Day 60: Caution, wet paint!

It is finally time to start getting up early again... it's been so long! Me and the other intern do not eat breakfast with the "proper" participants, which is okay. It means more time to sleep and look in the mirror, you know, the usual stuff.

The weather was incredibly humid in the morning so we felt so relieved as we walked into the university. After an introductory talk about the ins and outs of the summer school, an Estonian lecturer delivered the first lecture. The topic was "World Environment", very apt to the summer school's theme of Environment Awareness, Communication and Interpretation. Although it wasn't particularly my area of interest or expertise, I took loads of notes anyway. I had to leave halfway through the lecture to attend a meeting about our second film - which we received good feedback on by the way - but I let the lecturer know beforehand, just in case he thought I was being rude.

The best part of the day (for me) then arrived - lunch.

Scrumptious!

After fuelling ourselves up with energy for the city orientation game we had planned for the next few hours, it started bucketing down with rain. Most of us were wearing vests, shorts and flip-flops; the weather can be so deceiving sometimes. It slowly started to fade, so we headed outside, split into small groups and began the game. Just like in my first week here, our aim was to take creative photos in each of the locations listed on our sheet. "Gabrielle, do not cheat" was said to me many a time, to which I replied with "I won't" with an angelic smile. Even if we don't win the creativity prize, I had the opportunity to make new friends from Turkey, Netherlands and Greece, including someone who loves London as much as I do!

All that walking made us exhausted! A rest later, everyone gathered together to view the opening of a photo exhibition on each floor of the dorms to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Erasmus. Students from the university I am working in who go on an Erasmus exchange to study or intern must bring back at least 3 photos of their experience abroad and collectively made this exhibition. Each photo had a story to tell. Before viewing the photos, the coordinator of the summer school gave a lovely speech about making the most of Erasmus and getting as much out of it as you can. I couldn't help but think about the sorts of adventures I'll get up to soon in France!

Time for some more creative fun! Again, we split into groups for our next activity: painting on the walls of the dorms! No, not to get the students to decorate but to instead create a painting that represents five key words given to us. Our words were friendship, protection, communication, tourism and industry. This was the final result:

Not bad, huh?

Putting all our thought and amazing artistic ability into this gave us just 20 minutes to get ready for a formal opening ceremony in a local hotel (the same one where the international food party took place). I've never gotten ready so quickly before in my life. Walking to the hotel gave us a massive appetite, which, after a few speeches from the university's rector and coordinators, was successfully gone.

Before dinner.

After dinner.

I was warned by my good friend that a storm from Riga was heading for Valmiera. We started walking home to avoid it but were too late. Although I'm not the biggest fan of rain, it was rather refreshing after a day of heat and humidity.

Bring on tomorrow!