As traditionally, we started our Welcome Week with the event called Welcome Day. We gathered in the university auditorium of the Faculty of Economics, where our Vice-Rector officially welcomed our new Erasmus students. After that, we provided our new exchange students with all needed information about Slovakia, our amazing city Banská Bystrica and all its secrets, the structure and goals of our organisation, and we informed them about the rules of the dormitory as well as their rights. At the end of this event, Erasmus students received a welcome package, a small gift from Erasmus Student Network and Matej Bel University. Later that day, we played the City Game, which was a funny way of getting to know more about Banská Bystrica. There were five teams of four people, searching through the city with only help of maps and few instructions. At each place there were two buddies waiting to give the team a task to fulfill. Plus, it weren‘t ordinary places, but important monuments of the city, about which buddies told teams some information, which they had to remember. Finally, we all met at the seventh place, in pub Smädný Mních, where we had great fun not only drinking and talking, but also playing a quiz about our new knowledge of the city. In the end, the score was even, so there had to be a bonus question.
On the second day, we organised a superb welcoming party in NJOYtheBar and guess what...everybody Njoyed it! It was another great way of getting to know the people you are going to spend your next semester with.
On the third night, we wanted to be a little calmer and more oriental, so we went to the tea house Čarovňa. There was about fifteen of us in one big beautiful olive-green box, tasting various teas, talking and laughing a lot. We had a great time.
On the fourth night, we prepared something speacial - an action oriented game called Shenanigans. More than thirty people entered this crazy thing. The first mission was to bring specific items from the dormitories, second to hold a glass bottle of beer in one hand for one or two minutes (and the second part of the mission was to drink it as fast as possible) - through a straw and while doing a hand-stand! In the third round, the teams had to find a way how to peel four potatoes without a knife or any usual device for peeling. Team „All right“ succeeded the most – with teeth and nails! The last task was about cooperation – one member of the team had bound hands, one had bound eyes and the second one had to feed the first one according to the commentaries of the third member. It really strenghtened the bonds between students and created a wonderful atmosphere.
On Friday, we wanted to have some more fun and stimulate ourselves – we went to first Erasmus games of the semester. There were twentyfour of us and we played basketball, futball and volleyball.
On Saturday, only three people came (it was intimate) and they were shown the easiest way to build a birdhouse. Then they were given papers, scissors and adhesive tapes – each one was creative and made a beautiful decoration.
On the last day, there was Haluškovica – a contest in preparing Slovak national dish. If you don´t know how hard it is, then read on...At first, the teams had to compete as to which team will stay without grater (limited number of graters can turn somebody into Robinson Crusoe!). Each team started with sheep cheese, potatoes and flour and was supposed to cook halušky as fast and as good as it could. Miss gatekeeper chose which team had the best food – team Balkan won. The teams really layed themselves out not to only prepare, but also to adjust the dish. And then hooray, they had to eat it all! The Polish team ate theirs fastest. Each winning team got a kilo of potatoes, which will surely get in handy! All in all, it was a really good and all-coloured way to start a new, exciting period of our lives. We won’t have to wait long for next opportunities...