It was a small Icelandic group that left Iceland for Kos in September 2021 as this first meeting as no students took part in the first mobility of the DCES project. After flying to Kos via Glasgow we arrived late at night at our accommodation in Kos town. Ahead of us were five great days where we did plenty of work but also enjoyed quite a bit of pleasure thanks to our wonderful Greek hosts.
For us the most important thing was that we at long last got to meet our partners face to face as we had been confined to only online meetings due to the pandemic. For us this was certainly a great pleasure and it was immediately clear that this group would work well together for the duration of the project. The lovely lunches and dinners we had together over fantastic(!) local food certainly did nothing but help improve the partnership!
The main reason for the meeting was of course to work together and we can say that it went very well under the leadership of Giorgos. We had some really productive workshops where we worked together both as a whole and in smaller groups on lesson plans, learning about GDPR and of course mapping the future of the project which was made much more complicated that normally by the ongoing covid19 situation.
Deserving of a special mention are the two experts Maria and Dimitris who educated us about both psychological and legal issues conntected with the theme of the project. The discussions we had with them were extremely informative and I can say that they gave us plenty of food for thought, not just within the context DCES project, itself but on a much wider scale.
No summary of the our stay in Kos is complete without a special mention of the fantastic hospitality and work of our wonderful hosts who were working under a very unusual circumstances due to the pandemic. They not only planned a successful week of work but also made the trip extremely enjoyable by planning both great get togethers as well some fantastic excursions. The visits to Asklipieion and Zia village were certainly highlights for us. So a big thank you from the the Icelandic team for a great start to a great partnership!
