That time I decided to give Bochum a chance

Whenever somebody asked me why I had chosen Bochum as my Erasmus destination my answer was always "Well, I haven't actually chosen it... I mean it wasn't my first choice. " In fact, when I first applied for the Erasmus scholarship Bochum was not exactly what I had in mind, not until my teacher showed me all the potential it had. As soon as I got in touch with the RUB university I immediately noticed how kind and welcoming they were. I was super excited to go there!

Once I got there I was thrilled and frightened at the same time. I've never really been the type of person that misses home but the exact moment I went inside my new room I realised I was alone in a foreign country. I became aware of the fact that myself was all I could count on, and that was the moment I started thinking that I could succeed in everything if I really wanted to. I had no roommate for the moment and I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't find anyone to really get along with. But it wasn't long until I met a bunch of people that were about to change my Erasmus experience and my whole life.

Sure enough, when I decided to attend the Orientation Days I had no idea what to expect. I remember going through the room looking for my department's table. When I finally found it, there were just three people so I asked them if I was in the right place (I had got it wrong twice before). And that's how I met two of the amazing people mentioned above.

That's us a few weeks later.

It was not long until we met the rest of the group. We shared so many experiences I don't even know where to start writing!

If somebody asked me "would you go on the Erasmus exchange again? " I'd definitely say yes. Of course, it has not always been all sunshine and rainbows. But it has thought me that, no matter what you go through, if you work hard and believe in yourself you're going to make the best of every situation.

For instance, during my first days, I barely knew anyone but I didn't want to stay in my room. Moreover, I needed to buy groceries and other stuff because my flat and my fridge were both empty. So I decided to stop my overthinking and just go exploring the neighbourhood.

That was the first picture I took there. Since I really enjoy green areas I thought I'd enjoy the enormous forest that was right next to my dormitory. As a matter of fact, I not only enjoyed it, I loved it!

As autumn was approaching, classes started and we all decided to use the weekends to go on road trips in the VRR area. Since the public transport service was really valid we were able to travel to nearby cities like Dortmund or Dusseldorf in not more than one hour. One thing I vividly remember about Dortmund is the huge football stadium that's right next to the Hauptbahnhof (the main station). Whenever there was a match the city was filled up with football supporters, and it was always fun to guess which team they were supporting.

One day we decided to travel to Köln. It took us almost two hours. As soon as we got out of the station we came across the famous and towering cathedral. I was astonished. I needed to tilt my head up completely in order to see where it ended! But there's one other thing that impressed me even more, and that's the padlock bridge above the river Rhine. Here's a picture I took.

As you can see, it's loaded with padlocks!

There is something that I couldn't experience to the fullest though. German food. In fact, as a vegetarian, there are many things that I couldn't taste. Still, I've found more variety of vegetarian food in Bochum than in my home country. On the other hand, German beer is something I'd definitely recommend to anyone, even the ones who don't particularly love alcohol.

During my stay, I've met people from many different cultures and thanks to them I have tasted some of their countries' typical foods. My favourites are definitely Spanish churros and tortilla and Polish pierogi. I liked them so much that I tried making them on my own! Here's the proof.

Not to brag, but they turned out to be really good even though I cooked them!

Toward the end of November, the streets of Bochum and many other cities in Germany started to be loaded with Christmas markets. We always loved to go there. Everything was bright and colourful and being part of that atmosphere never failed to cheer me up. While we were in the Dortmund christmas market I decided to buy some coloured Christmas-ish lights to light up my room during the holidays. I still have them!

In Essen they even installed a temporary Ferris wheel, but we didn't have a chance to hop on it. We did take a nice picture though, here it is.

I know it's blurry but it makes me think of a happy day we spent together, so I really like it!

Definitely worth to mention is that time we went to Berlin with ESN. For those who have never heard of it, ESN is the Erasmus Student Network. They always organise trips or activities for international students where everybody is allowed to join in and that gives chances to meet new people from all over the world. During our stay in Bochum we took part in many activities they set up but the trip to Berlin was a bit different. It lasted three days and we went there by coach. We stayed for two nights in a hostel near the city centre. The day after we got there, visiting the German Parliament was on our schedule. We all had an audioguide which told us all the interesting information about the history and the functioning of the Reichstag (the Parliament). I'm glad we got to go inside, I loved it! After that we went to the Holocaust memorial, the Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz. Then it started raining and we found shelter in a Starbucks store. The following day me and my friends did not follow all the activities that the ESN had planned. Since it was one of my friend's birthday we preferred to go around on our own. That night we went dancing in a club and we stayed there until 3 am. It was actually really funny! The last day we had to get up really early because we wanted to visit the famous wall and we had to take the coach to go back right after lunch. What surprised me the most was seeing that the wall was covered in graffiti. It was fascinating!

This one is a piece of graffiti I found particularly inspiring.

It was not until mid-december that we discovered Untergrund. It was a Friday night, so the day after we all had no classes and no work. We had no idea what to do, we just knew that we wanted to go somewhere. One of us came up with the name of this club and we found out that it was right next to the Bochum Rathaus station, which was just a few minutes away from our stop. I remember we were sitting in the living room playing Kings, so we just stood up and said "Okay, let's go! ". The entrance to the club was free until midnight and we got there just in time, so we ended up not paying the ticket to go in. Untergrund was quite small and there were not many people, but we had so much fun that it became one of our favourite places to go dancing!

During one of these nights we discovered a song called "Perfect Strangers" by Jonas Blue and listening to the lyrics we all agreed at once that it was our song. Even now, whenever I listen to that song it reminds me about those months in Bochum.

Meanwhile, the semester was coming to an end and none of us wanted to go back home. The ESN organised a party to celebrate all the good times we had together during those months. They called it the Farewell Gala. It was a kind of formal evening, like a prom, so we were supposed to dress up. I remember that me and my friends had nothing proper to wear so we had to go shopping several times in order to find something appropriate. After weeks of wanderings, we managed to buy what we needed. The Gala was host at Hardys, a club in Markstraße, a street not so far from the dormitories. There were not so many people when we first arrived, but as the night went on pretty much all the international students were there. We danced all together the whole night. I don't exactly know when, but at some point the ESN announced the winners of the ESN awards. We had to vote for categories like 'the most serious student', 'the king/queen of the party' or 'the traveller'. One of my friends won the 'most serious student'. He wasn't expecting it at all, so it was funny to see his reaction when the guy at the microphone called his name! In the end, we had a lot of fun. It was the perfect way to say farewell to all the people with whom we shared 6 months of our lives.

That's one of my favourite pictures from that night. I have many more but unfortunately I can't publish them all on this blog!

To all the people reading this who are considering going on the Erasmus exchange, do it. Go. It's not easy being alone in a foreign country of course, but you're going to meet other people who feel the same as you. They're going to become your family. As we always liked to say, they become the family you choose. Apart from the wonderful people you meet, the Erasmus exchange is an opportunity to know yourself better, to discover your strength and your many other abilities. In fact, these months taught me so much and I felt so much better than at home that I'm going on the Erasmus exchange again next year!

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