The tour around Western Europe in March 2007 was one of the events EuroClass were waiting for with great excitement!

On the 12th of March we started our journey through Germany, Luxemburg and Belgium with a little stop-over in the Netherlands. Hurrah!

The main goal of the trip was to show us an organisational environment, both on a local and an international level. Besides this we couldn't wait to 'bite a bit' of other cultures, habits and traditions (not forgetting about shopping :).

Monday morning appeared to be a very stressful time. Turning the bus into a cosy place with matresses and a small table since it would be our “home on wheels” for the next 12 days. Collecting food and all the necessary equipment and trying to zip up our suitcases took us the whole morning. As it was easy to predict, we didn't manage to finish before the planned departure, so Morten postphoned it until after lunch. Finally, we received good wishes 'waves' from the goodbye commitee - other students leaving later that day- and we started off...stopping after two minutes, because Johanna forgot to leave her keys at the office :) Afterwards, at the train station we said 'Ciao Ciao' to the music group leaving for the United States and finally our adventure began.

While we were heading to Northeim (North-East of Germany), EuroClass played many games (thanks to Cho and Szabi, who prepared a 'game book'), 'chillouting' at the end of the bus, singing with Lena and eating a looot. We also established a new habit: playing hackie-sack everywhere and whenever it was possible :) Although most of us became very professional, however Laura is still the master :)

First night was spent in the nice and cosy German hostel at the place mentioned. Then Silky Bus took us to Frankfurt, where we had a couple of hours to look around the city, shop and take pictures. Many people liked it a lot, because it's very modern and has a very 'European style'.

In the evening we arrived in Homburg, the town where Lena was born and  grew up. Her family invited us to a delicious German dinner and 'hygge' time in their place. We were eating Haribo, talking, singing, playing with the star of the event - Lena's little niece Evelyn and of course celebrating Johanna's birthday. Niiice!

The next day was filled with walking around Homburg, admiring the landscape from a huge hill and meeting with the local group of young people from the youth organisation Katholische Junge Gemeinde (KJG). We spent a great evening playing games, describing life in Denmark and life at the Højskole in general as well as leading other, less formal conversations. Who knows, maybe Silkeborg Højskole will welcome some of them in couple of years because of our advertisement :)

On the fourth day of the trip we left our cosy sleeping place - the local parish (probably our guys were the most happy about it, as we had only one shower there and they were the last ones in the queue, after 14 girls :>) - and started heading to Trier.

This beautiful city welcomed us with great weather and inviting people. Firstly we visited a KJG headquarter of the diocese level and talked with an employe, then he took us for a tour around, including a walk to a big hill, from which we saw beautiful panorama of the city. In the afternoon, the brave kitchen group prepared spaghetti in the park after which we some spare time to see Trier by night. Laura-Liisa probably enjoyed the day the most - it was her birthday. As we love her very much, we gave her a lot of presents, decorated the bus with balloons, sang songs and prepared a cake.

Our faces were a bit sad when we said goodbye to Trier, as we liked it really much. But at the same time we were excited about the next destination: Luxemburg.

As we expected (and some knew from the experience) the city was elegant, luxurious and unfortunately expensive. After a short tour around Morten took us to the European Court of Justice. A very nice, multi-lingual guide showed us the building, talked about working in this institution, and answered a lot of curious questions.  We also listened to a lecture from one of the Danish lawyers and took thousands of photos. Unfortunately we couldn't stay in Luxemburg for the night, so we packed ourselves to the Silky Bus and left to Belgium.

The same day in the evening we parked in front of Cat's parent's house in Blehen, 2 km from Hannut. Cat is a former student of EuroClass and a friend of Lena's. Her hospitable and nice parents invited EuroClass to their place for the second time. Obviously we enjoyed a great dinner, talked a lot, and watched movies, (some went out with Cat). Others exhausted from traveling, went straight to bed.

On Saturday EuroClass had a very important task to prepare: we were supposed to organise the meeting  for the small girls from Patro which is a youth organisation in the French speaking community of Belgium. We wondered if we could manage to entertain them. Fortunately they liked our games, including a cookie contest, trip to the bus and all the other activities. In the evening we followed Cat to a big bonfire and had beer and sausages. Some people stayed there for a long time, but Ewa and I decided to go to Hannut and search for a good party. After a long walk through fields, where we of course got lost, we achieved our aim and had a fantastic time :) Luckily next morning was a 'day off' so we could sleep longer, enjoy the breakfast, collect our things (because we conquered the whole second floor) and leave without rushing to Liege. There we took a walk in the longest market in Europe, did some shopping and headed to Bruxelle.

The first evening in the capital of Belgium was rather calm and cosy. Everybody was tired of walking around in the bad weather so we just took it easy and went to bed. The next day EuroClass had an appointment at the NATO headquarters, where we had a lecture and collected tonnes of educational materials. After that, Silky Bus brought us to the Eiffel Tower of Belgium - the Atomium. This is the monument which represents a unit cell of an iron crystal. We went inside, saw different kinds of exhibitions and had nice cup of coffee at the top.

The first thing in Tuesday’s schedule was a visit to the European Parliament, where naturally we listened to another lecture and walked around the building. We also had the chance to see how the 'plenary session' looks like. Some of us got inspired and decided to become a minister :) Then everybody used spare time for sightseeing, shopping and trying famous Belgium fries and 'gofers'.

On 21st of March we regretably left Bruxelles and went on to Antwerp. Unfortunately the weather was horrible, so it was impossible to fully enjoy the trip around the city. In the evening, soaked to the skin and almost frozen we arrived at Chiro (youth organisation) headquarters. After a good, but also very long dinner, there was a lecture about their organisation and 'closing games' before finally saying goodbye. In general we had a very nice time.

During last two days we drove back to Denmark. On Thursday we managed to stop for a while in a lovely Dutch city Groningen. Again we spent the night in a German hostel and prepared for going home. The 23rd of March was the final day of our tour, which we will remember for a loooong time.

All in all it's really hard to give an impression about the trip in simple words - it was much more than that. It has to be experienced to be understood.

Magda