IC Turkey, impressions

Greeting from Turkey,

I arrived at Ataturk airport 5 days ago from the 'airport previously known as Brnik'. Everything went smoothly so far, i had no troubles finding the Turkish guy who came to pick me up at the airport. Together we waited for another 4 Japanese, many Czech and some Estonian delegates. The most of us went to the dinner, which wasn't included in 30 euro fee. Actually very little was included in this fee, we were extra charged for most of stuff that we were doing,(transport to the parties, dinners, one night of staying in a dormitory...). Turkish people try to cash in on you in anyway they can, even if they are AIESECers. Study tour T-shirt was 10 euros but OC was very surprised that very few people bought it. The next day the Istanbul study tour began, with about 160 people. I actually don't know all the landmarks we were looking at by name, only the Blue Mosque that Istanbul is famous for.

It was so cool to meet so many people that we already knew from other conferences before. Only on study tour i met some of those, but they are still arriving because the main part of the congress is starting on 21th. But on the other had it surprised me that there were some people who attended the YouCan conference last year in Poland, but i don't remember seeing them. It is interesting how small the AIESEC world is yet there are 100 countries involved in it. There are some people you dont know, but surely you know some of their friends. There were some Malasyan guys claiming that they have a Slovenian intern in Malasya right now which i didnt know anything about. I thought somebody matched himself again without our knowledge. It was a mistery for some days, but we went to see the Insight database and found out that he was a Slovenian guy who is a member (hopefully) of AIESEC in Netherlands. Quite interesting. It was also interesting to meet the LCP of Zarko's (our intern) LC in Brasil.

The city of Istanbul is divided into 2 parts (Asian part and European part) separated by water (not sure if it is a sea or a river). The two parts are connected by a huge bridge. It was interesting to realize how big Istanbul is. You can drive for 2 hours by bus, and you always have a feeling that you are in the center of the city. Its quite modern city and its not conservative at all. Very few women are covered. But outside of the big cities it is supposed to be different.

For the study tour we were staying on the European side of Istanbul. After the study tour we moved to another dormitory on a Yeditepe University which is on the Asian side. There are 2 special dormitories for women and for men. This is not the coolest thing ever, but we also have a forest near :) Emil thinks its full of sensors :) This university seems to be a very elite one. Some Turkish people told me that you dont need to be very smart to attend this university, but you need to have a lot of money. One would not expect to find dogs on elite university, but here they are all over, and university is supposed to be taking care of them. They seem to have more rights than the students have. They seem to have a similar status as the cows have in India, the holy dogs one could say. They move from a classroom to a classroom and noone is bothered by them. Turkey seems to be aiming at becoming a country with the most well educated dogs in the world.

Today was the third day of premeetings. Some of them were apparently not very well organized but even those had a good poing. Premeetings were devided by GNs. We looked at the performance of CEE GN. We took all of our national goals for 2010 and counted the measurable goals of every country to see how we as a GN are contributing to AIESEC 2010. The new CEE Director Ivan seems to be quite a cool guy, and as he describes himself, very honest. So he told us, quite honestly that we have some problems in GN regarding the number of members, the exchanges and leadership experiences, but we are supposed to be the best GN in members after leadership experences goal. I also got the coolest ER session ever! I cant wait for our members in Slovenia to see the output of the congress. Its all so exciting!

Usualy we dont have parties devided by GNs, but yesterday Asians had their own party. Every Asian nation brought their own cup noodles and sweets! On this pictures its the indonesian delegation. :)

Now that the premeetings are over, i had some time to write this article, but now things will get even more intense, because the main part of the conference is starting tomorrow. After the morning plannery we have Global Village and then the Opening Ceremony. I hope i lost enough weight for the official clothes to fit on my body, but i rather not think about it until then, haha :)