A week full of adventures

The week in London sounds unreal. Especially if this week is spent with talented people from 50 countries and full of adventures.
After finding out that I won the National Public Speaking Competition, I was eagerly anticipating my trip to the UK. I didn’t know what to expect but I did have some high expectations. And now, I can say for sure that this week was one of the best in my whole life. Let me walk you through my adventures in London and what you can expect if you enter and win the National Public Speaking Competition.

Upon arriving, I went straight to the Dartmouth House for the briefing. The first thing you notice is the number of participants and representatives from different backgrounds and countries. On this first day I’ve made dozens of friends and got acquainted with even more people. We were divided into groups of 17 people with 2 mentors so you had your people, with which you spent most of the week. My roommate was a winner from England. We had serious fun. We talked all through our first night and went out when we had free time.
The ESU put an attention not only on our public speaking skills, but also on cultural exchange. I can even say that the most important thing was to make friends and get to know people from other countries. On Tuesday we had a Country Presentations. Some people sang songs, some danced. I tried foreign sweets. The whole experience was magical.
We had time to sightseeing, obviously since we were in one of the best cities in the whole world, London. We were eating in the variety of different places so I could try everything from pizza to an enormous chicken.
We went to the theatre to see Aladdin, which was entertaining. And we went to the bowling alley to relax after a long day, presenting our speeches.
The workshops were curated by the ESU employees and people from the Shakespeare’s Globe were not only educational, but also so much fun. We spent like 3 hours with the actress from the Globe, who talked about public speaking, presenting yourself and breathing in the right way.
I liked that while the main goals of my trip were to get better at public speaking and to take part in this competition, the ESU team created such an interesting schedule for us to explore London and to meet new people. When you meet all the participants, you know for sure that these people will be your friends for the rest of your life. There wasn’t any rivalry between us, and we all supported each other.
I’m so grateful to the ESU Ukraine for choosing me as Ukraine representative. The whole experience was unforgettable.

Elizaveta Kompaniiets
Participant of the International
Public Speaking Competition 2019