titel's place

Macedonian eXPerience

constantin.tovisi@aiesec.net (Constantin TOVISI) — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 21:08:00 +0000

Many people, both from home and from Macedonia keep on asking me how I like it here and why. Well my answer is most of the time very simple, that I like it, but I can just not put my finger on the things that make me feel like that. You may ask me why is that... well the answer is that there is no one thing that makes this happen, is not necessarily the country, the people, the food, the drinks, AIESEC here, the MC, the job, but rather the whole thing that all this combined provide, my complete Macedonian eXPerience.

In order to make you understand and believe this I will take each of this and explain you why is it so special for me. To start with the country, Macedonia, witch, even being petty about it now, I did not know much about it besides that it is in the Balkan peninsula, somewhere in the south of Romania and that they have a common border with Greece so it must be a hot weather there. Well the county's landscape is very various. I've been by the Ohrid Lake, with a little of its kind in the whole Europe, I've been in very beautiful mountains, the Matka canyon, which are as close as 20 min car drive from the city of Skopje itself. Next, the people I'm in contact with are not necessarily Macedonian but actually from a big variety of countries: Canada, India, Poland, Netherlands, Norway, Estonia, Russia, Switzerland, Czech Republic and because of this big variety it happened that I see more internationals than actually Macedonians.

The food, well the food is an interesting one, in the apartment, as you probably remember, I live with an Filipino origin Canadian girl and an Indian guy. The Indian guy is quite fond of cooking his Indian food so in this period I have literally had more Indian food than European. I've also become very good with the Indian spices Ravin has brought and now I can stand almost the same amount of red chili in the food as him, hell, that food is HOT. I could say the same about the drinks, besides the regular stuff as beer and wine witch is very good and cheap here I had both Macedonians liqueurs like rakija, ouzo, mastica, etc. I had the chance to drink all kind of drinks and mixtures of drinks: turkish peper, bamboos, vodka and a lot of other that's name I don't remember from objective reasons, but not lastly a lot of over 60% pure alcohol romanian brany (tuica) which some of the people around enjoy quite a lot.

AIESEC here, what can I say, it confirms the biggest AIESEC value all over the world, Living Diversity, it's different. It is really hard to compare it with what you have at home because the realities, the way it developed, the people are all different. The MC, both the old one but especially the new one with witch's members I've interacted more are a bunch of cool people, the kind of people that you think that you would really like to work with. And the job, one of the coolest part actually is amazing. Even though we were postponed with some things I'm very satisfied with what we realised so far and I must admit it, that I haven't had so big professional satisfactions in a while now.

As a conclusion I would only want to say that you, the person who is reading this, should think about what YOU want their own international experience too look like and to start making that possible because that is what AIESEC is about. You can not fully understand and live the AIESEC spirit if you don't interact with it internationally as well.

The way home

constantin.tovisi@aiesec.net (Constantin TOVISI) — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:11:00 +0000

Even though after my attempt and in the same time failure to hitch hike on the way to Macedonia many of you told me things like: you're crazy, it was not worth an so on... I've decided to take my chance again and try to do it better on my way back to Romania.

It all started in the morning of 7th of July when I was woke up by Sussane, a trainee from Holland who moved in in our apartment in Skopje and who was herself late for work. After making a very strong coffee for the trip and putting in it what I've lately realised that was not sugar but salt and doing some last minute packing and data backup I've eventually got to the exit to Sofia. From there I've changed a couple of cars to the border, out of witch, the last one gave me a lift to the actual border (13 km from the actual city where he was going to) giving as added reason the fact that he wanted to buy some cigarettes from the duty-free shops at the border.

After passing the border walking without any problems or events at all on the Bulgarian side I've been assaulted by the many pirate "taxi" drivers who were giving drives to Sofia for not less than 50 EUR. After kind of learning how to manage these people by telling them that I have no money on me they started developing a king of constructive compassion and even getting me a ride to the closest town, town witch turned out to be the first place where I have actually had to wait to get picked. I only assume that the reason for that was that I had "Sofia" written in the regular Latin alphabet, not in the one they use in Bulgaria witch is different from both the Latin and the Cyrillic one.

