Elisabeth(Germany) and Valentina(Italy) also had to leave soon so they also wanted to have a spectacular goodbye and i must honestly say that they succeeded :)!

Elisabeth couldnt come to our party so this was the perfect way for me to say goodbye to her but unfortunately Marie already left that friday so she wasnt there.

It was at their house in Litochoro and their were really alot of nice people including Nick who was the last person i had expect there so that was already a very nice start.;)

I can't describe the party but i can tell you it was fun :D!

The next day we left together with eli and alot more people on the train to athens that passes larisa too so we stepped in but there were no more seats left nowhere so we did what we usually do wich is sitting in the hall next to the doors.

I think the conductor thought that eight people in that small area was way too much so he was a very kind man by letting us all sit together in the childrens playing area wich was awsome and comfortable!

Me and Denise had to get out at Larisa wich was to my dissapointment only half an hour left so i made the most of it, said goodbye to everybody and left for home..

03-04-2007 My Departure

During my EVS i couldnt even imagine that it would end once but time does it's work anyways..

I left by plane from thessaloniki and when i arrived at amsterdam airport my friends waited for me:)

They just came to spend some time with me before my family would pick me up by car so we drank a coffee and lateron my family came and my friends went home by train.

Well, the home journey by car was already fun because all the little story's that i didn't hear yet came at me in fourty minutes so i was kept quite busy ;)

Once home i was glad to be home and we had a nice quiet evening.

I want to say thanks to all the nice people in Greece who made my EVS one of the most precious memories i will probably ever have and i certainly hope to see some of you again someday!

I went to Thessaloniki this weekend because there were going to be alot of volunteers in the city and some of them went to a concert and the others went to the cinema.

In the end i chose for the cinema and we were going to see the movie: Music and lyrics but is was sold out so we(Elma, Matilde, Natascha, and a Belgium girl) went to the movie: The good shepherd.

Matilde Btw has a great impression of the main actor and it shows the whole movie in 3 sec. (yeah it was that boring ;))

But although we didn't see the best movie, it was very nice to see them again and also Anna and Pascale who went to the concert and we saw them later at the appartment.

The next day they planned to go to an english speaking church so i joined them out of curiosity.

The church was just an appartment in a flat. They were very hospital and took every newcomer with open arms into their church although i am not religeous.

It was a very nice experience.

Yup, again ;)

This time everybody was at home and the weather was very good;)

I can't describe it in details this time because there have been way to much things happening lately

I just had a very nice and relaxing time with everybody and we also played volleybal with some greek people one evening wich motivated me to maybe even start to play at home;).

When i went back Marie(French, not from Larisa) offered to drive me 1/3 of the journey and when we were there she waited with me until i found a car.

I just want to thank everybody there for the amazing hospitality and for being the nice people they are.

Yes, the end is very close so we had our goodbye party this weekend.

There were actually only nice people so we had a very nice weekend and very nice last memories of the people.

Everywhere there were speakers on the streets with very loud music and it was very nice to see.

For the first time we we're abled to see Greek people drinking, dancing and acting crazy :).

I'm sorry that i wont write everything but it was just chaos that weekend so i really don't know what happened...

You can read a full Dutch report at Denise's site: http://www.deniseingreece.com/

The different things are that i did take the train that was full and i left for home after the parade on sunday.

Yeah it's True: I went again :)

Friday after work i took the train to Florina to sleep there for the night at Annelinde and Pascale's place.

Saturday in the early morning i took a taxi to a church along the road to Prespes and from there i started to hitchhike.

I think because it was raining and i had a big backpack on my back the people had pity for me so it only took me 5mn to find a car.

There were 2 old guys in the car and the first thing they asked was my passport to check if i wasn't illegally in Greece wich happens alot in that area because its close to the border.

The people took me 3/4 of the way and then they arrived at their destination so i had to find another car.

Well in that area are not alot of cars so i waited for i think 5mn untill the first car came and that actual car stopped for me.(yes, i was very lucky and to be honest the people there are just very nice..)

In the car was a guy who was telling me half of his life story wich wasn't the biggest surprise because everybody here does it:).

