If I had to find a word to describe this month, it would be “goodbye.” When I came back to Bratislava from Bucharest, my mum told me that our dog had died a few days before I left, but she waited to tell me and my sister because she didn’t want us to feel bad before our trip. A week before, during my work hours, my mum sent me a message while I was making some badges in the office. She wrote to me to prepare myself because Linda, my dog, would soon have to go to the vet for euthanasia since her condition was getting worse day by day. After reading that message, I started to cry, and I even blocked the machine with which I was helping Evelina make badges for her workcamp. I had to go outside to take a break and breathe because I think I was having a panic attack. Fortunately, after a few minutes, I felt a little bit better, and I was able to repair the machine.
When she told me that Linda had died, I didn’t cry, even though I was super sad, because I felt like I was no longer able to feel emotions. After the call with my mum, who was crying, I started to look at all the pictures of Linda, and I started to cry again. But I know that putting her to sleep was done for her good, so, after that, I started to feel better, though it’s still hard not to think about it without crying.
Linda arrived at my house in 2013, but she was already four years old when we adopted her. She came from Frosinone, a small town near Rome. When she arrived, along with other dogs ready to start new lives with families who had adopted them, like we did with Linda, in my city, we didn’t know she was brown. We were expecting a white dog, so we went to the pet store to buy everything necessary for her new life.
After a while, the person in charge of all the animals called my mum, saying that we had taken the wrong dog and needed to come back. When we arrived, a woman started screaming because we had taken her dog instead of ours. My mum calmly explained the situation, and we finally left with Linda, our real dog.
Let me explain what happened. When my mum found Linda on a dog adoption site, the owner sent her three pictures: two of just this dog and one with Linda and another dog. Linda was the same color as the wall, so we didn’t realize she was the brown dog next to it. The person didn’t specify which dog was Linda, so that’s how we made the mistake. XD.
Linda was with me through many moments of my life. She saw me preparing for my middle school exams, my high school exams, and she even saw me graduate last year. She was my best friend, so loving, and was known as the dog who never said “woof woof,” because, in all the years we had her, we only heard her bark a maximum of five times. She loved being cuddled and would always put herself in that position, whether it was 3 degrees or 40 degrees outside; it didn’t matter to her. She was loved by everyone, and she came with us everywhere. I really want to thank her for all the beautiful years we spent together.
A few days later, I had my first workcamp as a leader. I went to Presporkovo in the morning with Barbi and my co-leader Zolko to start preparing the place and the materials. After lunch, some volunteers started to arrive. Leo, the second for us (XD), came first. Soon after, all the volunteers had arrived. The best thing was that no one was afraid or worried. It seemed like we had all known each other for a long time! For the first dinner, we went out together and started to get to know each other better, and I was so happy. My first workcamp as a leader, alongside Zolko, had started, and it was going very well.
During these days together, the volunteers had the opportunity to discover more about Presporkovo, Bratislava, and Slovakia in general. We organized some activities for and with children. We had the chance to eat at a Slovak family’s house. We went twice to the Red Lion Karaoke bar and also visited a bowling alley. The volunteers learned more about mobbing, my workshop topic. We had the opportunity to learn more about our countries, and many people tried our typical foods. Some children cried on the last day of the workcamp, and we also cried a lot because we had become friends so quickly. We received only good feedback, and I was proud of it because it wasn’t the best period of my life, but they were really helpful and supportive.
I am looking forward to seeing them again next year.
P.S. If you want, you can see some pictures from this fun, lovely, and intense week on INEX Slovakia’s Instagram, in the highlighted stories named “Workcampy” and “Workcampy II,” and in the posts.
After the workcamp, I had two days off, so I decided to go back home to visit my parents on Monday, and I saw a friend whom I hadn’t seen since Dicember 2023. We spent Tuesday together. She was living near Barcelona because of a master’s program. So, we arranged to meet in Milan, and we also invited another friend of ours.
For breakfast, we went to a Chinese pastry shop. Milan has one of the largest Chinatowns in Europe. There are a lot of Asian street food vendors, restaurants, shops, and malls—it feels like being in another place, not Milan. The place is called Slab. There are so many options, it’s almost impossible to choose what to get. I highly recommend visiting this part of the city because there are lots of nice things to do and eat here. You can get there by taking trams 2, 4, 12, or 14 from the city center, or by taking the metro to Moscova (green line) or Monumentale (purple line) and walking for 10 minutes.
Here you can find some pictures that I took when I was there, but not just from that day, because I didn’t take many pictures. For lunch, we ate at a place near Chinatown, and in the afternoon, we went to a place near the Navigli named Life4Cuts, where we took some photos. At this place, you can wear lots of funny hats, accessories, and stuff like that, take pictures, and receive them in Polaroid format. It’s very fun! Last but not least, we went to a place to eat tiramisu, and then I went back home. I went to the airport with my family to take the plane to Vienna to come back. It was delayed, but in the end, I managed to run and catch the last Flixbus to Bratislava.
We all went to work together on Wednesday, and on Thursday, we had the second part of the training (mid-term training) with the volunteers that we did in April. We stayed in Smolenice Castle for the activities, and I really enjoyed this place. But unfortunately, the weather was super hot, and we didn’t have any AC or fans in our rooms. We arrived late, so we just spent our day playing “Two Truths and a Lie,” attended a presentation about the program for the days ahead, had dinner, and played games with the other volunteers. On Friday morning, we went to caves—a beautiful experience and place—and we did an evaluation of our projects in the afternoon. On Saturday morning, we had presentations about our projects, and in the afternoon, we had a treasure hunt (it was really impossible—nobody found all the pieces of paper we had to find!) and conducted three workshops. Anais and I led a workshop together about how to lead a workcamp, David led a workshop about how to use social media effectively, and Elene led a workshop on how to work with people with autism. After a break, we attended a workshop about the Youthpass. On Sunday, we talked about our future plans during and after our ESC project and discussed different cultures. After lunch, we took the bus back and, after saying goodbye to everyone, returned to BA.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Evelina and I helped Lenka tidy up Presporkovo, and we also helped with the organization of an event based on balance. When we finished, we went back to the office to help Anais creating an escape room for the September tea meeting
As I wrote in the first part of the blog, this was a month full of goodbyes. Over the weekend, we also said goodbye to Matus, my mentor, who is going to Utrecht for Erasmus, and to Davide, an Italian guy, because he will be returning to Barcelona, where he lives with his girlfriend. It was very sad to say goodbye to them, but it was so nice getting to know them, and of course, we will keep in touch. But I also meet two new people, Pineda and Barbara. They are Anais friends and they came here during the weekend to see her. They are so kind and nice!
Now I am curious about my future here…
