The first day in Druskininkai has begun. Roxana, Mihaela, Danut, Geogriana, Cosmin, Norbert, Alexandru and Andrei – the students from Romania, finally got to see their practice place which is still unknown to them. The first meeting was held in the Mayors Ricardas Malinauskas office. Because of his friendly and welcoming acceptance, the first worries had gone away really soon. Later on, the time has come to disperse into different work places. Roxana and Norbert were the first ones, who took a step into Druskininkai recreation and health center “Aqua”.

You can find many things to do in this huge complex. There are a lot of holiday makers walking around and having a good time. A real moody bustle is never ending. “We are very happy to meet such a nice students Roxana Prisecaru and Norbert Siteavu from Romania. It was the first experience for us to deal with students from abroad “– said the team from center “Aqua”.

It was an unforgettable experience for the students as well. The recreation and health center “Aqua” works for eleven years now and it is a huge complex which combines a lot of entertainments under one roof:  an aqua park of Druskininkai, three-star hotel “Aqua”, another four-star hotel and a SPA center “Flores”. You can find a restaurant which is also called “Aqua”, a sports club, conference hall, an incredible night club and an entertaining bowling club. It was an unbelievable place for the students, but they had only two weeks to get to know all of those places. At the other hand, there were some difficulties as well. The main barrier was the language. Because Norbert and Roxana were really quiet and didn’t know English very well, their co-workers found a lot of different activities for them so they could gain the best experience.

Did you know that the recreation and health center “Aqua” has a place, an extremely warm place, where the temperature reaches +32 degrees no matter if it’s the middle of summer or a freezing time of winter? That was the first place, where Norbert and Roxana had their practice. It was like a vacation at work – all of the visitors were wearing swimsuits, had fun at pools and enjoyed the time trying water slides. Norbert and Roxana took part in helping the safety instructor near the landing water slides.

“Aqua” has six closed and four open landing slides, a big pool, a swift river, a wave pool, a few Jacuzzis and a special place for children. Dressed up in a special water park outfit, the students were taking care of the visitors, so they would act properly and follow the safety rules.

Days have gone by and they had to work with some special visitors of the “Aqua” park – the little ones. Roxana and Norbert came to the children’s place where you can find small pools and water slides, especially for kids. So the students had to take care of the children spending time in there, while their parents were having some relaxing time in other places of the park. It was the most responsible working days for them. But they handled it very well.

But still, that’s not all of the places where they had a chance to work at. Roxana and Norbert spent a few days at a restaurant- pizzeria where they have learned the craft of a waiter and also a few days in a hotel, where they got to know how to prepare the rooms for incoming customers and how the program of the hotel works in general.

“Aqua” park in Druskininkai is one of the busiest places at the resort, but that doesn’t mean that work was the only thing Roxana and Norbert had found there. At the end of the days they were always invited to enjoy the water park entertainments themselves, but they were pretty shy at that point. Later on, they took the chance, and Norbert even assisted for an employee at a sauna called “Karakum”.

Druskininkai recreation and health center “Aqua” is visited by millions of customers every year. It has hundreds of workers who run the place every day. Roxana and Norbert had a chance to get involved in this center’s daily life and gained so much experience they will never forget.

Author: Gintarė Miliauskaitė