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| Olja & Sandra @Belem, happily not lost. |
Before I go to explain my adventures, i`d like to give small introduction of what the EVS On Arrival training is made for. All in all its easy and simple, as part of every European Voluntary Service Program project happens the On-Arrival training, which for every volunteer is a must to do. In different regions of Europe the training are organized by different bodies and institutions, so they varies. Also in some of the countries, you are lucky that the training takes place in different locations that you are living in, so you have the opportunity to choose not only by date but also by place. Here in Portugal, its all connected with Anime NGO, which on regular basis organizes these training events. As it seems they happen every two weeks, as the volunteers rotate fast and projects are happening all the times. In usual conditions if hosting organization communicates correctly of the timings for the on arrival training, then you should have it on the time when you are three or four weeks here.
But now, well, its time to share the first of adventures...
The arrival day for the training, me and Olja we agreed to go together, to arrive before lunch...as both of us are far away from portuguese time understandings, then we planned to reach Almada the midday, as organizers could not really give clear answer the day before of what time lunch exactly takes place. So yeah, we reached the station to take the train to cross the 25th April Bridge, we felt very happy to not to wait long for the train, as it was just coming...however a big was our surprise, when after sitting in the train for like 10 min and not seeing any bridge coming even close, we had to admit that none of us paid attention if this was the correct train to take, so we instead traveled to completely other part...as luckily it was just one station and as it was also the last one, then we did not have to wait long, nor change to travel back to our start in order this time try to catch the right train.
As second try was successful then we reached the Almada side fast and safe...in order to find the our event location, as none of us printed any directions, nor really wrote down the name or address of the place...out of our memories, we managed to locate the direction where we had to go and just after some short more time we were in the right bus to the right place...if the first bus driver did not show any kindness nor english skills then the second one was very welcoming and drove us to the place, he though we had to go...however, as after we were already left in bus station in the city center of Almada...we had to realize that we are super far from our destination and that we actually have passed it with bus a long time ago. However we did not still realize it, as it was our first time in this neighborhood, we did ask again around the directions and we were pointed to one, which of course we took...fun moment happen when we heard a guy calling us on behind and re-asking which direction we want to go, as he heard his friend giving us the wrong directions...even more, he was so kind that he took his car to drive us back to our destination...and all this happen just like that...the amazing kindness of portuguese.
Conclusion of arrival...we managed to be just on time for the lunch, which was taking place a bit after 1 pm, so our trip instead of lasting half an hour took us one hour and half...nevertheless it was definitely worth the adventure.
other stories coming soon...stay tuned,
S.
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