In my last blog post, I started to explain how to sign up for an Esperanto conference such as determining how long to stay and where.  Now, where were we… how about food?

Do you want to cook your own meals?  Most people like to not worry about meals and just join everyone in the cafeteria, but some people love buying their own food and cooking.  If you want to cook yourself, keep the following in mind: you’ll be buying your groceries in a foreign country, so things may be harder to find or stuff you’re expecting may not be available and everything will be in a foreign language!  Also, you’ll want to ask what kind of kitchen will be available to you and what equipment you might need to bring along (like pots, pans, etc.).  This can vary quite a lot from conference to conference, so be prepared!  To get a feel for the prices, the lodging at JES costs 150€ for the entire week in a youth hostel with food, 110€ for mass lodging with food or 35€ for mass lodging and cooking yourself.

So, now that we have lodging and food out of the way, do you want to contribute to the program?  Giving a lecture is an excellent way to learn a language!  You can find a topic that interests you and may not be well known to others and look up all the words related to that to prepare yourself. Don’t be afraid, participants are generally quite patient with beginners and if you’re missing a word during your lecture, just ask, and someone from the audience will help you!

Most Esperanto conferences have a projector in case you want to bring your laptop and give a Powerpoint presentation, but you might want to get more creative and do something more interactive, like teach a dance!  You can also volunteer at the registration desk or serve tea or beer during the evening program.  Typically when you volunteer, you’ll also get a rebate on the cost of attending, so that’s another great way to immerse yourself in Esperanto on the cheap.

All the conferences details are now taken care of, time to pay, but how?  If you live in Germany or Poland, you can pay effortlessly to a German or Polish bank account.  Barring that, the easiest way is probably to pay through UEA to their account peja_l via credit card or paypal.  I’d recommend keeping proof of payment in case it can’t be found when you arrive at the registration desk.  Usually there is no problem, but it can speed things up in rare instances.

In any case, I hope this has helped you sign up for an Esperanto conference and I hope to see you there.  Feel free to leave any questions in the comments!