"It was a good opportunity to get a feel for living in another country," he says. "We had attention and friendliness from all sorts of people, who helped us translate bus timetables and menus or shared drunken logic in the bars."
On 1 May, Slovakia became a member of the European Union (EU), along with its three neighbours Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta, the former Yugoslavian country of Slovenia, and the three Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Jan Blazak, a youth worker in Worcestershire, thinks the expansion will mean more trips like Meldon's dig in Sahy, arranged by the cultural exchange organisation Arch Network. He says the trips could become more varied and rewarding, although EU grants for such activities will have to be spread more thinly until the new EU youth project budget is decided after 2006. "We're trying to offer young people an experience of a different culture," he says. "What the new countries offer is greater range and diversity."
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