EVS Stories: My perception of travelling – by Skaiste P.

Travelling…What does it mean for me? For me it has always been what makes my heart beat more intensively and inspires you when you have to work hard to achieve something. In my school years it was a dream and later it became an aim. So, I suppose it is not surprising, that one of the main reasons of mine for doing EVS is an opportunity to travel. And, by the way, at least time for that we have plenty – 2 free days per each month plus weekends and national holidays.

Travelling for me it is also creating a whole new world. When you travel, your world becomes a mosaic: you collect different experiences and construct your own world out of them. The more you travel the more diverse is the mosaic and more shades it has. But as in all the arts, in the one of life the only right way doesn’t exist, because it is just a reflection of your own experience, of the way you see the world. On perception of the world you newly meet everything counts: your education, your relationships with people, etc.

Every place you visit, every experience you have can teach you something new.

The perception is affected by previous you and it affects you. It may inspire to change something you don’t like in your environment or your life in general.

Although it may look that travelling is all about poetry for me, I have two basic rules to make it more epic. First, I always try to get to know the place and, second, to never come back. It may still look poetic, but the reasons and the ways are pretty simple: in order to get to know the place, I always take a tour, because the buildings may look amazing, but the stories behind them thrill even more.

It may look surprising that I prefer not to come back, even if I was stunned by a place, but there are two simple reasons for that: first, there are so many breathtaking places in the world and we have only some decades to visit  the most interesting ones for us. And second the experience (what maters me the most) can’t be repeated, even if the people you travel with are the same, the feeling is never like it was, because you will always have some expectations towards a place you had a good time at. So, it is like a law for me, that I am always most amazed by the places I don’t have any expectations about and I get disappointed about the ones I had the highest expectations about. For example, I was stunned by Lisbon, and it even became my favorite city and it still is, although I had seen some pictures only, before going there. And I got disappointed by Paris: although I must admit, that the architecture is amazing, I didn’t feel that indescribable atmosphere that everyone is talking about and directors are (re)creating in their movies.

But as the company I traveled with was the best possible at that moment (a bunch of Latin Americans, spreading joy of life all around the cold Europe) was still definitely worth it.

A thing you can’t really avoid if you travel a lot is comparing cities. I enjoyed a lot visiting Budapest, because for me it looked and felt so much like my beloved Lisbon.

So, I always remember trips as the best experience of my life. Now I am looking forward for one to Malta. And wondering – will it remind me some other place? Wait for it; I will share my impressions in the future.

Skaiste Pyragaite (Lituania) is hosted in Baia Mare by Team for Youth Association, in the “IN4EVS” project, an European Voluntary Service financed by the European Commission through the Erasmus Plus Program.