Once Erasmus…always Erasmus

A strory from Ana

Country of origin: Italy

Country of destination: France

By NEXES

I remember it clearly. It was February 2009 when I was accepted in the Erasmus program starting September 2009. My destination? Avignon, France. I was so excited: not only I was going to improve my French, but I was also going to experience something totally new. Leaving Italy  and living for six months in another country was a big challenge for me. I felt I was going to discover both something about people from all over the world and something new about myself.

I felt in love with Avignon at the first glance: those city walls dating back to the Middle Ages (I am a medieval archaeologist today!!), the climate, people, nightlife, events. You could smell culture and history all over the town.

Yes, I can say those six months of Erasmus changed my life: I met loads of fantastic people and I learned a great deal from them, their culture and their ways of life, often so different from my own. I am still in contact with some of them and I am visiting one of them on a regular basis. Moreover, that first time abroad for a long time made me want to undergo a second experience : one year later I moved to England to start a Master’s Degree in Medieval Archaeology.

At the end of the film “L’Auberge Espagnole” the main character says: “I am French, Spanish, English, Danish. I am not one, I am many of them. I am like Europe. I am a real mess”. That’s exactly how you feel. However, I felt not only European, but citizen from the whole world. My flatmate was from Brazil and we clicked after just a few hours of chatting. I will never forget this time of my life, simply because it was great and it made me become what I am now..both from a personal and from a professional point of view.