In Sofia I got to the train station where the plan was to change some euros into local currency (Leva), leave the luggage in the special place in the train station and go out and see the city in the night. The only problem was that at the time I've got there, a bit over 22:00 Bulgarian time, the change offices were already closed. The only thing I was left to do was to stay in one of the cafes in the train station were I had several coffees and have been visited by the police a couple of times.

The first thing in the morning I started looking for my way to the right exit from Sofia were I've eventually got after about three hours (I hate their alphabet, I'm not kidding) and starting my way to Russe, the border city to the Romanian city Giurgiu. After changing several cars out of witch one was a second world war old 4 x 4 car witch was tuned in the back yard of that guys house with a lot of paint and duct tape that I was very surprised to see that was driven at an average speed of 90 km / hour.

After finally getting to the Romanian border, at less than 100 meters of my country I had a very unpleasant surprise. The Bulgarian border police guy would not let me pass the border walking. He was "friendly" enough to recommend me to take on of those pirate taxi who were asking about 50 EUR for a 200 meters ride and would not change his mind even after explaining that I was an student who was coming home after a 3 months volunteering experience in a foreign country. After realising that nobody would dare taking me in their car over the border as they would not know me and I could carry anything in my luggage witch would have ended up in their car I've started going to Silistra, about 200 km east of Russe, the border city to Calarasi in Romania.

Here I had another "event" being quite hard to find a valid explanation for the fact that a student from Sibiu, who came hitch hiking from Macedonia, would pass the border walking to Romania through Silistra and getting into Calarasi, city witch is at least 100 km further from both Bucharest and Sibiu. Because of this I had a lot of explaining to do and my luggage was for the first time not only opened but actually checked in detail. After taking the fery boat without paying as well I have easily finished my trip from Skopje to Bucharest completely with hitch hiking and totally for FREE :)

I have finally proved to all the people who were sending comments after my first attempt on the way to Macedonia and to myself that the crazy thought was actually possible. Though, as you could see there were a lot of unexpected events and situations I've ended up in so don't try this on your own if you don't think you could manage them or any of the others that might occur.

After the best time of my life in Macedonia,
titel

Long time, no see...

constantin.tovisi@aiesec.net (Constantin TOVISI) — Sat, 13 May 2006 18:23:00 +0000

As soon as we've got our internet connection back in the MC apartment I was looking on my blog and I realized how long passed since I posted anything here. So here I am after more than two weeks telling you what I've been doing in Macedonia these days and I will also upload some photos as I've been kindly asked to :) Pretty much my activity in this period can be divided into the pre MILDS period, MILDS and post MILDS period.

As you might have seen already MILDS was the activity everybody was focusing on in this period. I have myself been involved in this conference in various ways, delegate, OC member, faci, about witch I will tell you more throughout this post. It all started with the preparations for the conference when I was asked to help the MILDS OC on IS related issues so I was the one to design the Logo and all the templates and promotional materials for the conference. With a few days before the conference the pre meeting started in the MC apartment so basically all the facis were here all the way long having one or two meetings a day and preparing their sessions, ppts and handouts in meantime.

In the second day of the pre meeting it was the time for the chair to come. He's name is Chris and even he is from Canada, he is the current MC ER in AIESEC Slovenia. As we were told that he is quite an cool guy we decided to offer him an appropriate reception to Macedonia were he was coming for the first time. What we decided to do was to send Ravin, the Indian guy, to wait for him at the train station pretending he is a trainee and take Chris to a spot on the side of the row where I, backed up by Kare (MC VP Projects elect), a guy who is about 1,80 m height and about 150 kg, "stolen" Chris' bag and run as fast as I could. In the end this was put in action and turned out very well, everybody could see the whole show and even catch it on camera from the balcony of the mc apartment.

The conference started with a very good atmosphere and a lot . Even if there were not so many delegates (there were about 80) you could feel a great energy and the internationalism brought by the 15 foreigners. The first evening was the Global Village were everybody was presenting brochures, traditional cloths, food an not lastly drinks from their own countries. Here I've been a bit disappointed because I've only used about 1/4 of the 2 liters Romanian brandy (tuica, palinca, rachiu, ... call it as you want). I think that they were getting a bit scared after having the first shoot because of the 60% pure alcohol this drink contains.