I had a very nice talk with him and he was actually only supposed to go a little way but he took me all the way to my destination especially for me. :)

I was dropped off in the middle of the little village Agios Germanos and i walked to the library where some of the volunteers work and i saw Matilde(French) she told me that Elma(Dutch) was up in the house and that she will come down later to go to the the Stèki(a youth center that the volunteers run) and run a workshop so i walked up to put my bag at the house and joined them to the Stèki.

The workshop was meant to make surprise boxes out of karton but nobody showed up(i think they were a bit ashamed because they kept on saying that normally there are always people;)) so we just acted like participants ourselves wich was quite fun:)

After the workshop we were picked up by someone with the car to go back to the house and we had lunch.

Elma had to work at the Stèki in the evening so i also went their and we played some games and later some people came in to use the computers and also play games.

At around 23:00 the Stèki closed and we didn't even walk for 50 meters and we were already offered a ride by a villager. (another example of the niceness of the people in Prespa)

At the house we watched Buffy and went to bed.

What happened the next morning i'll probably never forget, and will probably never happen again.. :)

I woke up around 10:00 by loud noises from i think "pans" by Marie(french), matlide and Elma with an amazingly nice breakfast wich they brought me in my bed:)

Ofcourse i really didn't understand why but the explanation came very soon: they wanted to watch a French volleybal cartoon but i was asleep in the same room. :)

So i watched the French cartoon wich was actually quite funny and ate my breakfast. :)

Afterwards only Elma and me were left in the house and Marie and her boyfriend were upstairs watching a movie so we just talked alot wich was very nice and relaxing.

At the end of the day Annelinde, Pascale and the 2 new volunteers arrived from florina.

Later in the evening they went to an ex-volunteers house nearby to eat Pita(a big sort of cake) but me and Elma stayed home to watch a movie.

The next morning me, anna, pascale and a griek/german friend of theirs took the bus of 8:00 to florina and i took the train home from there.

Greetings to everyone at home.

See you all in a month!

26-01-2007 - 28-01-2007 Litochoro

I liked litochoro last time i was there to go to Olympos so i decided to come back and i don't regret it. :)

I was there with Denise, 1 German, 1 italian and 2 other dutch people.

Friday evening we just sat in their house drinking something and talking alot.

Saturday we woke up with breakfast outside in the sunlight at the foot of the highest mountain of Greece:) and afterwards we went for a walk into the valley of Olympos :) It was amazing and extremely sunny for the time of year :)

After that we went straight to a taverna to eat some nice greek food.

And in the evening we drank something again at their home and had alot of fun.

Sunday we woke up with breakfast again and after that Denise and Michiel(one of the dutch) went Walking to the beach.(where they got totally lost and didnt reach it in the end:) )

We(the lazy people) stayed home because we were not in the mood to walk so we just had a lot of fun about the strange fact that you can't flush mushrooms down the toilet.. (believe it... we tried!).

It was a very relaxing and amazing weekend:)

02-02-2007 - 04-02-2007 Pikpa

After our Mid-Terms and On-Arrivals in Athens we(me, my flatmates and 2 other dutch volunteers) went to a Suburb of Athens to visit volunteers in a sort of campus for disabled people called Pikpa.

The campus was made on a sort of cliff wich is surrounded by the see from 3 sides and the volunteers house was the one at the very end of the vliff :)

We were abled to see the sea from any room of the house and the house is pretty huge.

After we settled in at Saturday we went down to the sea where they unofficially have a private beach and we just walked around being amazed:)

Sunday we went to the beach again to play volleyball wich was a lot of fun :)

10-02-2007 - 11-02-2007 Kissavos

Saturday at noon somewhere we went to the mountain called: Kissavos.

We were picked up by a greek friend of ours(who also led us up Olympos) and we went to a village near the mountain by car.

there we took our bags up and walked up for a little more than 2 hours and came to the refuge.

There was a Yearly party in the Refuge at that time so we joined in the festivity's wich means eating more than you can imagine:)

The greek people were all the time really amazingly tipical by saying: Eat something!!!! and one tip: dont say no:)

There were actually only nice people in the refuge and it was very nice.

