We are completely sure that you remember the information that Travel House in Athens last year hosted almost 500 people, which was a nice record. At that point we realized that we made it up to maximum number of travellers and also maximum of the energy and willingness that our volunteers gave for this project. Every year same problem and fear – neighbours will tell on us, landlord will kick us out and whole project would be totally ruined. That, unfortunately happened in Tbilisi. In Athens we were lucky with empty apartment next to us, but neighbours under us again complained. Aveiro was different – no complaints by neighbours, no kicking out, no painting the walls – only problems we had were tap in the kitchen that didn’t work some little time and “a little” clogged bath tub.
This year, we realized that it was the time to change the concept. So we did it. In the very west point of Europe Travel House is transformed for 30 days in Travel School. This year we had a new element – workshops. Our volunteers conducted 30 workshops mostly inside the School but also some of them were outside. Locals took part in workshops as well. Besides that, we had more volunteers, less guests and our School was opened one month, a month less than previous Travel houses. Landlord knew that we will have guests and workshops. She saw that we protected the walls and that we will take care about apartment. Whenever she was in short visit we didn’t have to throw stuff, hide shoes and information from walls. All these facts made this year a bit more relax for us all.
Every day was full of activities. Sun, smile, sand, wine, ocean, Aveiro itself – all these things made this Travel School remembered only for good. We learned some phrases in Portuguese, fell in love with tripas, codfish and many, many other delicious Portuguese dishes. Great thing during the summer in Portugal are festivals. Many of our travellers went to or came from some of those festivals. We all visited on in Aveiro. Few days ago, we were even more diligent and repaired colour of the famous I♥Aveiro graffiti.
And now numbers: In our Travel School we had 82 travellers during 32 nights. They were from 25 different countries and 4 continents. On workshops 100 people took part. Total number of overnight stays is 364. This year we didn’t have any campaigns and we didn’t collect money before School. Our aim was to collect all the money from the travellers in the School. We’ve got huge support of our travellers which we can see according to donations. All together we have 823 euros, and from the School is 726. Besides, our guest were buying toilet paper, oil, light bulbs etc. on their own. So, we only spent 20 euros for everyday supplies. Average donation is 9 euros per person, which is double than previous years. This is great motivation for us all to continue developing this project. Thanks to all travellers for that! Our bills are not yet here so all the financial data we will present in next and last post about School. In this moment only thing we know is that rent is 500 euros. Even if we did not have enough money for all bills, the surplus left from last year's house will be enough. Thanks again to all travellers, and to all who actively took part in our workshops, cleaning the house and helped us to bring with smile this project to an end.
Photo: The Travel Club and Jamie Anderson
