Note (EN): If you know Turkish, I highly recommend you to read this article in Turkish. Because it is the original version.
Not (TR): Yazının orijinal versiyonu Türkçe olduğundan dolayı eğer biliyorsanız bu yazıyı Türkçe okumanızı tavsiye ederim.
Day 0 - Travel
First. Time. Just myself. Plane. Crazy stuff. It’s 2:40 AM. Left my friends about an hour ago. I’ve headed to the airport. Passed through the first entrance gate. Then checked in my luggage. They took my poster too. Hopefully, nothing happens to it. Then passed through the check-in code scanning area. Overall, it was easy. I’m hungry and thirsty. Don’t know why. I have a headache. Am I stressed? Not sure. Maybe I’m just sleep-deprived. I’ll wait for an hour at the gate. Continuing listening to Hiromi-sama.
Arrived in Istanbul. Collected the bags, and then it was time for the Ankara team to arrive. Waited and waited, but they didn’t show up. Turns out they went to the international terminal and checked in their bags. Anyway, I checked in mine too. Then we sat and waited for our flight. Time passed somehow. We boarded the plane and landed in Brussels. There was a very long passport line. Then the bags came. Boring stuff. After the airport, we took a bus to the hotel. It took a quite a long time for some reason. Everyone except us was happy. For them, this contest is just a fun event, but for us, it could change our fate. Very frustrating. We passed by the Atomium. Memories…
Arrived at the hotel. The rooms are quite small. Hopefully, we won’t be spending much time in the hotel, just for sleeping.
Dinner was at a different restaurant. We walked 15 minutes to get there. They first served pork, which we found out later. Then came some chicken. Unfortunately, the food wasn’t to our taste. Then we went to Carrefour and got some water. At least we have water now.
I’ll do one more run-through of my presentation before sleeping. I need to think about how to present it to the visitors. But I’m very tired. My roommate is a nice fellow, but he has work to do too.
Day 1 - Start of The Exhibition and Jury Sessions
A nice breakfast in the morning. Then headed to the venue. Collected our belongings from the desk. Ömer Faruk Ursavaş helped me with my poster. Quite an honor.
Waved the flag at the opening ceremony. Chatted a lot with people from different countries. Fun times. Now I’m hanging out at the stand.
Had a few visitors. I don’t stumble much while talking. The poster behind me really supports me. I’m quite proud of it because it seems to be the best-looking one.
Lunch was a small piece of bread with cheese. The cheese tasted good, can’t lie. No idea if I ate anything or if I’m full tho. My stomach isn’t great, so I don’t really understand if I ate, if I’m hungry, or if I’m full.
Just spoke with an old jury member. He’s been a guitarist for 58 years. 58 years! Said he would come to listen later or send someone. Nice that he’s interested.
After the exhibition, there was a talk by EIROForum, an EU fusion research institute. Not exactly my field, but it was still nice.
After packing up at the exhibit and having dinner, we returned to the hotel. Called friends and family in Türkiye and went to bed.
Day 2 - Jury Sessions Cont.
Woke up in the morning, or rather, kept delaying getting up until it was 8:00 AM. Got dressed and went down for breakfast. The hotel’s breakfast is quite nice, I like it. Had a bite to eat and walked up a few steep slopes to get to the venue. Let’s see how today goes.
I’ll wander around a bit before the exhibit starts. Not to check out the competition, but to see what projects are there. It’s hard to evaluate every project while everyone is at the competition.
Unfortunately, this jury presentation didn’t go very well. I forgot the beginning part of my presentation. One jury member came who didn’t seem to know much technical stuff. When interrupted, I forgot what I was going to say. It wasn’t that bad, but worse than I expected.
Just talked to an Ableton user. It was enjoyable.
One more jury, making it three. This one was a chemist. I quickly went through the technical parts. He seriously asked why personalization is important, and I said, “There’s a paper.” Overall, it was probably good.
Participants across from me liked the poster and even took a photo. Romanians are nice people.
Another jury, making it four. This one was really an engineer, even had a music-based startup two years ago. The presentation went well, and he asked good questions, both technical and conversational. Said he would inform a few friends who might get in touch with me. Quite a nice chat!
Told my Romanian friends about my real roommate Aliberk. They have similar interests!
Later, a Lithuanian competitor came by. Recently graduated too. We talked a lot. Reminded me of a friend with her demeanor.
As I was packing up to leave, a jury member suddenly appeared behind me. The exhibit time was over. We talked briefly about the project; I landed a hook on him, and he said he would come back tomorrow. Hopefully, that will go well, and I won’t have major issues with the jury presentations.