Sunday we were supposed to go up to the top of the mountain but due to bad weather we couldnt go further up so we went down to the village and got picked up by car again.

And so on we went home with alot of nice memories and a few kilos more in the stomach:)

The Project.

As some of you might already know: I changed projects to Aristevs.

I am now working in the project of Denise and Michal wich means working with mentally challenged people.

We run a sort of kiosk where the "children" can buy cafe and things like that when they get money from the nurses.

Actually the children run it and we just take care everything goes allright.

outside that we draw with the children and make puzzels.

We are also trying to teach them to read, count or even write sometimes.

At the moment a Greek volunteer is Doing a sort of recycling project in Aristevs and we are helping her.

We are now building an example of the recycling cirlcle wich means for example: Handcrafts with the children building the factory, the truck and the place where you put empty glass bottles in.

The whole meaning of the whole thing from my sight is just to keep the kids busy so they are having fun and not just walk around doing nothing.

The big diffrence between this project and the last one is that if we are not here the children would actually be totally alone walking around in the huge house without anyone looking after them.

so that's why they are always happy to see us and we are actually needed there. And that's what i call volunteering.

Ps. I have no idea why it's taking an extra line every sentence so forgive me for that :)

25-11-2006 Yasou party Raulito

The Goodbye party of Raul.... what can a say about that?

I think that we had more people in our flat than ever.

well in general it was just alot of drinking and screeming and it was awsome;)

29-11-2006 - 11-12-2006 Holidays in Holland

Forgive me if i can't remember everything right;) i was pretty tired the first days :)

When i arrived in Schiphol after a too long travel i was picked up by 3 friends of mine wich was very nice:) and wich was a very big shock for me because i had almost forgot my own language and the long tiring trip didn't really help with that so without noticing it myself i was switching to english sometimes;).

Afterwards we took the train to amersfoort and there my mother picked us up(wich was again very sweet, thnx mom ;)) and we went home and saw my little brother who to me had grown pretty long and strong (Don't tell him but i think that when i will be back after my whole EVS he will be abled to take me down:().

After organizing my room a bit it was already the end of the day and my dad and brother came home wich was amazing to see them again because for me it looked like i had not seen them for ages.

Then for the weekend we went to a holiday home from friends of my parents in Den helder wich we do every year with them.

I must say that was really relaxing and it was nice because i had a chance to have some spare time with my whole family.

During the midweek after we were home again and everybody was just working and during the day i had not much to do but it was already nice to be home for a moment and in the evening i had time to see everybody.

Saturday we celebrated my birthday and i got a lot of very nice presents from wich i have the fotocollage hanging in my room here now and im still looking at it every day:) i couldnt take the rest of the presents but i'm sure to enjoy them when ill be home again:).

Monday i left for Greece again and ofcourse i had the same problem in the beginning with switching from english into dutch;) (wich i must say makes quite funny astonished faces:))

Ps. the new volunteers, Denise and Alexandra are both very nice: i guess we are lucky again...:)

24-12-2006 - 28-12-2006 Christmas Seres

Well the line says it already... We had christmas in Seres wich was the first christmas for a lot of people without family but instead a big glas of whine or beer :)

When we arrived we were picked up by one of the polish girls who were there and they made a traditional polish dinner wich includes: 12 meals(yeah, that's alot;)).

It was very nice and they also decorated the whole flat with all kinds of stuff like stars cut out of paper and put on the walls, snacks everywhere and loads more:)

We had a very nice time over there and i don't think i will ever forget it!

31-12-2006 - 01-01-2007 Newyear in Saloniki

And again, there must be a first for everything;) we went to Thessaloniki for newyears and we we're astonished by the fact that we had not seen a single piece of fireworks(explanation: it is forbidden for private users to have fireworks in Thessaloniki...) but what we heard later was that there was a great deal of it in Larisa where it is nog illegal :) so we missed that but we were together and that was the most important and best part :)

Outside all of that joy i am sad to say that Alexandra will be leaving us on sunday the 7th due to a very bad project.

For the rest everything is actually very good and monday the 8th i will know if my project has changed so pray for me plz;) (if i will be abled 2 get this message posted before that time;))

Happy Newyear and many more!