Aachen: halfway of a journey through different worlds

05.11.2010
Aachen

After four unforgettable days in Cologne - the land where religions live peacefully together  - it is now time to move to the second part of the Case Study Trip, in the medieval German city of Aachen, where Charles Magne (one of the first men to unify Europe) was crowned.

During the past days it was time for first impressions, getting to know the participants and trainers and understanding the flow of the programme. Now, we got to the second stage, we changed the topic of discussion so deeper thoughts, a committed and open-minded attitude are required. The intensity of the trip leads everyone to exhaustion, but we all know we are here with a purpose and no one misses one single second of this experience which is truly once-in-a-life-time type.

After a warm reception at the Town Hall, we all felt welcomed in this historical city. The topic is now "Gender Inequality", to which we have been introduced when we got to Aachen after a 50-minute train connection from Cologne. A simple workshop at the end of the day was enough to prove that despite the cold in this city the discussions are going to be hot and everyone will have the chance to share their opinion. Differences are obvious but that is what makes this event unique: despite various points of view we are all working together to understand each others mindsets, aknowledging different cultures and interacting to accomplish the goal of learning about global challenges.  Furthermore, we are dealing with totally different worlds: the Arab and the European. Gender Inequality is certainly an appropriate issue to be discussed among young people from both sides who care about the diversity of our world. I am sure that in the next days we are all facing high-quality workshops and discussions about the topic and we can all expect excellent results from all our work.

The Case Study Trip has been such an experience: not only are we able to learn in a quite international atmosphere - which has worked extremely well, I must say -, but also the fact that we can merge all differences into one group of young people, friends, workshop partners, enthusiastic speakers who are willing to exchange ideas is just amazing and enriches all of us not only professionally but also socially. This is definitively a starting point for an inter-cultural project that will mark us all forever and expand our perspective of the world as a whole.

From Cologne to Aachen

05.11.2010
Aachen

As every day in this project we started our day by waking up all the participants, because today we have to transfer from  Cologne  to Aachen, so we ate our breakfast and then started to leave.

We left the hostel to catch the train, and then we took another train to Aachen and it took more than 1 hour to get there,  at 11:00 we arrived at Aachen hostel, we had a little rest, a free time and then we got out to have a city tour. After that we had lunch at 1:15 and it was good :)

After the lunch we went to a historical place in Aachen to have some information about the historical background of European identity and we had a reception by the mayor  of Aachen and we met  a woman who told us the story of the historical building and shared some information about the photos and the pictures which were in the walls of the building. After that we had our free time which we spent in a small coffee shop  and also went shopping.

Then we went to the workshop building and we had a workshop about the stereotypes we had about others especially the gender stereotypes. The workshop seemed longer than we needed to the topic, but it was okey.

We went to the hostel after that and everyone chose his room and bed and there was a small issue about the shower and the bathrooms  because of the Arabian girls but the issue solved by the organisers  hopefully

every body took a rest while they were waiting for the dinner, and then we had a nice dinner in the hostel. It was a nice day, after that some people went to have a party night.