After leaving the exhibit, we went for a walk around the area. Palaces and stuff. Then went for a hamburger. Hate to say it, but it was the best meal we’ve had in the last few days. Then returned to the hotel, dropped our stuff, and went out again. Bought chocolates and souvenirs. Hung out mostly with my roommate.
Back at the hotel, took a shower and went to bed.
Day 3 - Jury Sessions Cont.
Woke up, got ready. After breakfast, went to the venue. Nothing unusual. The juries are making their final decisions, making their rounds. Most of us have had four jury visits; we’re waiting for our last ones. I expected mine to come early, but it hasn’t yet (it’s only been 30 minutes, though). Listened to Tank from Seatbelts to wake myself up.
The jury came in the morning. Didn’t even do the full presentation; he wanted to listen, we chatted a bit, and then he left. It was quite pleasant.
Had quite a few visitors afterward. My throat started to hurt :). At one point, someone from Huawei came. Left a business card for an internship, gave a small plush bear, and left. There was a guy and a lady; while I was explaining to the guy, the lady took photos, etc. I had started a technical presentation since I first asked the guy about his field but didn’t know they were from Huawei. Found out at the end of the conversation. Quite impressive. Maybe I’ll apply for their internship programs when I get to university.
Had lunch just now. They added cake (which I don’t think was there before). It tasted good, but not really my thing.
The afternoon is chill. Maybe the jury will come one last time, but I doubt it. I think we can say we’ve closed the exhibit.
As expected, no other jury came, and I closed the exhibit. Walked around a bit, hung out with the Lithuanian. Then we took down the posters. Unfortunately, had to throw them away because it would be too hard to carry them. Won’t use them again anyway. They were torn too. Still, I can’t bring myself to throw them away.
Then we went back to the hotel. After resting, we went to the Belgian Diner. Don’t want to offend anyone, but just fries? Really?
Talked to a lot of people on voice/video calls in the room. Now it’s time to finish writing and go to bed because I’m tired, hungry, thirsty, and sleep is the cure for all these (sort of).
Day 4 - Award Ceremony and Poster Take Off
The day of the award ceremony. The most important event of the day. Imagine, my life might completely change in 5-6 hours. Crazy situation I’m in.
Woke up and had breakfast. Going to Media Markt. The guys want to look for headphones because they’re cheaper here. If I find a nice one, I might buy it too, but I’ll be more selective than them. Need to compare prices with Türkiye.
After some research, I found a good pair of headphones online. But unfortunately, the Media Markt we went to had only one in stock, so they wouldn’t sell it. Thought about going for something much more expensive, but I’m not prepared for that. If I’m spending that much, I need to find the best one for me. So I didn’t buy anything. My current plan is to buy a classic JBL and get the headphones from the US. Or maybe from Türkiye, not sure. But not from here, no.
At Media Markt, there were also Switch, PS5, Xbox, etc. Maybe later, not now. They also had Blu-rays and boxed games. Those were very nice. Albums too. Would have bought Nostradamus if I found it, wouldn’t have minded the 10-15 euros, but I didn’t find it.
Waited for the bus for over 15 minutes to get to the award ceremony. When we got there, we just wasted time waiting for it to start. After gathering in the hall for the ceremony, it was the participants’ turn to waste time. Then the awards were announced. A ton of special awards. Good, nice. Didn’t expect or want any of them. When it came to the core prizes, things got more exciting. 7-8 of the core prize winners got special awards too, which both frustrated and saddened us. We didn’t stay for the party. Our mood was down a lot.
Now resting. Tomorrow will be all about traveling. Not planning to write anything for tomorrow. Unless something extraordinary happens, I don’t want to write about the hours we spend waiting at the airport.
Day 5 - Departure
Couldn’t wake up to the 3:30 AM alarm. Ended up getting ready at 4:00 AM when the TÜBİTAK officer called for the 4:15 ride. Not great, forgot my charger there. Nothing to be done. Then waited half an hour for the car. Not a great organization, unfortunately.
The airport and the plane were generally uneventful. Routine procedures, nothing interesting. In the end, we didn’t come back from EUCYS with what we expected. Their culture seems a bit strange to me. I miss Türkiye.
This contest changed my view of the EU. Very different lives people are living. I don’t want to study in the EU now. Don’t feel like dealing with applications either. Maybe my thoughts will change when I get home.
I really want to go home, get back to normal, have proper meals, drink water, and speak Turkish freely.