Holidays

I am on holidays!

Tomorrow morning I am leaving to London to celebrate Christmas with Darren, Jasna, Andreas, and Sabi.

Then I am going to Romania to celebrate the start of 2006 with Cristian!


Yipee! And I have forbidden myself to go online in this period.

Winter in Italy

This weekend I was in Italy on the European School Students' convention, which was organised by OBESSU. Now I'm not saying that I am getting old, but seeing 15 year old students working so dedicated in order to create more student democracy and standards to which they want to apply: it made me very happy!

Less hapy I was with the remote location that was chosen to organise the convention: Campobasso in Southern Italy. It took me 16 hours to get there... It was very cold in Italy and yesterday when I had to travel back to Rome people told me that there was a chance that there would be no trains because of all the snow that fell... Fortunately the train did go, and I had the opportunity to see the collosseum in the evening, and to enjoy a dinner in a bad Italian restaurant on my own.

Prejudices

Of course I don't like prejudices. Italian people:

• Scream or talk too loud;
• wear huge sunglasses in the winter;
• don't walk on the left or the right side of the road, but on both sides so that you constantly bumb into them;
• can not organise;
• talk all the time if there is a guest speaker, unless the guest speaker comes from their own country.

But of course I only met 200 Italians this weekend, and wouldn't dare to generalise. :-) I know at least two exceptions, Fabio & Giuseppe.

Me and my couch

Tonight the Trut celebrates its 20th anniversary. It's a non-profit gay and lesbian bar which normally is only open on Sunday evenings. Every week a mixed crowd of lesbian and gays gathers in a row to enter the Trut (litterally meaning 'The Bitch'), as there is a full = full policy. This is the only place I know where there is no preference given to anyone, and that's what I like.

I didn't manage to get a ticket for the party tonight, as I was still in Poland when the tickets were sold. Now I am spending an evening on the couch. Sorting out papers, writing some e-mails and enjoying not being outside as it's reallly cold. Thinking about the beautiful period that is coming up.

Yesterday I was in Groningen - where I saw Kees again first time after three months! That's what I probably hate most of my life: through all the context I'm so little in Netherlands that I see my friends living abroad more than my friends here..

Hello sweeties!

The work with the new board has started. The poor people are still online, which means that they are already getting used to the IGLYO board spirit. Change of people of course means a change of spirit as well, which I believe is very healthy of each organisation. Suddenly I am the grand daddy in the board, it feels strange as I've always be the youngest anywhere I was working.

But it does not matter. We have a great team, not only in the board, but also outside the board.

I decided to prolong my Christmas Holidays a little bit... After London I'm now going to celebrate New Years' eve in Romania. It seems like things are going well, I am happy and feeling great.

Tears, Smiles and Butterflies

IGLYO elected its new board last week. Tears flooded as great people are leaving the board. Smiles on my face because I'm going to work with my dream team. The coming two years I'll be working with Max, Bev, Darren and Fabio. Gratefull for all that I've learned and the best friendships I got with Jasna, Ruth and Jelena, I'm now trying to prepare for the new board. I'm still dealing with post-IGLYO blues, not really able to concentrate but do my best.

Company

Last week the IGLYO Gender Conference took place in Krakow, Poland. Thursday morning these nice fellow kept us company outside of the hostel. Bypassers received leaflets containing homophobic texts - the same texts that Hitler used during the II World War to express his feelings about Jews.

It all looked a bit said, actually some people even mentioned that the posters looked quite funny. Looking the guys in their eyes made me realise they were more afraid than I was.

When I was in Krakow in April a Gay Pride was forbidded. The gays that gathered in the city centre walked through the city silently. Whilst we were sitting on a terrace, drinking coffee, an egg was thrown to us.

In comparison to the recent events in Poznan (where 62 activists were brutally arrested by the police!) it's all not much. But realising that people take the energy to bring eggs to the city, or to make signs and print leaflets, I must say it feels disguishting.