Goodbye Elazig

Last day , last hours

As i sit right now in my office at the International Relations Office here in Firat University, in the city of Elazig , South Eastern Turkey , i just realized i have 3 hours left until i will finish forever and for always my 7 months Erasmus internship and my Erasmus life will be completely finish . I woke up after barely sleeping around 3 hours maybe last night due to the fact that one of the Romanian students left yesterday so we kept it until late with goodbyes and festivities and i woke up early to welcome another girl coming from Romania in order to take my spot . I am leaving and she is coming , this is how it works at the Erasmus Office .

I have mix feelings about leaving but maybe because i am so tired and cannot actually process the fact that my time ''inside the colony '' ( check week 8 at the Erasmus office blog ) is coming to an end . Coming into this in Mid March i struggled a bit adjusting with the people here , my roommate and my coordinator , let's say we were not always on the same page and if someone tries to keep me here stranded well is not good for both parties . Anyway now that i think about this past months which passed so fast i feel happy to leave this city behind and go home in Trabzon ( a city in Turkey at the Black sea region, see Trabzon experience post ) . I am not leaving Turkey just yet , and probably not for the past year or so ...will see what time brings !

Now as i am writing this post all i am thinking how tomorrow morning at around 6:30 am i will be in my favorite city in Turkey , in my rental apartment for the past 1 year and half , walking on the shores of the Black Sea and finally living this city behind . I am absolutely by no means a difficult person , i always can adjust very easy to new places and people but Elazig for me was a huge struggle and challenge . Being forced to stay here , i mean literally forced and as an example everytime you wanted to leave the city i had to ask permission and fill in an ''leaving the city '' application  and due to the fact that on your all staying here you can get only 1 week off for traveling i feel like i was in jail or something . And the city which i spoke so much about in my previous posts , this city with zero tourism and tourists , this city with nothing to offer , the ''naked mountains '' which served as a view everytime i woke up, the feeling that i am in a small city somewhere in Afghanistan , with temperatures over 40 degrees this summer and not a single drop of rain for more that 4 months , the struggle to come to the office everyday and not doing nothing at all , maybe sitting and watching tv shows for 8 hours is doing something ! Yeah all this things which now will come to an end in approximately 10 hours when i will pick up a bus which will take me back to freedom , back to feeling alive , back to Trabzon !

During my time at the Erasmus office i deal with a lot of Turkish students and all sort of people and they all kind of asked me the same thing ''how you like Elazig ?'' well my response is always the same and this may get people mad or confused but see i was always this girl what was speaking her mind for better or for worse , some people didn't like this and it may caused me more problems that good things but i cannot be fake , i really cannot . I told them since i am in Turkey , this should be my 3rd time and trust me i visited bunch of cities and places here but i never seen more ugly , strange city with no life inside. Now that i think about the ''Where is the love '' campaign for fighting and helping Syrian refugees i can very good associate this with the city , the is zero love here . I think if you ever read my posts so far about the city of Elazig you will see this love hate relation i had with the city , of course i cannot be hypocrite and say i felt miserable the entire time sitting here , yes the Erasmus apartment was nice and fully equipped ( check my post about it in the Internship at the Erasmus office ) and best thing about it that it was rent free we only had to pay the bills . Another best thing was that i spend all the summer alone in the girls apartment so this was awesome , i usually hate sharing the flat with a bunch of flatmates , i think when you are young is ncie it may work just for the fun and all that but since i am 27 now i want my own intimacy and private space .

I am grateful for the friends i made here ( not Turkish ) but the other Erasmus students from Romania and Moldova for sure we will keep in touch and most of all i was lucky to have my boyfriend Muhammet with me here during this experience , for sure i will not have pull throw if it was not for him , bottom line . The Erasmus grant was nice this i can say so is totally worth it to go with internship because after they changed to Erasmus + the raised the grant to 700 euro per month so this is a plus . But as i am so much of a spender of course the money finished before July so once again my boyfriend played a huge role there too . It is always important to travel with someone you trust in this Erasmus things , either a close colleague or bring your boyfriend with you why not .

I often heard that students choose this destination for Erasmus because is the perfect city to save up money , you need to pay rent which saves you a lot of costs and as there is no tourism there are not so many places and activities to go and do which i can totally understand , sit here one semester save up some cash nobody blames you but when you come back for second time or in this case of the girl today 4th times then this is a problem . I cannot understand how you have so many options of placements and universities to choose from , everything from Malta to Spain , Portugal, even China and Washington and you still come here , i mean come on get a life !

But back to positive vibes i am leaving today for Trabzon and as i said to everybody hope to never come back in this lifetime or the other one as well . From all the 6th Erasmus experiences i had ( yes you heard good , 6 ) i never been to be a worse city than this . But on the other side i enjoyed the ride and i got some tips from the Erasmus office which i hope i can use in the nearest future maybe on a actual job at the Erasmus office , but will see no i am just excited to get some time , rest , adjust in Trabzon and go on a holiday in Istanbul for some days . And later in October return to Romania to visit my parents and my dog , after that God knows where my road leads me too , Dubai , Turkey or USA this are my plans . So Inshallah to that how Muslims use to say and hope for the best , prepare for the worst !

Next time i will post will be from my bed in Trabzon and with a happy smile on my face that's for sure !

So Goodbye Elazig , hope to see you never !!