So, enjoy some of the pictures we took there, because it’s worth it. Three of us (me, Tudor and Gabi) had the chance to see Turkey by car, too, and you can see some pictures of our road trip, also.

I’ve had a great time there and I am preparing for the EC in Turku, next year, as for the New Delhi WC in November 2008.

More pics HERE.

Now, the bad:

1. The weather

Someone said, jokingly, that he should ask for a refund, since the package received said something like “sunny weather”. Unfortunately, we only had sun for 3 days and I only got to swim in the sea just in one of these days (when the water was still warm – for my standards, anyway. Some friends of mine still thought it was cold). The other days it was freakin’ cold.

More, we had a lot of rain and, in the last 2 days, it was quite windy and stormy.

Well, this wasn’t so bad, after all, come to think of it, since we were forced to stay inside and, thus, get to know each other more (who knows, maybe I wouldn’t have bumped in the right person(s) if it wasn’t for the bad weather).

2. The trainings (the canceled ones)

Actually, I only attended two of the trainings, so I cannot speak about the overall quality. I enjoyed “Positive Persuasion” a lot, since it is the first training I’ve been to with an US trainer (Patrick Knight) and it was everything I thought it would be and more. I also enjoyed “Leadership Cocktail”, Niko Kleinknecht’s training, because I had the chance to talk in front of people (I always feel it is really great to get used to things like this. I do workshops and trainings in Romania, about blogging – business and corporate – so it helps).

Still, the problem with both of these trainings: I didn’t want to go to any of them!

Yeah, I wanted to attend the Management and Entrepreneurship trainings and ALL OF THEM GOT CANCELED! (Later edit: someone told me not all of them got canceled, but the ones I wanted to attend did – and there were 4 or 5 – , so I am sorry if I mislead anybody). If I only knew so many trainers would cancel, I would have told the Turkish organizers to tell me to have a blogging and online communication training, along with a “How to become and Internet search power user” taste. I am sure a lot of people would have come (really, a lot of the people I talked to seemed genuinely interested).

Back to all the canceled trainings. Really, this is one thing I would have enjoyed doing a lot (we actually paid some money just for those, didn’t we?) and didn’t have the chance. Management (personal and project) is something I can really get a lot better with and I have had high hopes.

3. The Gala Night

The two rooms. On different levels. Decorated differently. I know, I understand, there were more people than initially registered, there was no bigger room. I know all the reasons, but it still made me feel bad. One good thing about it is the fact I had the chance to get to talk to Anthony Blenman, one of the JCI senators, without disturbing the speeches, a talk that gave me a lot of motivation to continue with JCI.

Back to Gala Night: I hope future congresses will think about this and reconsider separating the groups. Really, I didn’t feel anything glamorous about the night. And I would have wanted to.

4. Shadowing day

This is my personal pet peeve. As a first timer I got the chance to shadow a senator (a lottery at the First Timers Briefing). It didn’t happen. Reasons unknown to me (I suppose what they are, but it doesn’t make me feel any better). And I woke up at 7 am for it – I usually sleep until noon, so I only slept like 3 hours.

Still, I proposed that senator that at 2008 World Congress, he should shadow me, get an idea of what it was like back then, when he was new in JCI and would have really appreciated a talk from one of those that made senator. Fortunately for me, I had the chance of talking to Anthony Blenman at the Gala Night (as already said previously) and really got the surplus motivation and enthusiasm I needed. I will let you know how it went.

Conclusion:

All and all, it wasn’t a bad congress. I heard better things about other congresses, worse things about others. Being my first one, I cannot tell.

I am glad, though, I waited almost 2 weeks for the things to cool down, because if I would have written all these things exactly when they happened, they would have been a lot more aggressive, and undeservingly so. The good things about the JCI World Congress surpass the bad things a lot of times over, especially for me.

So, final words? I liked it. A lot. With all the flaws. I will be in Turku, in Finland, at the JCI European Conference, in June 2008, so let’s meet there Antalya 2007 already went into our memories.

I have been quite late with this, but bear with me, we all have things to do, gossips to entertain with our friends, clients to meet at the end of the office hours, fast rides through the city to get somewhere to get 10 more minutes to talk. So, this is it:

Things I liked at the JCI World Congress.

