Day 8: IYLC Begins

It was another early start and a regretful goodbye to my wonderful hotel room (Breakfast was AH-MAY-ZING by the way) as I started the part of my journey that was actually the point of this trip in the end. I arrived ridiculously early to Milan Airport and was told upon check-in that my plane was delayed. No worries, I'd be fine, I knew I would be early to Prague anyway. No stress.

So grab a quick morning tea and head to the gates, where I waited. And waited. And waited. Then I sent an email to my mum (because I like scaring her.) We received no word, just that it was delayed. I didn't worry too much - after all, I had until 3pm in Prague to register (and even then, it turned out, I really had all day) - IYLC administrators would understand. When we were finally asked to board it took FOREVER - the line just didn't move for another half an hour. Ridiculous really.

But after that all went well. Flight was nice and quick - although I did want to spend my euros on an in-flight snack but they didn't notice me crammed up against the window. Their loss. When I touched down in Prague I grabbed my bag and headed out to be met by one of the facilitators to head to the conference.

Except no one was there.

Turned out, I had just missed them before they did a quick run back to the hotel with a batch of participants. I met the facilitator about ten minutes later (after I texted the organisers asking where everyone was) and was quickly introduced to a number of other participants from Pakistan and Swaziland who had also just flown in. As a group we took a bus and the subway (and our facilitator got so distracted by our conversation we missed our stop!) before arriving at the hotel.

Turns out there are a lot of Hotel Olympik in this area. We had a small one down the back end of the area. After settling in we went to the local supermarket and bought some lunch before meeting and mingling fellow participants. Next was registration where I met Asimah, my facilitator. She is really lovely, very supportive and kind. Bit quiet though.

That evening, after dinner, we had a group meeting where we got to know everyone. There's people from all over the world in my group: Somalia, Netherlands, USA, India just to name a few. I certainly am one of the youngest at the conference and there are a lot of high achievers. Marc from Boston has written a book about politics, Mustaf from Somalia runs a national youth empowerment organisation. It certainly is incredible and makes you realise how little you have achieved.

Tomorrow the conference begins for real, with a Model UN Security Council. I cannot wait, this conference is going to be so much fun!