16^th Anatolia Congress = living diversity….living between two continents, two cultures, Europe and Asia …all in one city – Istanbul.This is the place where the geographical borders are erased by the cultural ones…where you go beyond your own borders and slow down the process of establishing new ones.

While the bus was taking me to Istanbul, numbers were running through my mind…400 delegates…more than 60 countries and in the meantime I was trying so hard not to imagine how it was going to be….not to havew expectations and let everything surprise me.And it did …Deeply and unforgettable !

The city welcomed me at 3 am in the morning, with friendly and somewhat much too curious people, and took me to Taksim square. The first thought once there ? So crawded at this our ? Should Istanbul take New York’s place at being the city that never sleeps ?

The taxi took me across one of the city’s bridges and Istanbul started to reveal itself…the lights, following the contours of the Blue Mosque and revealing all the sights I have seen in pictures while planning my trip.The only difference was the fact all of them were real…shinning in the golden light, enlightening the dark. The atmosphere was similar to 1001 Nights….

The morning left me with a totally different impression of the city…the mosques and the buidings had colours…What caught my eye was the constant movement along  the Bosphorus Strait, connecting the two continents.

The prayers could be heard in the dawn , invinting people to pray and highlighting the Islamic belief and its determination.

What followed was the most intense experience of my life, hugely diverse and highly motivating at the same time…three days of networking, antrepreneurship and friendship.One funny detail that I remember is the small lists pasted in the elevators that provided topics for the discussions among the delegates. Of course, those conversations were the funniest. The congress breathes “living diversity”, one of AIESEC’s values.I fel this the most one evening in the bus, when together eith people form other 4 countries, I was having the time of my life. While the city left behind was slowly sinking in darkness, our laughs and expressions lightened the bus and gave me so much energy….

I believe that every delegate left its print on my way of being and every moment of the congress changed me….after such an experience, you cannot remain the same…there are to many things to learn…way to many!

Visiting Istanbul was not any other study tour….I felt deeply what a city inhabited by around 13 million people means….the sensation of pain in my feet became permanent after the first day of visiting, and lasted for the whole visit.The feeling of pain in my soles gave me the necessary energy to move on to the next mosque, the next palace, the next bazaar.Oh, the Grand Bazaar…so many colours and so much pleasure to get lost in its charm.Once in , nothing is like the streets outside…people are buying, people are selling.In the end, it is all about negociation !

For me, the 16^th Anatolia Congress meant pushing my limits…going beyond them and posponing the creation of new ones.As for Istanbul, it is perfectly defined by Hagia Sophia, one of its mosques: once Christian, now ,muslim.Always in between!

Oana Elena Enesca

Online Responsible

Communication Department