english & general Franchu on 05 Dec 2007 02:48 pm
Friendship without borders…
This weekend I did one of those crazy things that you can do when you are young.
The story started some weeks ago when we received a mail telling us that there would be a party in Leiden (Holland) to celebrate the success of the YES2 project. It seemed very tempting, but still, going to Holland for a weekend sounded a little bit extreme and expensive, so I discarded the idea without checking for any flights 
Some days later, a good friend of mine asked me on Google Talk if I was going to the party and I told him that I didn’t think I would. His answer was something like: “Are you sure there are no cheap tickets?”. And that was the wrong sentence to say, because I wasn’t sure and I had to check. I went to the Ryanair website and managed to find really cheap tickets, and a few minutes later we had return tickets for both of us
The trip was fun, in the beginning I had planned to sleep in the plane, but we spent all the time talking and getting updated in what had happened in our lives since the last time we had met
When we got to Leiden, we were welcomed at Mixalis’ (the place we were supposed to spend the night at) and there was a bunch of people already there. Polish people playing tangram, Mathieu and Ili talking about how to do a 24V to 12V converter, Mixalis telling us about his YGT at ESTEC… a great atmosphere with some really amazing people. We had to wait for Franck and the other germans that were coming by car and that against all odds were late! Damm, even the germans are not following the standards anymore!!! 
After everybody made it to the house, we went for a kebab and then to the party in Delta-Utec’s office. It was great to meet again many of the people I had worked with long time ago when I was involved in the project.
Michiel & Erik, it was great to see it happening, I wish you all the best for a reflight and further projects at DU.
Fabio, you are as crazy as always. The world is sad enough as it is and we need people with your energy to make it a better place to live.
Quentin (P’tit croissant) & Elise, good luck for NZ. Keep in touch, and let us know how is life down there 
Ilias and Mathieu, good luck with your company in Greece, I am sure you will do great!
Marco, Maria, Age, Mixalis, Franck, Casi, Arianna and all the others I cannot remember right now, thank you for making this weekend a source of good memories.
For those who were not there, you can check the pictures that Fabio has put online.
On the way back from Leiden, we stopped in Eindhoven where I met some friends from BEST and again I felt the warmth you get when you meet people who are important to you and that you don’t meet face-to-face really often even if you are all the day in contact with them.
In one weekend I met people from Italy, Greece, France, Romania, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Turkey, Finland, Switzerland, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Russia, Macedonia, Croatia and Spain… and I felt great around them, I am a European Citizen just like my friend Fabio summarized in his blog.