Another day in Freiburg

Today's trip to Freiburg was rather interesting and specific in a way. What we actually did today, was visiting one refugee shelter, where people that feel unsafe and critical from all over the world, can seek for a chance for a better life.

We had the opportunity to meet one gorgeous young lady from Kosovo. Her name was Emina and she shared her story with us about her coming to Germany. She had rather a tough life back in Kosovo, so she and her husband decided they want a new place to live. They claim themselves as a minority in Kosovo, since the biggest percentage of people there are Albanians. So, they felt discriminated and endangered and it was more a matter of safety then other things, that is why their moving was so crucial.

How Albanians celebrate differences

Albania, the country of religious harmony

Albania is a multi -religious country, in which for many centuries, have coexisted four traditional religious communities – the Moslems Suni, the Orthodox, the Catholics and the Moslems Bektashi and also many important Pagan days and rituals are celebrated and practiced by Albanians. 14 March is a Pagan day, called "The summer day". It is celebrated in the city of Elbasan and in Tirana. Concerts, activities, old rituals like gathering around fires are organized, saying welcome to Spring and Summer. Other important days like "Saint George" (Shën Gjergji) are celebrated in different areas of Albania, but are characterized with pre-Christian traditions.

Discrimination today

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedom, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” This is the second item of the Universal declaration of human rights, which was signed by most of the countries, despite discrimination is happening right now all over the world to the millions of people that can’t even change that.

In the past few days Breisach became a place where discrimination is highly discussed, its forms, reasons and ways how to stop it. Youth Exchange “Celebrate the difference!” gathers 30 young people coming from different countries, speak different languages and have different customs. Everyone’s common fact is that they find differences interesting and don’t want to exterminate them but to share them.

What is my motivation?

Being part of a society where people are awfully discriminated in many ways, makes me want to attend happenings of this type as much as possible. Even though i have found myself several times in life discriminating people in a unconscious or conscious way because of a certain reason, i find discriminating extremely wrong and for me it is the worst action of the humans.

The journey to Breisach

The hostel by the Rhine

My journey began in the morning. Driving to the town of Skopje, once again I was looking at the passing landscape of my country. Thankfully, we had only one mere setback that did not cause any significant delay, for we had to arrive at the airport in time. When we did, I was surprised to see the changes in the complex. New pillars and bricks and paint, but the chaotic aura of the Macedonians still lingers on. After a time, we entered the terminal and finally in the plane itself. The flight lasted little under an hour. Near the end of it, I looked out the window and saw mountains stretching into the clouds and it was an admirable sight.

Once we reached Germany, we were nearly on the other side of the country so the next phase of the journey was to go by train. I have no significant events to enter regarding the train, except that we missed one train and since we the people of the Balkans are not quite familiar with the west, we nearly panicked but that was short lived. Then came the night and to me it was a difficult one. Sitting in the train, tired but unable to sleep, all I could do was endure. And that I did. Of course before nightfall I was still observing the landscape we were passing by, another sight worth seeing. The journey ended and when it did, we were in a small but nice little town and were driven to the hostel and since it was late at night I went to sleep in my room almost right away.

A day in Freiburg

Spreading aroma of fresh baked sausages followed by a cracking sound of roasting, in front of one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever seen. A bunch of Macedonians and Croats walking around with sparkly eyes, hungry enough to try those delicious sandwiches.

Yum-yum!

The legendary sausages from the Cathedral Square

En la calle fueron tambien dos mujeres de Espana, preguntando si la salsa es demasiado picante. Y era, tengo que admitir. (sorry for the writing, i don't have Spanish font :)

To be honest, my imagination for this wonderful city was quite different from what it really is. Probably it was because I have never heard about this town before, so I kind of had prejudices and definitely underestimated Freiburg!

Now, having it already seen, I can not find enough words to express and explain how positively surprised and impressed I am. For example, the way that Western Europe celebrates Christmas is so awesome! In front of the cathedral, there were so many nice and cosy people, selling different types of pine branches, so nicely decorated and so colourful. Even though Christmas is not yet to happen in another month, I could totally feel the atmosphere. You might think, what is this crazy girl talking about, it is so common everywhere, but I have to say that in Macedonia Christmas is celebrated rather different then here, so that made me feel the way it made me feel :D.


After some time spent in front of the cathedral, curiously staring at these Christmas decorations, we decided to taste a German beer. We went to a local pub, called “Martin’s Bräu”, where several of us tried dark beer, and several of us decided to chill with tea with rum and coffee :))).




What we also found very interesting was the fact that in the town there are more bikes then people, certainly. In front of universities, small shops, malls, local coffee shops and pubs, everywhere!!!
On the topic of things that are frequent in Freiburg, I just have a simple question for the German people. What is the thing with the twin babies? Whenever a woman gets pregnant here, it has to be twins? :))) Is that some kind of a tradition or it just happens by accident? Only kidding! :D



Overall, the day spent in Freiburg was rather nice. Not really big, not too crowded, cosy and joyful enough for me to want to live there. And it would be awesome if I could visit that place once again some day. Very nice memories, wonderful few hours spent in Freiburg, MANY twin-babies and a lot of sausages will be my reminiscence of this place.


Well done Germany! :D

Turning a question into an exclamation

Today we found out how our group leaders came up with the name of our seminar. There is more to know about “Celebrate the difference!” than we first thought.

When Sebastian visited the permanent section about the Holocaust in the Imperial War Museum in London, he was intrigued by something he heard there. In an interview that was shown on screen, a Hungarian Jew named Hugo Gryn, who became the Rabbi of one of the largest congregations in Europe, pondered about “difference”. Before the Second World War he did not even realize that he was any different from all the other people around him. Being Jewish did not mean being different in a bad way...until the Nazis claimed it to be. Luckily he survived the Shoa and was able to transmit an important message. Wondering why people are not seeing differences positively but rather as a thread, he asked: “Why do we not celebrate our differences?” 

Fascinated by this way of thinking, Sebastian turned this question into an exclamation and the motto of our exchange. Now it is up to us, the participants, to turn it into action.

Let’s celebrate our differences!