1. The people.

I met so many like-minded people it would have took me years to find the same number of people one by one. The people I’ve met were fun, wanting to have a better life, wanting to be better (in business, in sports, in life) and wanting to meet different people and culture. It also made me a lot more eager to leave in my trip around the World.

2. The location (Kremlin and Topkapi Hotels).

First I hated the place. We had so much to walk between the trainings, the hotel, the football field… But then I started to enjoy it and ended in loving it. I felt like being in a village where everybody knows everybody. We would meet in the lobby over a cup on internet (or Turkish tea ), we would meet on the football field while cheering for our favorites, we would meet at trainings and, of course, we always managed to meet in between all these spots. More, you had the pool there, the sea, everything you wanted. I actually didn’t get out of the complex for the 6 days the congress lasted.

3. The Turks.

I have to make a separate chapter for them, since they were the hosts. I have a more personal reason to like them, but I will try not to let my personal feelings to interfere with it (you will see that when you will read the not so good things about the Congress). Going back to the Turks: they really made us feel welcome (at least I felt welcome) and they went out of their way to make us feel good (even if they didn’t manage to please everybody – I will get back to that). Still, they were always smiling, always telling us everything we wanted to know (and things we didn’t want to: how many of the JCI WC participants knew that you could eat a great soup at 1-2 am in the restaurant of the Kremlin Hotel? We didn’t, but find out from them).

Previously, I thought a lot of bad things about Turkish people. A little history here: Romania was under Turkish control for about 500-600 years, starting with 1300s till the 1880s. All we heard when we were little were how courageous the Romanians fought against the big armies of the Otoman Empire. So, no matter how open minded you are, things like this will stay with you for a long time. As a consequence, imagine my surprise when I have found myself actually liking them and enjoying their company.

There are a lot of things I think could have been better, but those, another time Subscribe to the blog to find out.

I try to be objective but I can’t: Bulgaria, build a f$%#in’ ROAD to cross the country. Romania might not have the best roads, but at least they ARE there, without holes, with signs and paint on them.

I have to say thanks to all the people that helped us there, overcoming the language barrier and putting us on the right track (yes, GPS and maps didn’t help, since the roads were presented as good roads).

When I got in Romania I felt like getting out of the car and kissing the road. Finally, at around 2 am, I was home.

See some videos:

Thankfully, I got to sleep for about 9 hours today (the first time since I left for Antalya, 9 days ago – it seems like a year, sometimes) so I will be a lot more cheerful than I was yesterday (being tired or plain sad for leaving, I do not know… though I can guess).

I will be in Bucharest tonight, so expect a post about all the good and not so good things, seen through the eyes of a 3 months old JCI-er.

I hope everybody got home ok and had a great time in Antalya.

I had a lot of fun these days (thus the lack of posts), not doing anything else but networking and enjoying the inside pool. Oh, I have been to a training about leadership. The trainer used a parallel between mixing a cocktail and different styles of leadership. A nice idea, and a catchy one while at that.

Ah, and the German team lost the final against Switzerland. I didn’t really know whether to be happy (since they were the ones that eliminated us) or sad, since the Germans are really a nice bunch. Anyway, they lost 5-0 so we just high fived them all day yesterday (or, better, high funfed ).

Ah, as usual, we really did party at night, Tunisian and Syrian Nights being the place where we really showed everyone how to dance to the music of the Orient ) The Romanian gipsies manele really proved to be a good training in the last 10 years for all Romanians

I can’t tell you how sad I am to leave Antalya. The silk in the pool, the talks, the people… I have found some energy and motivation I have thought I have lost and I really found out what JCI really means. JCI Romania is still young, but I will try to make a summary post of the ups and downs of this JCI World Congress for a first timer and, more, for a freshman (since I have been in JCI for the last 2 months).

So I stepped into my office (as some friend said, since I literally work anywhere I have an internet connection) for about an hour, to sort out some emails, but then I got to the beach. The water was very cold, unfortunately, even for me (I do not really complain too much about the temperature of the water, but it was COLD!). So, I rode a skyjet for the first time in my life. And I tell you, was that an experience! I love riding motorcycles, but flying over the waves is at least equal to that. At some point, I was going at around 70kmh(45 mph), and it was AWSOME! And yes, I avoided to get in the water at any costs, because I didn’t want to have a heart attack.

Got back to the room, but not for long, since some silky temptation drove me to the inside pool of the hotel: swimming, sauna, Turkish bath, jacuzzi, you name it. There were some great moments in the 2 hours I’ve spent there.

