by Bennet Berg participant for Germany:
Somewhere between sleeping and being awake I arrived in Athens airport. Actually I was not excited. The reason might be the sleepless but wet night before.
Anyway, as soon as the sun rays touched my skin I was energized again!
Olya picked me up at Omonia metro station and lead me to our hotel “Exarchion”. Looking back it was a good idea, as I would have been lost.
At “Exarchion” I first met the Italian participants, we chatted shortly, then I took a shower. Totally refreshed the whole thing could start.
Hour after hour more people arrived. Almost complete we gathered on the hotels rooftop to have a small introduction. I remember the most important rule for this exchange: “Always be punctual”. Well.. now it seems like the common opinion was that rules are made to be broken.
After a long game for remembering names (the point when I realized that my brain is not that messed up) I just went to sleep, while the most people went out.
Next morning we all got to know “The Cube”. The best place to spend a day, while the sun is shining outside!
Especially when you’re from a country where you’re not used to sun in winter, like Iceland and Estonia. And we spend much time there…
From here I’m going to sum up my experience to keep it short:
During the whole program I didn’t feel that I give love to the citizens of Athens, except for the talks with the refugees. Here I found at least one person who needed AND accepted love. That might sound like I was disappointed, but the opposite was the case.
Although it looks like the program failed to spread love in Athens, in my opinion it worked out well, in an unexpected way.
We became such a positive, love and happiness radiating group that when we were out during the day and evenings/nights we simply infected the people around us, the people of Athens.
Actually I’d prefer to replace “group” with “family”. This word suits the atmosphere better.
I saw many foreigners smiling because of our family.
And here I want to say “Thank you” to the creators and organizers and supporting people of the project, because of you we met each other. By giving the title “Love in action” you made, in a way, clear that only people who are open to love will apply for this.
The program of the project may play a big role if you have the aim to give love to a city and the inhabitants. But if the people you choose are full of this love, the program plays a smaller role.
Thank all of you!
------------------------------------
Read the reports of the 4 actions during "Love in Actions" programme
