We were back.
Back to where we are each year. Back at THE IMW of LC Ljubljana.
33 adventurous EESTEC LC Zurich members travelled to the not-so-far lands of Slovenia to meet engineering students from all over Europe and to party together.
It all began Thursday night after the fortnightly meeting. After grabbing the essentials at Zurich’s Coop, 19 of us took the night train towards Ljubljana. Having our own barkeeper on board as well as disco lights combined with the ukulele sound, the train ride would deserve its own review. Surviving even the occasional emergency brake, we arrived safely in the capital of Slovenia. Meanwhile, the division back in Zurich was still attending lectures eager to finally walk out of the building and hop into their cars. Back abroad the well-rested 19 were wandering around the beautiful old town of Ljubljana. There was local food, a castle and craft beer. Slowly, more and more other LCs were arriving and before we knew it, we were on the legendary party bus heading north towards Kranjska Gora.
This lovely village nested in the Slovenian Alps was where the IMW was hosted. Since EESTEC LC Zurich managed to max out the originally planned location, we were staying in a different hostel a little west. The rooms were nice, clean and each had its own bathroom with a shower. The food was on a level with the Unimensa.
The schedule was straightforward: per night a party and during the full day a soft-skills training as well as going up to the lake. Friday night we were turning time back to the summer of 69 and were promoting free love dressed up in the most colourful clothes we could find. During this very night, all 14 new members of EESTEC LC Zurich passed the Mongolian ritual and are now officially part of the committee. (To find out what this ritual is compromised of you have to join yourself ;).
Saturday morning we dug into the mind of Elon Musk during the soft-skill training. In the afternoon we all went up to the lake Jasna to go for a swim, chill and show off our improvised raft. The landscape was truly impressive, felt like being right back home in the Swiss Alps. The following night was supposed to be a radioactive theme party, however, we decided unicorns are what the cool kids wear and so it came that EESTEC LC Zurich overtook the night with unicorns. The night was closed off with a spontaneous campfire at the bank of the river Sava. Sunday was packing, saying goodbye, strolling around Ljubljana once more, and heading back home in the evening. Noteworthy about this second train ride is that we empirically determined the holding capacity of a train compartment by increasing the human density of said volume up to the point where we were running out of additional humans. You should have seen the face of the border guard when he walked by our compartment with all of us in there. Monday at 10:34 we arrived back at Zurich HB after an amazing weekend.
Personally, it has been my first event with EESTEC. And I wasn’t alone! 13 other new members joined us, half of them were freshmen, including myself. When the IMW kept coming closer I started to become worried: Can I just go away from Thursday to Monday and still survive the exams? How will it be in a country I have never been to nor know the language? These worries however went away quickly. Since EESTEC works like a big family, I had no struggles whatsoever wandering around Slovenia. On the contrary, I learned that I know nothing about most of Europe and that it is time to change that. The exams too were no worries … alright, I am not sure about the exams yet, but through working harder in advance and afterwards, I kept on track. This weekend also gave me a true break from ETH life which is something that keeps my long-term efficiency up higher than attempting to study non-stop. [Update February 2019: I passed exam block A, so the review remains correct ;)] [Update September 2019: Block B is passed as well ;)]
All in all I am glad I participated in this IMW. I made friends, saw a new part of the world and had lots of fun.
If you are reading this and wondering whether or not you should take part in this event too, do yourself a favour and participate. You will not regret it!
