How we met

How we met

Nadia and Wessel met in the cafeteria in Minsk, Belarus (around 1AM on May 1 2015). You can check out the restaurant on TripAdvisor, here >>> LINK 

Both of them were part of youth organisation AEGEE, Wessel in the final stages of his master studies, and Nadia as a young lawyer in a Baltic-Belarus law firm. Through this youth organisation, Eindhoven-Minsk culture exchange was organised.

Initially Nadia did not even want to go to the event, she was tired from work, and was quite lazy. She also did not know anything neither about Eindhoven or Netherlands and this exchange was never on top of her list.

 

Odds  number one: maybe exchange  would never happen??

Fun fact: in year 2014 Nadia, final year student, was president of Minsk division of AEGEE and that was when AEGEE-Eindhoven contacted her for the first time to organise the event.  Nadia ignored the message of AEGEE-Eindhoven since she was not motivated to organise even more events (their planning was quite busy)…. Time flew, and new board of Minsk local actually made the event happen. And she managed to show up at Olivie at the said time.

 

Odds number two: Maybe we would not meet on the first night and have no time to get to know each other before the whole entertainment started next day??

Nadia and some other people were waiting for “Dutch guuuyss” to show up in Olivie. That is hardly best place in Minsk, and people claim even finding a milk bag in their soup 😉 Place was chosen since it works 24/7 and is not very crowded, so big group can easily fit without reservation.

But on the other side of town, Dutch guys, leaded by people actually involved in event organisation (unlike Nadia who took a passive role) led then to another cafeteria. They did not want to drag them to Olivie… Good that late at night, the mind was changed, and the group of Dutch guys ended up in Olivie… where Nadia also was, for the past 5 hours already.

Despite all the odds, Nadia and Wessel met. And everything rest lays a history….

The Proposal