Day 1 – Into the wild
It was an ordinary day in our urban anthill. Some people were rushing to start their routine workday, others were staying in endless traffic jams. And only my backpack was looking for adventures. Luckily two weeks before I received an interesting offer from Shokkin Group to participate in APV in Norway National Park. A plan was to stay in wild nature for 2 days and discuss the upcoming Youth Exchange project. Holding my tickets I was looking to future survival trip.
Plane and bus gently delivered me to small town Trysil lost in mountains. While my lungs were getting used to fresh air, I saw some friendly people with backpacks. It was a sign that I’m in right place. I offered them some hugs, which they happily returned. That’s how everything started! Strangers got their names: Mari and Marit were local and knew neighborhood like own five fingers, Pedro still had a smell of Spanish jamon on his hands, Frank was bored of flat Danish landscape and Carmen had some Romanian stories in her pocket. So after having our last meal in civilization we got out to nature. Nature welcomed unexpected guests with pouring rain. We found our shelter in Femundsmarka National Park close to a beautiful lake. It was small wooden cabin, where we stayed for next two nights. Before going to sleep we were telling each other stories about our lives.
Day 2 – End of rainstorm and start of Brainstorm
After waking up and having a breakfast we started discussing our future project. Marit showed us the preliminary plan, which was supposed to be filled with all the details. Two main topics were “what to do” and “how to survive” during the project. Our program consisted of different blocks which were supposed to open up the subject of our project step by step. We used all of our imagination and creativity to make program attractive for the participants as well as for ourselves. We have also tried to experience life in outdoor conditions – making food on a bonfire, washing dishes without detergents (using sand!), exploring forest trails and learning the difference between wolves and dogs. Living outdoor you should not forget about having fun as well. We played Viking with wood for the fire, swam in lake and took pictures of amazing sunset.
Day 3 – Time to say Goodbye
We all knew we had to go back home, but we still had half of the day ahead to finish our project preparations, delegate tasks and divide responsibilities among the team leaders. Before leaving our shelter we made sure not to leave anything after ourselves so that this beautiful place would look exactly how it did before we came there. During these two days we proved that in two days only total strangers can become a real team. It was sad to leave such a beautiful place and say Goodbye to these cool people, but the only thing that was warming up my heart was knowing that we will meet again in August!
