So, you’ve been accepted to go to the Agora as a visitor? Congratulations! You’ve packed your bags, you’ve printed your boarding pass, you’ve said goodbye to family, friends and whatever, and you’ve arrived at the most special of locations, the Agora. Yet, you don’t know what the hell you’re supposed to do there. Do not worry my friend, this is ‘Being a Visitor for Dummies’.

Don’t plan on getting any sleep

One of the things you most often hear when you apply as visitor for the first time is that you can sleep out, while the others, most of which being delegates, have to go to the mandatory bits of the Agora. While it is true that, as a visitor, you are allowed to skip bits of the programme, you cannot, however, sleep in.

You are awoken in the morning and it is expected of you to proceed almost immediately to breakfast. You cannot have your breakfast, or any other meal, at any time later on. If you skip your breakfast, you, simply, won’t get any. Even if you’re okay with missing out on it in order to sleep in; tough luck. At some Agoras you’re not allowed to stay at the sleeping location between breakfast in the morning and dinner in the evening.

As a matter of fact don’t even plan on getting any sleep, even if you skip the parties. At the Autumn Agora Kyїv 2015, for instance, attendees who did not go to the parties could only have about six hours of sleep at the sleeping location each night. Far less than the recommended minimum of eight hours.

Go to the Agora a couple of days in advance

One of the downsides of an Agora is that it has a really full programme. As a visitor you may want to attend most of it, but you would also like to go out and relax or do some sightseeing. One golden tip is to arrive half a week earlier in the city where the Agora will be held. This way you have some extra relaxed days to wonder through the city to your heart’s content. It’s more comfortable to go earlier with the other people of your local who will go to the Agora, or to go to one of the pre-events. Don’t plan to stay a couple of days longer to do some sightseeing though, because after the Agora you’ll simply be too exhausted.

Don’t treat the Agora as a necessary evil to go on holiday

The Agora is an impressive and important statutory event, and, as a visitor, it’s a surely nice way to feel like being a part of a European community and to make new friends. However, to some visitors the Agora is only a way to go to a nice location, party all four to five nights, and maybe do some sightseeing during the day or otherwise sleep in the hallways.

You may find some bits of the Agora boring, and as a visitor you surely do not have to go to any of these. Nevertheless, please, try some of the workshops, attend the opening ceremony or go to something informal, such as ‘AEGEE inspire’: you might very well like it. Furthermore, ask your local, seasoned Agora attendees what they most like to do at an Agora. Their suggestions might be golden.

Consider to participate as a visitor

Aside from going to plenary meetings, workshops and possibly some Prytania, it might arguably be more fun to participate. Listening to a lot of information on topics, on which you’re maybe not even up-to-date can be either overwhelming or plainly boring. However, the idea of an Agora is not necessarily to be a long four-to-five-day-lecture with some parties during the evening, a lot of it relies on participation. Granted, especially during the plenary meetings, speaking rights are not often granted to visitors due to time constraints.

Nevertheless, as a visitor there are still some other and creative ways to participate or to let your voice be heard. Maybe you’ll like to actively participate in a workshop or to speak during ‘AEGEE inspire’. Another thing you might want to consider is to work together with some of the delegates of your local. As a visitor, you may have been denied speaking rights, but your local’s delegates are still free to address the Agora or the Prytania. By collaborating with your local’s delegates you can offer them your thoughts and opinions, which they, in turn, can voice because of their status. This way you might even indirectly participate during even the plenary meetings or the Prytaniae.

And most importantly: have fun

As a visitor, you basically have no responsibility, except to yourself and to basic decency. Let these aforementioned tips guide you, if necessary, but do also know that any Agora that you enjoyed going to, is an Agora well travelled to.

Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen

Once every four years it’s time for the biggest soccer event again: the World Cup of soccer. Many AEGEEans will be watching, which can also be done together in the Facebookgroup, but not all of them will be soccer fanatics in their daily life. Especially for those people, the AEGEEan has created a guide: how to survive the World Cup without soccer knowledge. Do you watch soccer because your friends and family are watching too, are you the one asking a lot of questions during the game or do you really only watch the European and World Cup games (and maybe not even all)? Then this guide is meant for you!

Before the game

The easiest way to deal with a lack of knowledge, is to find a group of friends or family who have the same (or even less) knowledge about soccer as you. This way, the walking soccer encyclopedia’s don’t have to get annoyed at your – in their eyes – dumb questions, and you don’t have to feel stupid, because in your carefully selected group nobody will know the name of all players on the field ánd the reserves. Who needs to, anyway? However, if you don’t know how many players are in a team normally and you therefore can’t find people who know less than you (likely to happen sadly), it might be good to look at some Soccer for Dummies pages, like this one.

Since World Cup matches are normally watched with a group of diverse people, the chances are high that you will still encounter a few ‘professionals’. Keep calm and read on, because we have some tips ready! First of all, look up some trivia facts about the World Cup or match of the night to impress your fellow fans with. Did you know that every time a South American country hosted the World Cup, the trophy went to a South American country too or that The Simpsons dedicated an episode to World Cup 2014? Neither did I, but now you do! The true soccer fans, who can name all the scores of the last twenty years, might already know this, but in general there will be some fun trivia facts you can impress people with, leading to them thinking that you do know something about soccer (and that’s a secret we will keep). Find more trivia here.

During the game

First of all, if you are planning to watch a match, it’s important to make sure you are wearing the right colors. Don’t be the Dutchie who shows up in red to the match Spain – Netherlands, because you will be disliked no matter how much carefully prepared knowledge you have to share. Once you are present, wearing the right kind of colors, there are two options to use during the game: ducktape or ‘fake it until you make it’. The first option doesn’t need much explanation, since it’s a simple matter of applying ducktape (preferably in your national colour too) to your face, and shutting up for the rest of the match. The second option is a combination of copying what the commentators, your friends (the ones with knowledge) and newspapers say, while screaming at the right moments. Rooting for the wrong team and wearing the wrong color are a close call, so make sure you know on what side your team is playing (and what color they are wearing) to prevent yourself getting killed.

After the game

Whether or not you have watched, if you want to keep the conversations going with your soccer loving friends it’s important to have some basic knowledge about the match. If you won’t miss your friends that much, you can always just book a holiday and come back after the finals, but if you do, it’s mostly important to know the score of the game. Luckily, Google is always there and looking up matches isn’t that hard (unless you need a course of Google for Dummies too, but then you probably wouldn’t be reading this guide either). Besides, it might also be helpful to have a memory of the highlights (watched live or not), which luckily FIFA has made a page for with videos, to be found here.

Is your head spinning with knowledge to gain? Don’t worry, most important about the World Cup is to have fun, watching the games with your friends and enjoying some nice drinks and food. Besides, at the end of the day people might just be happy that you are the one asking dumb questions, even if they roll their eyes, since at least that means they are smarter. If nothing works, you can always make people feel good about themselves and have another drink. Keep calm and watch soccer (even with a lack of knowledge).

Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen