My first week...

I arrived in Bologna the 18thof September; a few days before term started because I wanted to get to know the city and get settled before I had to go to University.

Before I left England I wrote down my Italian address on a piece of paper (because I knew I couldn’t speak any Italian!) and when I got to Bologna airport, I walked outside to where the taxis were parked and handed one of the drivers my address which he took with a friendly smile and even tried to speak English to me! He took me to my door which was about 15 minutes from the airport and cost 10 euros.

I had to wait around a bit for some of my flat mates to get home and let me in, I was foolish not have gotten their numbers before leaving England so I was slightly worried that they wouldn’t turn up! But after about 10 minutes they arrived with the owner.

The owner of the apartment was lovely, he spoke very good English and when I went to shake his hand he proceeded to do 4 air kisses (I’m going to have to get used to that!) which was a bit weird having come from England!

When we went inside the apartment was lovely (I hadn’t seen it before because I met my flat mates through Erasmusu.com and they had gone to Bologna to find the flat while I was still having exams in England). The owner told us that in the following weeks he would bring us a tv, internet, new fridge, desk and second dining table. Having heard a lot about Italians being unreliable I didn’t give much credit to this assertion but the next day we had internet!

I paid my deposit to the owner and then we had to go and sign the contract. Before doing this we needed a ‘codice fiscale’ which is like an Italian tax code. There isn’t a place to get one in the centre of Bologna but one of my flat mates and I took the bus (which was only 1 euro 50 for 75 minutes! London is so expensive!) and arrived at the hall that we needed to be at.

The bus has a self-service payment system where you either swipe your ‘city pass’ or put coins (and only coins!) into the ticket machine which prints you out a ticket. When you get there you have to go to a machine and (after selecting the language) choose the option for the tax code. The machine prints you out a ticket with a number and you wait in a seated area until your number is called.

They ask you for a photocopy of your passport (and to see your real one) and you fill in a short form. Most of the people speak English and the form Is also in English so don’t panic! After you’ve filled out the form you get given a piece of paper that is stamped with a long number/letter code that is your tax code.

After this is when I met my room mate! In most apartments in Italy, single rooms are extremely hard to find so most of you will end up sharing a room. I wasn’t too happy about this to start with since I had only known my room mate through Erasmusu.com and because I was busy with exams I hadn’t really taken the time to get to know her. I was lucky though because she is so nice and we get on great. I was actually surprised at the size of the room; it has 2 single beds, huge wardrobes and a desk and there is still plenty of room! (I might upload some pictures of my apartment later) so don’t be put off by the fact that you have to share.

The first few days I was on a bit of a downer, I had never even been on holiday without my family before so obviously I missed them a lot. After two days of feeling like this was the worst decision I ever made I finally realised how narrow minded I was being. I said to myself; this can either be one of the best or worse years of my life depending on how I look at it. I then looked at it from a different perspective: I can fly home any time I want, it’s only two hours on a plane, I might as well embrace this because I won’t get this opportunity ever again! From then on I spoke to my family every week and actually begun to enjoy my time in Bologna which I wish I had been mature enough to do at the start!

So.. signing the contract. What I wasn’t told at the beginning of my agreement was that you have to pay an agency fee and two separate taxes and our landlord also wanted us to pay insurance (but not all do). The agency fee was 10% of the whole amount of the rent (so for 12 years) and there are 4 of us so between 4. One tax is 14 euros and the other about 35. The estate agent spoke reasonably good English although I’m still not sure what those taxes are for?!

After all the technical stuff I went to explore the city. Bologna is a lovely place and I arrived when the weather was lovely (I got a tan in a few hours!) I would definitely recommend taking a tour of the city before you start university since once you’re familiar with the city it begins to feel a lot more like home and a lot less like you’re lost in the middle of Italy!

I ate out at different restaurants in my first week which I totally encourage! The more places you experience, the more you have familiar and favourite places to go.

I had also joined a facebook group before I left with other Erasmus Bologna students which was so helpful because it meant we could organise meetings when we were there and just going out for lunch or a few drinks meant making lots of new friends!

The next thing I had to do was register at the university. It’s best to go and do this as soon as possible because the Italian system isn’t very organised (especially compared to the English system!). We had to wait 2 hours in the queue for them to give us a piece of paper telling us to pick up our welcome pack the following Thursday! The welcome pack includes information and your student ID card.

I then had my first Italian food shopping experience; buying food was easy enough and it’s also quite cheap if you look at the quality of the food. Everything tastes so much nicer and it’s fresh and usually organic! If you look hard enough you can also find English chocolate and sweets which was nice to buy in my first week because I had something that made me feel more like I was at home.

I then started University on the 24thof September, the system is so unlike the English system that it deserves its own blog post which I will write soon!

Ciao for now! :)