Success before holidays!

What a week! On Sunday, as planned, the afternoon was spent in Tervuren, celebrating Renaldas' birthday with nice friends, some food and drinks, and lots of sports! Tervuren's park is a really nice place, and it is a pity that the weather in this region of the world doesn't really allow to enjoy the grass by the ponds more often... On that same day I went to watch « In Bruges » at the movies, and liked it a lot. It was a good reconciliation with cinema, after the very disappointing experience with « The Happening »... Contrary to the latest Night Shyamalan's movie, « In Bruges » is a pleasant surprise, with great actors who deliver a great performance, on the basis of a simple, yet beautiful, clever, funny and sensitive story. The following day, as I have announced already on Saturday, I went back to Strasbourg to hunt signatures for the written declaration on devoting more attention to youth empowerment in EU policies. This time I went with a bigger team of very skilled hunters and the outcome was a huge success: not only we manage to get the 117 signatures that we were still lacking, but we did it even ahead of schedule! It was an unique moment of joy, and a quite rare one too. Achieving a goal is always pleasant, but it is even more so when you do it as a team and therefore can share and multiply the pleasure by and among the team members. Alix, especially, did a great job and deserves indeed all our respect and admiration! And so does Dagmar, not only for the signatures, but also for all the logistical preparations for the expeditions. And Ernest, Mark and Marketa who completed the team and contributed not only with signatures, but also with their good mood, which was an important source of inspiration! But this is not a 6-people success; this is the success of many young people and many youth organisations working together, and shows that when we believe, we plan and work hard and together, we can! Yes we can! Personally, this was the perfect way to conclude my last week at work before going on holidays. I am sure that I would leave for holidays in a slightly worse mood, if we wouldn't have done it; but we did it and, therefore, tomorrow I will leave Brussels behind and will head South, to this place that I still call home, where the sun shines, the temperatures are high, and the beach invites to relax and enjoy. And that's exactly what I plan to do for the next two weeks. With Francisco!