From 14th to 16th of November ESN Lithuania delegation was participating in an International ESN event "Sea Battle", which is organized two times per year by ESN Sweden sections. This time Lithuania was represented by 50 participants (including 2 Group Leaders) from 7 different sections of ESN Lithuania: ESN Vilnius University, ESN VGTU, ESN MRU Vilnius, ESN ŠU, ESN VMU, ESN KTU and ESN KK.

In the morning of 14th of November our delegation finally arrived to Estonia, where they were met by cold sea breeze and a unique old town, which is included in the list of UNESCO's World Heritages Sites. Having a few hours before departure, it gave them the opportunity to explore the city. In the evening everyone gathered around in the Tallink Cruise ship Terminal-D, where they have shared tickets and signed participant contracts which binded to take responsibility for their own actions. Time to step in to the Tallink Silja Cruise ship "Baltic Queen" has finally come!

All the participants were settled in 4 place cabins, which were located on the same floor. This allowed them to communicate more conveniently. First evening they headed to Stockholm with only about 300 students from ESN sections of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The program of the first night invited everyone to parties, which were located in two different ship clubs: "Starlight Palace" and "Ibiza Club". Culmination of the evening was then few exchange students encouraged by hot blood and unfading enthusiasm were running on the deck half-naked :)

In the morning of 15th of November they have finally reached Stockholm. Here students could already feel the spirit of Christmas floating in the air, while Christmas Trees and Christmas Towns were being built in the centre of the city. After having some time for sightseeing, they came back to the cruise ship terminal, where it was very hard to get through queues, formed by Scandinavian students, who were waiting for their checking and getting on board.

After students from Sweden, Norway and Denmark have joined them, there were more than 2000 students on the cruise! Each of them had a great opportunity to participate in the informational meeting, where the NR of ESN Swedenn was teaching everyone the already so extremely popular ESN Sea Battle Movement dance. Later the evening program offered activities for everyone – starting from Speed Dating, Crazy Games, Pub Quiz, ending with a Karaoke event which turned out to be quite popular among international students, Salsa lessons or two different parties in the two clubs of the ship.

While foreign students were having fun, Group Leaders and security of the ship (in other words "the people in blue or yellow T-Shirts" as they were called by passengers) were taking care of everyone’s safety and maintaining order in corridors and territories of clubs.

In the morning of 16th of November ESN Lithuania delegation left the ship. "Sea Battle’11 Autumn" was over for them, but continued for students from ESN Sweden, ESN Norway and ESN Denmark. During those days and nights many things have happened. Some of them were funny, some – painful, but all in all everyone came back safely, with many adventures to tell and ready to repeat ESN Movement in up-coming "Sea Battle" events!

Julija Garšvaitė