"Diary of a traveller" Part one

Knowing new people, learning a little bit more about their cultures and countries, exchanging experiences and discussing about human and world issues constitute the main reasons of the arrival of thousands of students from all over the planet.

The sports events were taking place… and, meanwhile, if you went closer, the phrases “what’s your name?” and “where are you from?” were heard like in a chorus.

Luis Schanks and Lourdes Wong are two students from Lima, Peru and, despite they come from the same city, they just have met. The journey for them was really long.

There are no direct flights from Peru, so they had to do one intermediate landing and, after that, took the train. However, according to their opinions, the trip was worth it.

German landscapes were the first thing that captured their attention because in Lima the outlooks are not as green as here. They have been only one day in Ilmenau but already made lots of friends.

One of those is Ksenia Naberezhneva. She comes from Russia and arrived on Friday night. She makes a philosophy’s PhD back home and remarks that, at the moment, she could not be in a better place because “Germany is the cradle of philosophers”.

The trip was a little bit long and her body was still tired but she was truly happy of being there. The sports event constituted her first impression of the ISWI and she was amazed of the capoeira group.

Like her, Branka Vukojevic and Mariza Menger were enjoying this sport-art and its particular rhythm. These girls come from Croatia and study law. They traveled by train but didn’t arrive directly. They stayed one day in Munich, where they had their first perspective of the german culture. “We only knew that we couldn’t miss drinking a ‘Maß’” they told.
“It is great here, I am so glad that we could be able to come” said Mariza. “We didn’t have the certitude of coming until last week” she added. They were also quite excited about the upcoming activities and pleased of the friendliness of everyone. “I like so much this kind of events because all the people are so open and nice” commented Branka.



Fabricio Ribeiro was with them too. He comes from Brazil and also had to make an intermediate landing. He went first to Paris and, then, to Berlin. This is his first time in Europe.

He studies environmental engineering and, three months before the trip, started with german lessons because he wanted to know, at least, the basic expressions. “If you know how to say ‘Prost’, everything is perfect” told Andy – from Germany – to him.

Fabricio is delighted with the weather in Germany. He heard that here was really cold and prepared himself… “These sunny days are like in my country” he happily said. “Let’s rest a while under the sun before the lecture starts” quickly added.