Day-2, Gordon Ramsay approved

Today the project finally kicked off. It started in the morning with 'the game of names', a workshop designed to teach the names off all the participants. It took a while, but eventually (almost) everybody could remember them. After the first workshop, a coffee break followed. It was mainly used for an Uno competition, which are seemingly increasing in popularity among the Romanian, Hungarian and Dutch participants (not that it's a bad thing, though).

After a break well spent, the following workshop got introduced alongside three paper sheets. Every sheet had a word written upon it: hopes, fears and contributions. Every participant had to write their hopes, fears and contradictions regarding the exchange down on a post-it and stick it to the paper sheets, so there would be three full posters in the end. We hope these posters will come in handy the upcoming two weeks and make sure the hopes will come true and the fears won't!
We followed this workshop with the introduction of the secret friend game where all the participants got assigned a person to be their secret friend for the rest of the exchange.

Lunchbreak followed, where we got sausages for lunch and an hour free to spend followed. So did another intense round of Uno and a very intense group game, before the group was brought back together again for an energizing ball game. This was also a good game to test how many names were remembered among the participants. We followed this up by creating personal Facebook pages in pairs. This was the perfect opportunity for the participants to let their creative juices flow.

A walking interview followed right after an hour of drawing, laughing and working together. Divided into two rows the participants got the opportunity to get to know the other's by talking about random subjects such as their home situation, their best memories and their favourite movies. This certainly brought up interesting good stories and many laughs, while walking around in the beautiful forest of Lunteren, but many of the participants seemed to be glad to be back at the venue again after seeing the trays of meat and grill plates already being set up. Only it was not as easy for everyone to get their dinner at the end, because not every grill wanted to work along. Luckily, they still had the opportunity to get their food baked in the kitchens, so everybody could still enjoy a delicious meal.

Everybody had a lot of fun during the gourmetten, but that also remained when everything was already been baked and eaten. With everything that was left on the grill and what was left on the plates, some of the participants decided they could still make a 'delicious' meal, resulting in a dish that's proven to be Gordon Ramsey worthy (though they still have to wait for an actual reply of the British masterchef).

After everything was tidied up again, it was time for the duos to present their Facebook walls to the rest of the group. This resulted into quick, hilarious and also improvised situations, but it was certainly visible all participants did their best. After the presentations, there was one last introduction to what we will be seeing a lot more the upcoming weeks: the family groups. These groups were formed in order to be able to discuss the exchange and how we like it so far and for the cleaning schedule. These groups had to make up their own family name and family weapon (all in Game of Thrones style), what brought up the best bits of creativity once again. There was also a visit to the summer market at Lunteren planned, but due to the unfortunate weather that decided to show up there was decided it would be a good idea to stay at the venue instead. This resulted into a relaxed ending of the first day of the entire group together.

Blog by: Natasja and Timon
Pictures by: Cilia Baanstra