I am preparing for the Japanese party tonight, so I will keep you informed.

Yesterday was a great party night. I danced for about 3 hours on the club beats in the US Party tent (I met Patrick Knight, yesterday’s trainer, that invited me to Miami, to take me to all the clubs in the city – Patrick, I will forgive you if you will not remember BTW, you promised me a hat), then I went to the Canadian Party, a great one, where I have had a great time dancing on music from my turmoiled youth and felt like I was in summer camp again – including looking around for THAT person The Americas Party wasn’t me type of party (I have a good friend that would have enjoyed it A LOT), so I only stayed there for 30 minutes.

Finally, I went to the lobby to put me feet up and enjoy the quiet of the night and the company I had.

That wasn’t so bad, though I would have wanted to follow him around, but I hope I will sort this out in some other day. It wasn’t so bad because I got to attend a great training session with Patrick Knight, about Persuasion. It was interesting and dynamic, the sort of presentation I would have expected from an US trainer.

Next, we got our asses kicked by the German’s in the football tournament. The worst part of it was that we almost won, but conceded a goal in the last minute. Gary Lineker was right: “Football is a game in which 22 players play and the Germans win”.

Afterwards I blew the steam by swimming in the pool and in the sea (yeah, the sun came up, finally).

I met a lot of new people today, now I have to go to the restaurant. I will probably write more in a few hours, since Andreea, our president, is bossy enough to make me hurry up.

I have succesfully gone through my first JCI World Congress full day here, in Antalya. I have attended, of course, the First Timers Briefing, where I had the good fortune of being picked – by lottery – to “shadow” one of the JCI Vice Presidents: Mounir Baatour. I will have to wake up at 7am in the morning (now that is the most difficult part of day) and take breakfast, then walk around not letting him go out of my sight. I read a little about his activity in JCI and I am sure I will have a ton of things to find out about the organization.

Next, after the First Timers Briefing, we went and play some football, in preparation for tomorrow’s football match against Germany. We lost the game thanks to a dreadful mistake on my part (I am the goalkeeper), but hopefully I will not make the same mistake tomorrow, in the official game.

Next, Business Networking Event. I have attended one in Romania, with Romanian entrepreneurs, and I kinda knew what to expect from it. Anyway, a lot of people are starting to get interesting in blogging (business blogging, of course): they ask a lot of questions when they hear what I do for a living and they seem genuinely interested. One important things in blogging is that it doesn’t have a targeted domain: any area of expertise can use it, starting from lawyers to bankers, from service providers to goods manufacturers.

By this time of the day (5pm) I was already starting to feel the lack of sleep and the effort on the football field. Nevertheless, I convinced some of my collegues to go to cheer for the Turkish football team, on their match against Syria. We were hoping to get them to cheer for us tomorrow, since we are not a big delegation and Germany is a HUGE one. That and, of course, they have some nice girls in the delegation and organization comitee

Turkey lost their match, unfortunately.

Finally, at the end of the day, TOYP (The Outstanding Young Persons of the World – look for the link and description in the left side column, because I cannot give you a direct link to the program – this is not good for both usability and Search Engines indexing, for my SEO readers ).

Next, I got to sleep an hour before going to the German Night Party. I overestimated my stamin, though, and after one hour I headed to my room. I have to sleep if I am be in good shape throught the second day.

I made a lot of pictures, but I still cannot use FTP to put the images on my server. I will put them on picasa tomorrow, so stay tuned

P.S.: It’s still raining and no, I didn’t swim in the Mediteranean Sea yet :-s

I am impressed, though the reviewers here were not too happy with their stay. The complex is BIG, but I cannot yet tell what and where, since we got here at around 5 pm, at night. And yes, it was raining all day today.

We went to Daniel‘s (you cannot read the blog from Turkey, since WordPress.com is banned here) room to change and to get to the Opening Cermony.

It was impressive, this is all I can say. I am speechless and I am getting a good idea of what JCI is really about. I will attend a training for first comers to a World Congress and I will probably know a lot more.

Afterwards, we attended the Turkish Nights Party, where I had a great time (I haven’t dance that much in the last 7 years). I haven’t seen so many people of different cultures and race in the same place in my entire life Anyway, we found out something: the music is the universal language, not mathematics