The second day was the AIESEC University day, the day were I was a faci. Here was were we had the opportunity to showcase the beta version of the membership database I'm developing for AIESEC in Macedonia. We received a good feedback for his together with some good enhancement ideas. Late on in the day it was the time for me to hold the session about the AIESEC Information Systems. As far as I know this session contained very good information that I hope will help the members of Macedonian LCs in their AIESEC work and also gave me the opportunity to practice my facilitating skills developing and delivering this session. This night's party was called "Animal Party" so you can only imagine how this turned out.

The third day was the external day where all the sessions were hold by company representatives who actually paid for that so the people were dressed in a business/casual manner and the lait motiv of the sessions was the leadership. This day ended up with the Official Banquet witch had as a team the Salsa spirit. The dinner was fancier than the other before and there was a band invited to sing. It turned out quite interesting as I've never seen before an band in an AIESEC event, just for you to have an image in your had it looked to me pretty much as a wedding let's say. After another few sessions and making the group pictures by the Ohrid lake we all came back to Skopje by a rented bus. In the bus it was quite interesting, you could see that people are realizing that the MILDS is finishing but they somehow were not ready to accept it so they were only speaking about it as the best MILDS ever and dancing AIESEC dances.

This is how on of the best conferences I've ever attended ended. After this Chris and Maja, the MC VP PD elect who arrived a bit later, staid for so more in Skopje. Chris left after a few days and Maja is still here doing transition together with the new mc team. And about me, what else? I'm supposed to finish the database application and to start working on the other things like AIESEC.net communities and website in the next period. In meantime I will have as much fun as I can thing I expect from you too as it is one of the most important things in life :)

Till next time, time that I promise will not be so far as this one was,
title

PS: As I’ve told you I’ve uploaded some pictures online, if you’re interested just go to my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/93067850@N00 you can also see fotos from MILDS at this page: http://aiesecmace.fotopic.net/c956332.html

My first week in Macedonia

constantin.tovisi@aiesec.net (Constantin TOVISI) — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 00:05:00 +0000

As soon as I arrived here I've been introduced to all the people and the representative paces around. Right after beeing picked up at the Skopje bus station by Patricia (current MC VP PD) and Ravin (MC VP X elect) I've been taken to the place where I was going to live for the next three months. This place was the MC apartment / office which was very close to the bus station so it took us less than 10 minutes to get there. The apartment consists of one big living room, witch is used as an office for the MC, three rooms and dependencies. At that moment in the apartment were living Patricia who is from Canada, Ravin from India, Goran a trainee from Croatia plus me, so together we were forming an truly international flat as Patricia likes to call it.

Right afterwards Ravin offered showing me the surroundings. Cause it was already a while then since I had everything else to eat than sandwiches we went to a place that turned out to be one of the most important in the town and that was a small shop on a street near by where for 120 denars, witch is about 2 euro, so around 7 ron you would get one big plate of french fries with a roasted burger and two eggs, a pancake prepared in a Macedonian way and a bottle of Coke, Fanta and Sprite. That pace is very nice because for the money you pay it gives you literally difficulties in eating everything that you get so it is very handy when you are hungry.

The next place we went to was the AIESEC Skopje office. For that we went to the University, the pace were are most of the faculties in Skopje witch is about 10 - 15 minutes far from the apartment. What I liked about this office is that it is situated right at the entrance of the economics faculty, in front of the main stairs so there is no way to enter and miss it. In the office I had the opportunity to met some of the LC members, EB members and even a part of the MC members.

Because we had no Internet in the apartment and it took a while singe we got it I could not really do much so I, together with Ravin had time to visit some new places in the city. In one of the days we went to Cale, a very nice old fortress witch is right in the city. Another place we saw was the Turkish Bazar, an area in the old side of the city. This side is both very old and very different of the rest of Skopje. Here we had some of the Macedonian dishes, most of witch have their roots in the Turkish kitchen and Macedonian (yet Turkish) coffee.

If it is to speak about cultural shock as I now that some of the people who are reading this are either present or organizing a seminar on this theme, I can't say I had it. The country and the people are not very different from Romania and I had been helped by the people around me not to integrate well to. The only thing I can really say that I am "shocked" of would be the language where the differences begin from the alphabet, Cyrillic.

