The journey began on a Saturday at midnight at the bus station at Zurich HB. In true Bünzli fashion, I was already there 30 minutes before the Flixbus actually left, giving me the privilege of wondering for 25 minutes whether my travel buddies were going to arrive on time or miss the bus. Eventually they finally arrived after all, and we got to enjoy all the luxuries Flixbus has to offer; broken toilet, people snoring and I’m pretty sure the baby behind me filled his diapers (at least it barely cried though).
Ten hours later and feeling like I aged 20 years in one night, we arrived in Ljubljana and were greeted by some of our long-time Slovenian friends. As we still needed to pass some time before we could check into our accommodation, we did the only sensible thing for tourists to do on a Sunday morning: grab Burek for breakfast and go to a cheap bar close to the river with some old and new international faces and enjoy a coffee (besides other things).
Some time later we made our way to our home for the next few days, and if you think it was just some run-down hostel, you’d be very wrong. Instead, LC Ljubljana pulled out all the stops and actually organized a 4 star hotel for us, with only 3-4 people in each room. Given that we didn’t need to pay for this ourselves, this was the first of many times where I wondered how exactly I got here, but in any case I don’t regret any of it. There wasn’t much time for me to ponder though, as soon afterwards all the participants made their way to Park Tivoli for some Get-To-Know-Each-Other games, followed by a very fancy dinner from the hotel buffet and some more casual hanging out.
The next day, the actual serious side of the congress started with the “International Fair” in the morning, where all the teams of EESTEC International introduced themselves and tried to find new members. In the afternoon, all the representatives participated in one of the different working sessions aimed at further developing EESTEC and keeping it sustainable for the long-term.
From Tuesday to Friday, most of the day was reserved for the general meetings (GMs), aka basically politics. Besides other stuff, the new board was elected, the strategic plan for the future was discussed, and some changes to the statutes were voted on. Most of this wouldn’t be very interesting for the uninvolved reader, so I will only be mentioning highlights. The most important moment must have been on Tuesday evening, where exactly at 21:30 the president of LC Zurich for two years was elected to the International Board as Treasurer, forever leaving behind a hole in the ranks of Zurich.
Trying to distract ourselves from our sadness and to honor our role as LC Zurich, we took it upon ourselves to make the GMs more interesting for everyone. For instance, under the cover of the newly-founded “LC Bielefeld” and with the help of some Slovenian moles with access to a printer, we brought our beloved Member-Meeting Bingo to the International stage. As this was very well received, we saw an opportunity to take LC Bielefeld a step further and make it the biggest LC of Germany. Unfortunately, we had trouble actually locating the place to recruit members, so the only option left before us was destruction of other branches. As luck would have it, LC Munich had previously missed a deadline with some important documents, meaning that the GM had to vote on whether to suspend Munich or not. Sadly, no other LCs shared our vision, and thus LC Munich remains to be an eyesore for us to this day (just kidding, we love you Munich).
We also noticed that some LCs seemed to have trouble with voting in favor of candidates, as on multiple occasions no candidate reached absolute majority, meaning that many LCs were voting against all available candidates, despite there (in our expert opinion) not being any sensible reason for this. After brainstorming for minutes upon minutes, we finally found the only logical explanation: the representatives were all very deficient in potassium, causing fatigue and muscle cramps which made voting in favor impossible. Thus we quickly stepped into action and drafted up a 4 step plan:
- Steal Bananas from breakfast buffet
- Distribute Bananas among participants
- ???
- Profit (meaning board elected)
This was according to our own evaluation a resounding success, as after many voting rounds, all the board positions were finally filled on Thursday evening.
Our days didn’t only consist of GMs though; every evening there was also some kind of opportunity to interact with the other participants and the local Ljubljana people. On Monday there was a party at the student campus, and while this may sound kind of outlandish, most people quickly forgot about that fact. Tuesday on the other hand was dedicated to chill in the hotel lobby and rest before the highlight of every congress or workshop, the “International Night” on Wednesday. Here, every LC sets up a table with food and drinks from their country, giving everyone the chance to try whatever culinary delights the different regions of Europe have to offer. Here, with support from some unofficial participants, we went all out and offered raclette, fondue, different cheeses, salami, chocolate and of course our specialty, Ricola Vodka. The International Night always ends in a big party, and because the organizers were benevolent enough to schedule the GMs the next day an hour later than usual, everyone was able to enjoy it with slightly less guilt. Still, this couldn’t eliminate the dread I felt cycling back to the hotel while the birds were already chirping. But nevertheless, LC Zurich made it to the noticeably less full and less energetic GM room the next day on time, and with the help of the graciously provided RedBull, vitamin tablets and bananas, we persisted without earning ourselves a spot in LC Siesta (a chat where everyone falling asleep outside of a bed is posted). That evening, I originally just wanted to go to bed as early as possible to rest up for the upcoming weekend, but was persuaded by the chairperson of LC Ljubljana to at least check out the location of that night’s party: a rooftop bar in the oldest skyscraper in the former Yugoslavia, called “Nebotičnik”. This was by far the fanciest party and many people took joy in showing off their most professional attire, but as someone that only owns one button-down shirt back from my confirmation approximately 7 years ago, I took more interest in exploring the backrooms-esque lower floors of the skyscraper with some other adventurers.
Friday marked the end of the congress, but also the start of the following “International Motivational Weekend (IMW)”, where we left the city behind for “Dolenjske Toplice”, a beautiful small village about an hour from Ljubljana. For this we were also joined by a lot of new people, which unlike the hardworking individuals which attended congress, were still full of energy. Blessed by amazing weather, here I recovered from the strenuous and exciting week before.
But like during the week, time flew by on the weekend, and way too quickly it was time again to take the bus back to Ljubljana and from there part ways with the people it felt like we had already known for years. It was an amazing week, and I want to thank LC Ljubljana for their outstanding work with organizing this whole thing. This wasn’t my first time in Ljubljana, but also won’t have been my last.
