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1. Welcome

Dear ESNCard holders & Dear ESNFriends,

ESN is happy to inform you on many developments happened during the last month:

After the AGM in Prague we have a brand new board, new NRs, and new nations who have joined our network: a whole bunch of people who are ready to start a new stunning year living ESN spirit. We would like to thank all the people who were sharing their time and skills in ESN during last year: a wonderful job!!

Many of our sponsors are still with us to help us being successful international students: check out the new offers of SkyEurope Airlines and EMU.

Finally, we're inviting anyone who's interested, to check the Van trip at euripocket.tv

Enjoy reading the newsletter. For the first time, this Board of ESN International wishes you a nice continuation of your studies and a successful career.

Yours,
Giorgio, Matthias, Andim, Kamila and Francesca.

Contact: secretariat@esn.org
ESN c\o CRUI - CNR
Rue du Trone, 98
B-1050 Brussels
BELGIUM
Tel.: +32 (0) 2 2902 271
Fax.: +32 (0) 2 2902 280
Mob.: +32 (0) 485 924 512

For any questions regarding your subscription or to unsubscribe please contact the network administrator at na@esn.org.

2. ESNLive: Who are the new ESN Board Members?

Giorgio is the new President of ESN. He has been in Amsterdam in 2002-2003, after coming back discovered ESN only in October 2004. Quick career in ESN, in Febraury 2005 vice-president and in April 2005 President of ESN Milano Statale until January 2007, NR of Italy from AGM 2006 till AGM 2007. Now ready for this new adventure and looking forward to lead a wonderful team and a great association: ESN! Pallomeri!!!

Matthias: hi! I am the new Vicepresident! Back in 2005 when I joined ESN Winterthur , I couldn't imagine that. But now it's just amazing. Being in touch with so many people and receiving more e-mails than ever. And every single one makes me happy (spam excluded :-).

Kamila: hi. I'm a new Treasurer. I started with ESN in 2005 as soon as I began my studies.I haven't been on Erasmus yet but I've loved ESN from the very beginning because it gives a great opportunity to meet fantastic people and possibility to create and improve things with them. I'm looking forward to this year which will be whole filled with ESN.

Andim: Hello, I am the new Network administrator! I am studying Sound Engineering & Design. After I have come back from Erasmus, I created first section in my country: ESN ITU, Turkey. It is amazing how our network expanded at least in my country. In ESN I feel like I am in an imaginary world, everybody happy, willing to help each other, coming from different places, sharing a common culture: Erasmus....

Francesca: hi! I am the new regular board member. I got addicted with ESN immediately after my Erasmus, in Den Haag. I've graduated in Organizational Communication and I really like two things: the second one is travelling!

From left to right, top-down: Giorgio, Matthias, Andim, Kamila and Francesca.

3. Topic of the month: ESN's newest country: Iceland

The first thing you might ask yourself is where is this mystery land? Well I dont blame you for asking, since on many maps Iceland is left out! The answer is, we are a country of 300.000 inhabitants at the most northern part of Europe, far away from the mainland.

The second thing you should know about Iceland is that it is nowhere near as cold as its name implies. The average January day in Reykjavmk is about the same temperature as it is in New York City.

So why this unattractive name?? Well, there is an old legend saying, that the first vikings that came to the island wanted to keep this beautiful place to themselves. Therefor they named this green island Iceland and the icy country next to us Greenland, to lure the travellers to go there instead.

A few years ago ISA, international studentsassociation, was founded at the University of Iceland. At the post CNR meeting in Prague we where accepted as a section of ESN under the section name ESN-HI Iceland. The association has been growing a lot, especially during this academic year, amongst our planned activities have been weekly Thursday parties that have become quite popular between both foreign and icelandic students, Glacier trips, hiking and a traditional icelandic food party.

If you are interested in coming to Iceland any time soon, an overnight weekend where were we will be going river rafting and having a big barbeque in the evening and a trip to the blue lagoon are among the upcoming trips.

Hope to see you soon in Iceland

Eva Rss Baldursdsttir,
Vice president of ISA and NR of Iceland

4. Our partners introduce:

SkyEurope

SUMMER IN THE CITY

The last chance to book summer flights for the lowest fares!

Flights in May and June from 19 - one-way, incl. taxes

Booking period: April 18, from 6 pm  April 22.
Travel period: May 1  June 30 2007.

BOOK BY SUNDAY!

Sun and Fun ESN Spring Festival in Cyprus - May 14th -19th 2007

ESN Cyprus is having one of the biggest ever events in the Eastern Mediterranean University by ESN Famagusta in the OC, The place which is just 200 meter away from the seaside. The event is the spring festival in its 14th year which attracts 23000 visitors within the festival days,
33 Places are open for ESN members with only 20 euro for the 6 days in Cyprus Island included accommodation, meals, drinks, festival entrance and beach club entrance!

For registration proceed to http://www.emu.edu.tr/isoc/esn
Festival will be soon on web as: http://www.emu.edu.tr/fest
More details contact: isoc@emu.edu.tr

5. Get Involved: EUROMOBIL

language training and information programmes promoting student mobility

The EUROMOBIL multimedia language training and information programmes are being developed for 9 European languages with the support of the European Commission and will be available in autumn 2007 at http://www.euro-mobil.org (free download). They are intended to promote university student exchange into the following countries: Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and the United Kingdom.

These nine EUROMOBIL programmes are not mere variations of one master programme in different languages but individually developed applications reflecting the needs of exchange students in the countries in question. As such, they are based on needs analyses carried out in partner countries, and differ in content and form. However, they all provide language training along with socio-cultural information on the target countries and universities.

Three programmes are intended for advanced learners  DE, EN and FR  as exchange students in these countries are expected to study in local languages. To prepare exchangees for various academic situations in DE, EN and FR universities, authentic video recordings are used along with language learning tasks. Further, the French programme offers tasks on two lower levels (beginner and intemediate), taking into account differences in FR language skills among incoming students.

Programmes in the remaining six less widely used and taught languages (CZ, FI, HU, PL, PT, and RO) develop and train survival skills for coping with everyday situations as the need for acdemic communication in the target language is less pressing. The topics and vocabulary reflect the survey and analysis of students4 needs as well as internal evaluation of pilot versions with exchange students. The EUROMOBIL programmes provide intercultural learning in new environments (not only an offline application, but also an online plurilingual discussion forum for exchanging views and experiences) and can be used in autonomous as well as in blended learning.

6. What's going on in Europe besides ESN?

Affectionate observer of the Erasmus generation that he captured on film in L'Auberge Espagnole, French director Cidric Klapisch depicts a chaotic and extremely vibrant Europe.

At 46, you are nearly the same age as the European Union. Do you think European cinema and the Union have grown at the same rate?
No, I believe that political Europe and European cinema have little in common. There are several 'Europes', just like there are several 'Frances', several 'Parises', several 'mes'. There is the Europe of Brussels, the Europe of farmers, the Europe of students, the Europe of footballers, the Europe of rockers, the Europe of filmmakers... these are different Europes at different phases.

The message that I tried to get across with L'auberge Espagnole ('Pot Luck', 2002) is that political Europe is constructed 'alongside' that being built by the leaders of each member state. Erasmus students have their own way of imagining a new Europe, which is not quite that which Brussels wishes to create.

The concrete result is that those twenty-somethings live Europe in an intimate and everyday way. It isn't Brussels that has invented the European identity. It existed long before that, in the regular exchanges of the literary, scientific and philosophical communities.

See the rest of the article on cafebabel.com.