Till next time,
titel

Travelling to Macedonia.

constantin.tovisi@aiesec.net (Constantin TOVISI) — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 13:12:00 +0000

As some of you know I planned of coming to Macedonia hitch hiking. So having that in mind I left Sibiu on the 5th at 1 AM. the driver that tool me from there was coming from Austria and later on he told me that he used to work as an mercenar, he was in the French Legion and even fight in Iugoslavia during the war. By 5 I was in Bucharest, after making a short trip to Sinaia first... In Bucharest I took the first tram to go to the exit to Giurgiu. Because I was badly informed by somebody I found in the streets at that time I ended up moving in circle for about an hour or more. Eventually I've got to the right exit where I also found quite easily a car to Giurgiu. In the car the driver that worked in a company producing electrical fences told me that he is going to the border where they had some work to take some tools. He drooped me off in a road cross and showed me the direction to the border.

The problem was there was a very deep fog and you could not see a thing so I didn't realise that there were actually 3 km to get there. I eventually got in the Customs area at the Romanian border and after speaking with some people from there and positioning in the right place, I've started speaking with the Romanian drivers. The only problem was that through the customs the trucks were very slow, about 5 an hour and it was also weekend so there were no many cars and everything moved sower than usually, that is why there were actually not many people to talk to. What hurt me the most was that I've been refused by a guy from Sibiu who told me that he hasn't got enough space in the truck because he had an refrigerator, or at least this was the excuse he used.

After informing myself on the phone about the trains I could take I found that I've already lost one but that there was one at 15:30 o'clock (it was about 13:30 at that moment already). I started walking to the Giurgiu city center and meet driver that used to take people from the border to the city. This driver turned out to be very angry when I told him I don't want to pay 200.000 lei (20 ron) for the 3 km to the city. I eventually hitch hiked a car that got me to the railway station for free. There I had to wait a while and took a personal train to the railway border were I had to manage to get in the train that I was told that goes to Sofia.

There I found out that they didn't actually sell tickets in the weekend, that the train I was trying to take didn't go in Sofia during the weekend and that usually you could not get in the trains that go in Bulgaria there. I found again somebody kind enough to inform me about how the things work there, you find them everywhere :), and after negotiating with the Romanian border police they let me take this train for one station, till the city of Russe in Bulgaria without a both way ticket as they were actually supposed to (for FREE). In the train I had to give 100.000 lei to the Romanian ticket checker and 100.000 to the Bulgarian one and in less than half an hour I was in Bulgaria.

Here I found out that I only have a train to Sofia, the capital, after about 8 hours so I started walking around the city because I also needed Bulgadian currency to pay for the train. The city was very nice, realy I was surprised, who said that Bulgaria is worse than Romania, I don't know... anyway the only problem was that they didn't have any change office open in the weekend. No change office no Bulgaia Money, no Bulgaia Money no train ticket, no train ticket no Sofia... After walking for about two hours with all the luggage wich was a bag not a back pack (by the way I'm never in my life going to do that again) I found one and managed to find my way back.

I arrived in Sofia at 6 in the morning and I found that thre was no direct train to Skopje, Macedonia and I eventualy found an bus I could take at 9. After walking a bit arround the railway station in Sofia I took the bus and at arround 3 o'clock romanian time, 2 o'clock macedonian time I was here...

From here on I'll tell you in the next post because I think this is already too long,
So, keep in touch,
titel

My new blog is live!

constantin.tovisi@aiesec.net (Constantin TOVISI) — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 11:59:00 +0000

Hi,
After a long time since I've actually made this blog (at least two months ago) I'm starting to actually post some things here. I will begin telling you some things about myself.
What shall I say? My name is Constantin TOVISI but all my friends call me titel. I am from Sibiu - the city that is going to be the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2007 ( www.sibiu.ro www.sibiu2007.ro), Romania. At the moment I'm student in my second year of university in the engineering faculty in my city.
Since the address of this blog is titel.MyAIESEC.net I'm going to tell you more about my AIESEC (www.aiesec.org) Experience so far. I joined AIESEC about 16 months ago and I joined the EB 12 months ago. I am now the LC VP Marketing of AIESEC Sibiu. That's how I would describe me in . This is already too much for my way of being, see you soon.

titel
we live in Romania, and this consumes all our time
P.S. this signature is not mine, though I would have licked that :)