WHERE WE GO?

 

WHY EUROPIONIA ?

As a willing SU participant, you’ve got many opportunities of Summer Universities to choose within. But when it comes to the question “Why you should choose EuropIONIA?”, we’ve got various amount of answers :)

Thematics:
Once upon a time…
We came across Eurobarometer 69 (November 2008,p.68), which mentioned

4. The way the European Union works
4.1 Knowledge of the European Union
- Europeans' knowledge of the European Union is stable -
When tested via a "quiz question" on their knowledge of the European Union, two thirds of Europeans knew that Switzerland was not a member of the European Union (68%).
More than half of respondents gave the right answer to the question on the exact number of Member States (52%) and knew that, every six months, a different country took over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union (51%). On the other hand, only 28% of the people polled were aware that the euro zone is composed of fifteen not twelve members, including 32% of citizens in the euro zone compared with 21% of those living in the other Member States. In total, the percentage of right answers across Europe was 50%. In other words, 84% of Europeans gave at least one right answer to one of the three quiz questions.

At the beginning of this year, we were just thinking about what should we do for increase the rate of knowledge about Europe… Where should we start? From European Citizenship?? Or just institutions of Europe?? No no no.. There should be something deeper, we should start the beginning of the European History!! The roots of European Union..Then a time machine brought us to IONIA!!
After all long brainstorming sessions, we have “EuropIONIA” which comes from Europe and Ionia…
We realized that there were many similarities between European Union and Ionian Union.
We will see together their very common characteristics between 24 August-6 September with a journey from Ankara to Ionian cities of Aegean Region!

Mythology and Ancient Spirit:

“Ions built their town beneath the most beautiful sky we know on earth and in the most appropriate climate. Neither the regions in further north nor the ones in further south can be considered equal with Ionia, besides neither east of it nor west of it can compete; some of them are cold and wet, some are hot and dry.” says Herodotus in his book on history about Ionia... Enough said!

History:

Our SU will include history lectures as well. As EuropIONIA Project Team, we are inspired from the similarities between Ionian City States and Europian Union. So our SU theme is quite related with history and there’re gonna be Professional lecturers who is gonna inform us about Ancient Ionian Civilization, European Union, mythology, active citizenship and so on. Of course, this summer university is not all about history lectures, but these lectures are going to be interesting and they are not going to be dull as our proper lessons, as you can imagine so :)

Photography & Sightseeing:

Hence you’ll be taken to various different places including modern cities or cute, little, untouched Aegean towns, you’ll get to chance to see many things and you can capture a lot. You can make the masterpiece shots of your photography career here, or maybe you can get inspired by the amazing sunsets and start a whole new photography career :D

Shopping:

The places we are gonna take you has got wonderful opportunities for those who like shopping too. You’ll get the chance to visit many malls and traditional bazaars where you can get wonderful stuff for really reasonable prices. Improving the bargaining skills is guranteed :) You’ll make your friends at your home country jealous by showing them the traditional Turkish goods you own:)

Beaches:

Come on, let’s be honest here, who can deny the unbearable joy of lazily lying under the Aegean sun and just relaxing at the powdery sandy beaches? We’re gonna take you to the best beaches of the coast, and if you are one of those “beach” people, this is probably gonna be the highlight of those two weeks for you. Just dream yourself under the bright sun of  Meditarrenean, swimming, sunbathing, reading, listening to music, or having deep conversations with fascinationg people around you. You deserve to be a part of this scene, believe me!

Parties:

We’re gonna have zillions of parties even including a mythological costume party: It’s gonna be loads of fun :)  Hope you don’t have trouble deciding which character you are going to be ;) Not the end… We have got more surprises for you!

Wine Tasting:

As we told in our booklet, we’re gonna take you to the one of the cutest little town of Aegean coast, Şirince, which had been famous for its delicious wines since the ancient ages. So you’ll get the chance to taste the same kind of wines that probably Heredotus,  Heraclitus, Thales and many others also drank and liked.

Boat Trip (optional):

Did you know that the name of the color “turquoise” is coming because of the color of Turkish marines? If you didn’t know, you’ll understand what I mean when you participate in this SU. :) Sailing away in the marvellous Aegean sea will clear your mind and calm you down. You’ll never forget that Boat trip day and goodness of the sea. We’ve got surprise activities for you on this ;)