First Days in Bochum

After everything I've written here on Erasmusu, I thought that it would be a good idea to write about my first days on the Erasmus exchange. Those days have been the toughest ones, at least for me, because it's when I first realised that I was completely alone in a foreign country.

It was the 6th October when I took my flight from Rome to Cologne. I remember that I was super excited but also really scared - actually, that was mostly because of the flight itself. On the plane there was a guy sitting next to me. My face must have looked really frightened because he asked me if everything was okay. Of course I said yes, so we started talking about the reasons why we were on that plane. He was going to Germany to sell cars, I was going there for the Erasmus exchange. We talked for the whole trip and that helped me to calm down. When the plane landed, before I got off, a guy stopped me asking me if I was going to Bochum for the Erasmus exchange. In fact, he had heard me and the other guy talking about that earlier. I answered that yes, I was going to Bochum, and he said that he was, too. Then I had to get off and I went to the luggage claiming, where I took my suitcases.

I had to take the train in order to get to Bochum, so I started looking for the train station. While I was getting lost in the Cologne airport - it really is huge - I found some platforms and a showcase with all the trains schedules. There I found the guy I had talked to before getting off the plane. He was with a girl. We started talking and discovered that we all were from the same university. So we decided to go to Bochum together.

We were supposed to meet with a guy from the ESN Bochum in the Bochum HauptBahnhof - the central station. He was supposed to pick us and a few other students up and bring us to our dormitories. The thing is, our train got canceled. So we had to go to the tickets office in Cologne station and ask for help. In the end, we took a train to Düsseldorf and then to Bochum, but at that point we were definitely late for the meeting with the others. Thankfully, another guy from the ESN came to pick us up even though it was really late and brought us to our respective dormitories. I was exhausted.

As I said, it was really late and all the shops were closed. I had no time to buy anything, nor food or any house tool. My dormitory was in Markstraße, not far from a U-Bahn - urban train - station. My flat was meant for two people but my flatmate had not arrived yet, so on my first evening there I was completely alone. I have to admit, it wasn't the happiest moment of my life. In fact, I think I can say without a doubt that it was one of the worst moments of those six months. I felt lonely, in a place I did not know at all, and last but not least I was starving. So I decided to go out and see if I could find something and cheer me up a little. After I had walked for almost half an hour I found a shop called REWE that was open until midnight. Since I was extremely tired, I bought something for dinner and breakfast and I went straight to my dormitory.

The following day I woke up full of energy. I wanted to explore the neighbourhood and the around areas, so I ate my breakfast and went out. First of all, I had to buy some urgent things for my survival. Apart from that, in the house there was a lack of basic stuff like toilet paper or cutlery or pots and pans. So as I was wandering around I was looking for places where I could buy those things. I found most of the things I needed, but for example I couldn't find any place in which they were selling drinking glasses.

I took a picture that day, and I want to share it with you.

There was a vast forest near my dormitory and of course I had to go exploring it as soon as I could. This in the picture is the beginning of the footpath that brought me from the street to deep inside the forest. It actually lead to a lot of different places, and I would lie through my teeth if I told you that I never got lost in there. Despite that, I really enjoyed taking long walks on that footpath because it was peaceful and quiet and it had the power to make me forget about all the stressful thoughts for a while.

Back to my first 24 hours in Bochum. I went back to my dormitory for lunch. My plan was to eat something, settle my stuff in my room and then go exploring again. Plus, I still needed to buy glasses and a blanket - and many other things, but those were the most urgent ones. I had just finished eating when somebody knocked at my door. I was really surprised as I hadn't met anyone yet. I opened the door and there were a guy and a girl I had never seen before. They talked to me in Italian, so I thought that they knew where I was from. Anyway, the girl - I later found out that she was studying at my Italian university, too - said she was living in the flat next to mine. She had already been on the Erasmus exchange in Bochum, so she offered to show me some places in the city where I could buy what I needed. That afternoon we went to a shopping centre in Bochum Rathaus - a few U-Bahn stops from Markstraße. Along the way I saw many cool places, which I decided to go to during the following days.

But in the end, the most important thing that girl showed me was the U-Bahn station. In fact, from that day on I started using the U-Bahn service on a daily basis.

The Markstraße station was full with graffiti on the walls, they were beautiful. This one's the one that caught my attention the most. It's pretty straightforward and I love it.

She also brought me to the Ruhr Universität Campus and showed me what I needed to do in order to get all the paperwork done within the due dates. So yes, she helped me quite a lot.

Source

There was a bridge we needed to cross in order to get to the RUB Campus. When we arrived at the other side, this writing was the first thing my eyes were drawn to. Well, this way I could be sure that I was in the right place!

The campus was beautiful, especially in the winter with the snow. Here's a picture I adore.

Source

I had been in Bochum for three days and I was starting to feel at home already. I don't know whether it was because of it being a small town or because of the autumn colours - I love them - or maybe because for the first time I had the chance to prove that I could make it on my own.

If you're considering going on Erasmus exchange but you're afraid that you're not going to fit in or that you're not going to make it on your own, forget that. I won't lie, it's not going to be all perfect, especially the first days. You're probably going to miss home some times, be it family, friends or even just your room. You're going to have some bad days, when no one seems to understand you. You're even going to feel lonely in some occasions. Trust me, I know all about these feelings, I experienced them personally. But I can assure you, you're going to consider that place your home, too. You're going to meet people that will become your second family. You're going to see and experience how people from other cultural environments live and learn a lot of things about different cultures. Most of all, you're going to discover so much about yourself that you're going to be surprised by how strong and capable you are. So my advice is, shut the negative thoughts down and just go. I promise it's going to be worth the effort.