Day 5 (Friday, 6th of October 2022): 

board game activities: fixing the ideas of our collaboration;

visiting Turđa in Ossiek;

experiencing nature in national park Kopatcki rit

Board game activities: fixing the ideas of our collaboration

The morning was dedicated to the board game activity again. We worked in six groups again. The groups were international again, but this time each group was connected to one country. The group members compared the ideas (historical even, scenery, main task for the characters) from the previous day that were connected to the country of their group and decided which of those ideas should be the one that should be further developed in an online-collaboration during the next months. They added some thoughts how the characters of "their" game could have different powers and weaknesses and how this diversity could make the game  more challenging and interesting.

We could see how the experiences of the last days had influenced our way of inventing the games. Most groups had the idea that persons from different countries and cultures should work together to bring peace or prevent violence. This was true e.g. for the French setting "Help Louis XIV to bring peace again after his wars" and "Make the Berlin wall fall". Also the Croatian scientis Nikola Tesla should work together with other European scientists (some of them time travellers) to make sure that European science and engineering was used for peace and improved quality of life. 

With this we had reached the first milestone of the "board game activity".

We also agreed about the next tasks:

• for the students: to report at home to their local Erasmus groups and, in their local group, to elaborate the strategies and the board for the game whose story started in their own country
• for the teachers: to let the students of their local Erasmus group chose one country to whose game they would like to contribute ideas and to give the students' school email address to the teacher of that country and
• to contact the students from the other countries and to establish communication channels (e.g. email group or video chat) so that national work and international contribution could meet each other during the next steps of the production process.

Visiting Turđa in Ossiek

We finished this "kick off meeting" for our new project year with another educational trip. Our hosts showed us Tvrđa (Fortress), the old town of Osijek (biggest city and administrative centre of the region of our Croatian partners) with its impressive citadel at the bank of the river Drava, its Baroque buildings, interesting life today (no cars, nightlife), schools (we could here the flute ensemble of the music school through the windows when we passed by), museum and St. Michael’s church.

We also learned that the fortress had been constructed according to the plans of Vauban, an engineer of Louis XIV, and that the location had been of great strategic importance when the Habsburg and the Ottoman empire were fighting against each other. Croatia, obviously, alway had to try to keep its special identity under various rulers.

Experiencing nature in national park Kopatcki rit

Another experience was waiting for us. Some more miles and we reached the national park Kopački Rit. Its an ecosystem where water is coming and going, a wetland among the rivers Daube and Drava and their many sidearms. The Erasmus team from Northern Germany felt quite at home when they recognised the reeds, the marshes, the dykes... An interactive exhibition gave us the chance to learn more about the wildlife in Kopački rit and the diversity of species there. For two hours we just walked, enjoyed the silence of this nature or talked to each other. Because we know: This was the last evening together.

And this last evening together ended with a dinner in a traditional Croatian restaurant. When the skye became dark everybody was outside in the still warm air, enjoying the last moments together. Because the Slovenian team was the first one to leave, already this evening, already from this place, and the others the next morning. At this moment we felt: During this week, we all had become ONE team.