This summer our dance group, Serbian Pearl, of the St. Sava parish from St. Petersburg Florida, packed their bags and headed off to Europe. Dragan Pantelic Art director of TALIJA Art Co. and director of this year's festival Grand Allegria Festival invited Srpski Biser to attend the cultural festival with up to 1,500 participants from all over the world. It was a thrilling experience for our group to perform and show our Serbian cultural dances in front of the Italian and Spanish people.

Our first destination was in Italy a beautiful city Lido de Jesolo. Several dancers of Srpski biser shed tears after performing our traditional dance representing the beautiful Serbian culture in front of a large crowd. The applause of the tourists and Italian people pleasantly surprised all of our dancers. In the free time we had, we explored Lido de Jesolo and took a scenic boat ride to Venice, where we took a gondola ride throughout the city.

Our next adventure took place in Calella, Spain. At the start of the festival, dance groups from all parts of the world lined up and filled the streets with songs and chants representing their countries. Here in Calella, our group participated in the program for three days. The closing of the program included a fun Zumba Party where we all danced together with the crowd for the finale of the program. During our stay in Spain, our group explored Callela’s beautiful beaches and participated in fun water sports. The program directors organized a trip to Barcelona with a tour guide for our group, where we were shown the most beautiful locations in Barcelona filled with history, which our tour guide took the time to explain.

We are truly honored and grateful to have participated with groups from all over the world both young and older generations performed. Srpski Biser would like to thank our entire parish and our priest, Father Dragan Zaric for encouraging and supporting our folklore group with donations, including the donations received from GoFundMe on Facebook. We would like to also thank President Mira Bulut and our choreographers Selena Despotovic and Zarko Stanimirovic for organizing and preparing our group to perform in Europe. This trip opened our eyes to many cultures and has connected us with many other Serbians who participated in the program from Germany, France, and Belgrade. This trip has changed our lives and we are eager to come back fresh with motivation, to start our new dance season this year.