” gave me an idea that we will be exploring human emotions on a deeper level. I had also never been to Croatia before, therefore I wanted to visit the country. As to all the Erasmus+ projects, the best part of it is meeting new people from different cultures. That was one of the main reasons I decided to apply. I had been a part of a short student exchange once before. This gave me an idea of the youth exchange beforehand. However, I still went in with zero expectations to avoid being disappointed or misled.

I helped organize the cultural night for Estonia by teaching our traditional dance, telling its backstory and introducing foreigners to Estonian food. During the project I participated in every activity and usually took the leading position to ensure the success of our task. After the project, I made slides introducing Erasmus+ that were later presented in a youth center.

I learned to express emotions more freely which was also the topic of our project. The open and kind community made it easy to do so. Throughout the project I learnt a lot about Erasmus+ overall. In the accommodation was an experienced man, whom I was able to ask questions about the solidarity corps. Since there were cultural evenings almost every day, I learnt a lot about Romanian, Italian, Finnish, Czech and Croatian culture.

Similar topics are interesting to almost everyone, which is why there could be more of such projects. The length of the project was perfect, since we got to experience everything we wanted without being bored or exhausted.

The most memorable activity was night swimming with other participants. We were able to organize a swim in the pool on the very last day. The kind workers let us come to swim after the pool was officially closed, since there was a night swimming course. In addition, the warm weather and lush plants are something I keep on reminiscing about. Lastly, the positive energy of participants and the kindness of facilitators are instilled in me and help me be kinder every day.

I would definitely and I already do recommend this kind of experience to everybody. By spreading my word, many people have already found similar exchanges to take part in.