Orientation Meeting I. for inbounds

I think it was one of the most anticipated weekends for me, and for all the other inbounds from district 2240. It was finally time to meet Brazilians (which meant that after almost 40 days here, I would finally be able to speak Portuguese), and all the other exchange students, meet people from all over the world and I will spend a year “living” with them.

The adventure began on Friday (22), I met with the Prague inbounds at the main station (Hlavní nádraží) and we went by train to Kroměříž – the city where the orientation would take place – we were talking the whole way, and it was my first trip train, I was super excited!

As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we met some exchange students and it was a party, everyone getting to know everyone, all cultures and languages together and mixed.

We had dinner, traditional Czech food (it wasn’t one of my favorites, but it was good), and soon after the first lectures and instructions began.

On the first night it was something more basic, they presented the program, introduced the entire YEP organization, the entire rotex, and we (exchange students) also introduced ourselves, soon after we had an activity with the rotex to relax and we listened to traditional songs from each country and dancing them, it was really cool to get to know a little more about the culture of each country.

On Saturday we had coffee, then we had the first Czech language test – I personally was very nervous, but then everything went well -, the presentation of the rules of the exchange program, presentation of each country by Rotex, how to survive the exchange year and it was time for lunch (again it was typical Czech food, but this time it was Svíčková, my favorite dish).

In the afternoon we had a tour of the city, we visited the main square, and some historic buildings and houses, it is a charming city!

We went back to the hotel, had dinner (this time the food was good too), had some more talks and we (Brazilians) talked to Ondrej – the Brazilian contact in district 2240 – we told him about our experience, and the visa process.

On Sunday, we had coffee and had the last talks (how to blog, the calendar for the year 2023/2024, trips and their respective rules), shortly after they made the results of the Czech/Slovak tests available.

I received the news that I got the 2nd best grade in the Czech test, and I was super happy with my result (the grade is made up of the written test we took on Saturday + your performance on the website they recommended us to study, and I was 3 points behind the 1st place, so it was really a very satisfactory score).

Then, we got on the train back to Prague, it was a quick but very special weekend, and I can’t wait to meet up with all the exchange students at the Christmas meeting in Prague!!!

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