How I found love on Erasmus

Intro

I have been realizing with every single post that I always speak about or refer to my boyfriend Muhammet and probably for those who do read my posts think that I am a crazy obsessed girl (joke) but the truth is that he was involved in almost all my experiences and all the stories which I share with you guys, so in this case I thought I need to make a post about how we met during Erasmus and like a section of 'where are they now'. I will try not to make into a cheesy story and just write the funny things about this experience.

First things first, it all started when I arrived on my 4th Erasmus mobility in which I headed to Portugal, in a city close to Porto called Barcelos. I went in this mobility joined by my two best friends Peter and Cristina, we were all so excited about this trip because this was our first time traveling all together abroad. An exciting experience was about to begin and we were all in for the ride! Arriving in Porto someone pick us up from the airport and drive us to our accommodation house in Barcelos. The house was more like villa with a nice small garden, we were all going to live under one roof together which was so excited and fun. In the moment of our arrival another 3 persons were already there, one guy from Slovenia and one guy from Romania ( our brother ) and his girlfriend which was from Italy. We connected very quick and the Romanian guy Andru showed us the house and basically told us a bit of everything, the city, the students and the university. After we choose our room, me and Criss we were sharing a room together and Peter had his own room at least until now...

Night came and the day was normal, we unpacked our luggage and went for a small walk to check the sights and look for a close supermarket. At around 11 PM a guy came into our house, he seemed to be a another student coming to live with us. First thing I noticed was this tall, dark and handsome stranger and first thing he told us his from Turkey. Me and Peter as we were before in Turkey we started to impress him with our Turkish words lol. He immediately connected and we found out that his going to share the room with Peter. We always had, or me particularly a good relation with the Turkish people maybe because they are such warm and welcoming persons. After day 1, Peter and Muhammet became good friends and we formed this trio of 4, the gang, and always went outside together and sharing our time all 4 together.

24/7 together

A couple of weeks passed and in this time we became more closer and closer, I guess it is normal because we spend 24/7 of our time living in the same house and also our time spend outside. In the fall semester we were around 60 students from all over the world but we became closer to the Turkish group. Romanians we were dominating, we were around 12 students, Turkish were 10 and then other nationalities from Bulgaria, Italy, Slovenia, Brazil and many other countries. It was funny how we never got along with the other Romanians and always were spending time with the Turks. We were always going out in this bar called Bar do Xano, it was a special place where all the Erasmus students spend all their nights together.

Me and Muhammet after one month decided to hang together more and we become closer if you know what I mean. He always has this joke of how I trapped him like an insect haha, good joke dude! But honestly I did not feel attracted to nobody else except him. Even though he was way younger than me (5 years difference) I still wanted to give it a try. For the past years I had just terrible relationships but even like this I did not make big plans, like is it going to survive after the Erasmus is over? I just thought it would be a summer Erasmus romance. Also Muhammet agreed with me, we will have fun and then see what's going to happen.

Time and months passed and it was close to the end of our mobility and we realized we were so into each other that we should try make this work in the future. Of course we did not had plans of how this will actually work outside Erasmus but I was hopeful. During our time in Portugal we really spend 24/7 of our time together, travelling and cooking and being bored together.

Where are we now?

After 1 year and almost 6 months we are still together and living in Turkey in a rented apartment. I choose to apply for another 2 Erasmus mobilities just so we can be together. He cannot come to Romania because visa is needed in his case and for me I can visit in Turkey for a period of 90 days without visa, because I am an Erasmus student in Turkey I had the chance to apply for a residence permit which will gave me the opportunity to stay here for a while. I do now know what next year will bring us but for sure we have plans together. The Erasmus experience brought me a lot of joy and happiness for which I am forever grateful 100% and for that I have no words. Love during Erasmus can actually happen and I know for sure that also marriages occur and other things. One of my friends here in Elazig found her husband during Erasmus and now they are happily married. Take chances and go to places! Make every second count!