About our trip to Slovakia

About our trip to Slovakia

From March 25 to March 31, I had the chance to go to Slovakia, more precisely in Brezno, with 3 other students from Rabelais and two more students from Les Côtes de Villebon vocational high school.

At first, the other students and I dreaded the trip a little bit because we didn’t really know the Slovak culture and had only in mind a few clichés and prejudices. We realised that we were wrong from the first night when we slept at our penfriends’ and discovered wonderful people and soon bonded with them.

Of course, Slovakia is different from France, first of all, it’s an eastern culture with its folklore. About that last point, it seems that folklore and traditions hold a much bigger place in Slovakia than in France and every kid knows some songs or dances.

There were Slovaks, Poles and French people. Together we took part in workshops and did some projects about prejudices and stereotypes, which allowed us to discover that Slovaks seem more conservative about some points than French and maybe more open about other things than us.

As a conclusion, I would like to say how important I think it is it is to keep this project going on – we had this amazing opportunity to discover a culture and a country that we knew little about and might never have wondered about, we had the chance to get rid of our prejudices by sharing and comparing ideas and viewpoints. We hope to keep in touch with the people we met and maybe to welcome them in Meudon some time in the future so as to share with them our culture and ways like they did with us.
Gaëlle L