by Pascal de Kruyff and Rianne van Asperen
Pascal: This year’s European Board Meeting took place in a locale most of us havent had the pleasure to visit before – Riga, Latvia. Of course – AEGEE being AEGEE – a few of us from locals Tilburg, Utrecht and Enschede decided we could miss a week’s worth of uninteresting courses, and took a tour of northern and eastern Europe. We had to prepare for Riga, of course! Or, at least, that is the excuse some of us (or was it just me..?) used to justify the trip to ourselves. To simplify – and stay within the word limit – I wrote down the itinerary below:
Amsterdam>Helsinki>Talinn>Riga>Amsterdam
Each of these cities left a memorable impression in each of us. Helsinki was, in a word, expensive. If you think the Netherlands is bad, I urge you to try Finland. You won’t be disappointed by the 5 euro beers! We continued on to Talinn by ferry, where we tried to fit as many activities in our program as we could. I am especially proud to say that we managed to visit two museums (although the latter seemed strikingly more like a for-profit forest rather than a museum). You have my thanks, Rianne, for steering us away from beer and into culture!
When we arrived in Riga, most of us were eager to start our adventure at the EBM. I say most of us, because it turned out that a bunch of light sweaters and a summer jacket weren’t meant to deal with temperatures down to the -30′s Celsius. The timing was, as always, perfect; I was lying on bed with pneumonia the day the EBM started. Though it was a shame I had to miss the event I actually came for, I have absolutely no regrets about the trip that came before!
Rianne: Also I chose to take the journey to the very very cold countries Finland Estonia and Latvia. And luckily, I survived! I was happy that Pascal could stay with a friend in Riga, and at least could attend some parts of the EBM. My fellow board members Joske and Yifan also joined the EBM, so we had a nice group there! J. EBM started on Wednesday with a very nice opening ceremony, in which we saw traditional Latvian dances. After that there was a very good party in an old factory building (very communistic style? 
). On Thursday we were fit to attend the opening plenary, singing Brabant (well, not all of us know the song very well , I still blame them! :S). After that there were several workshop sessions and action meetings which were very interesting. We spread as much as possible, telling eachother afterwards what we had learned. On Thursday evening there was the European Night, which was very special for all our AEGEE Tilburg delegates… Especially Yifan made a memorable performance, he is still known as the flying Chinese of AEGEE Tilburg (Do ask for stories!). Friday there were workshops and meetings again, followed by a beach party in which Joske did some good volley balling activity. Resulting in very tired participants on the Saturday. So I also have to admit that I used this day for a bit sightseeing in Riga as well, a beautiful city! That night we had a party in a very high building in Riga, so we had a wonderful view over Riga-by-night. Thanks a lot to the organizers, who did a great great job this EBM!! And.. Yes I survived also the EBM, but I did have to sleep the entire Sunday in the hostel, could not even sightsee anymore. Vincent and Paulus needed a 50cm pizza to recover, which was also proof to their crazyness after so many heavy days!