Exchanging cultures in the Sea Battle

This year a record number, one hundred, exchange students from Latvia were participating in the trip Sea Battle. In total around two thousands students from Baltic Sea coast countries were traveling two days from the Gulf of Finland to capital of Sweden. The home countries of Erasmus exchange students in Riga include neighboring Baltic States’ countries, European Union countries, USA, Russia and South America. “The main aim of the trip, besides having  fun and enjoying excursions, is to gather together people from all the world at one place,” says Dita Bogdane, Erasmus Student Network – Riga (ESN-Riga) member and main Sea Battle coordinator from Latvia.     “Sea Battle was one of the highlights of my entire Erasmus study abroad experience,” says Karlene Griberg, half Latvian by nationality and a visiting student from USA, Nebraska State, at the moment. There were several activities on the company’ s Tallink Silja Line ferry the Baltic Queen, including salsa courses, speed dating, karaoke and others. “Games introduced us to the other groups on the cruise which allowed us to ask how they were spending their time abroad. It was interesting to see, how similar we all were and, yet, how very different our locations were for our study period,” says K. Grinberg. “I think Sea Battle is a great opportunity to meet a huge amount of different cultures in two days – we met a lot of people from different countries and cultural backgrounds, and we had a possibility to exchange ideas and points of view,” adds Luana Raican, Erasmus Exchange student from Paris, France. On the first day of the trip students had opportunity to have an excursion, in Tallin, held by Estonian ESN team. On the second day students experienced Stockholm. “Stockholm definitely became one of my favorite cities in the Europe,” says Ertan Kaygisiz, exchange student from Turkey, Antalya. “We had everything – fun, local food, laughs and just an amazing time,” adds K. Grinberg. The main coordinator of Sea Battle is ESN-Sweden. Trip is organized annually every autumn and spring semester. The ferry is just for exchange and visiting students, which creates unique atmosphere – impossible to find anywhere else, says Santa Jastrebova, ESN-Riga member. ESN is an international organization, which has 357 local sections in 34 countries. The main idea of organization is “students helping students”. Members of ESN are organizing cultural, out-of-university events and helping students to adjust themselves into the new environment. Usually members of ESN have studying abroad experience as well.