After the loyal wash house with lots of buttons, from which you know only one what is doing, is ready, it’s time for… you guess it… new challenge: the ironing. You know that for the iron will need water and to be plugged, but the process of ironing is unknown to you. You face this challenge although you just can go out wrinkled like some of those really fancy and expensive dogs. The first try isn’t very successful. After you understood, the hard way, that the iron is hot, burned one shirt and another one looks like you never ironed it, you start to get used to it and after some more ironing you master this obstacle in your way of becoming a complete adult.
From the success you get hungry and intent to congratulate yourself with a meal, but, of course you forgot to take the meat out of the freezer and satisfy yourself with a sandwich and some juice. In the evening just before you go to bed, a reminder: “Tomorrow morning I should take out the meat”, but forgot, because you are just too sleepy to think for the diner and that’s how – one more sandwich. In the day that you figure out it’s impossible to live only eating sandwiches and took out the meat from the freezer, you collide with another challenge: cooking. How hard can it be to make decent steaks? More than enough! You call your mother once again, but this time with the question: “How are you making the steaks so delicious?” It turns out that it is not rocket science, but somehow you manage to mess something up… Too much soy sauce, you forgot to add some oil, and in the end that you are making steaks… You remember after hour and 13 minutes that you are “cooking” and satisfy yourself with burned, but only yours work of art. After this adventure in the kitchen, you decide to have 10 pizzas in the freezer “just in case”.
You realize that unfortunately the sink also isn’t magical and somebody is behind the clean dishes (who could that be). Here is another obstacle: the lovely dishwashing. You decide that the dishes could wait a couple of hours, but just like the steaks – you forgot them in the sing (without soaking them, of course). In the morning you see, some strange dried thing on them (maybe the food, which you prepared yesterday, but just maybe). Already in the sink for 14 hours, they can wait 8 more, until you finish work, for which you are late once again. It’s the night of the big duel: in the left corner – you with sponge in one hand and dishwashing liquid in the other and a face filled with despair, in the right corner – two plates, one bow, 3 cups and some spoons and forks waiting to be washed. How you managed to use so many things only for one cooking, is still a mystery.
Minutes flow, hours fly, days go by and the number of the weeks is getting bigger and you still haven’t run the vacuum cleaner. Notice that the floor is dirty, under the bed are gathered interesting fibers, making a portrait, and there is chips… well… almost everywhere. The vacuum cleaner, the greatest enemy of cats and dogs since 1901, now is also yours (at least the first time). After you vacuumed one dirty sock, which got his way out of the “magic basket”, forget to go through the angles, where of course the most of the dust is gathered, realize that even in the bathroom could be dirty. For the second time this day you run the vacuum cleaner, because of the things mentioned above – time for the next round. Pleased for winning the battle in just two rounds, you go to the fridge for something refreshing, but of course there is nothing and you are satisfied with water from the sink.
The empty fridge means that it’s shopping time, a problem with which you had encounter before! You enter the supermarket psychically ready to find everything you need, but you still don’t know what those things are… Meat, which you are going to forget in the freezer – YES! Something for drinking? Of course! You remember that during the weekend you need something for breakfast and take the biggest box of cereal out there. Little ham and cheese for the sandwiches, some pasta, your favorite sweet – a Nutella, some pizzas, you know “just in case”. You head to the cash desks and then remember that sandwiches without bread – not a chance. Spend the next 10 minutes looking for the bread and another 5 – choosing the right one. After you have packed everything it’s once again realization time – you are without a car, but have bought enough food for the next 2 weeks. You face your destiny – one slow and rough coming back home. Fill the backpack with everything you can and the rest put in a bag and loaded like a donkey, you wend home. The weekend comes, happy you had remembered to buy yourself cereal, you prepare to enjoy it, when … you guess it – no milk. It’s time for another trip to the supermarket for milk and some jellybeans.
The weeks fly by (that’s how time works) and the last one is just around the corner. After 30-minutes of seeking your documents, which you had put somewhere and told to yourself: “I put them in the shelf, under the TV, between the magazines, not to forget where they are“, you head to work (with a delay). It’s time to say “Goodbye” to your colleagues. One way or another they had some influence over your stay. You give them presents and invite them to visit you in your home country, when they have time. The last week passes unexpectedly fast.
It’s time for the last challenge before going back home – packing your stuff. It goes better than expected and after you sit on your suitcase to close it, start to think about the last 3 months and remember everything with a smile on your face.
The Erasmus is not only work in an office with 17 more people. It means finding out lots of new, interesting and great friends, which you will remember all your life and wait impatiently to meet somewhere around the globe. It gives you the possibility to visit a new country, to get to know one different culture, habits and way of living. It means visiting new destinations which otherwise you wouldn’t be able. One adventure, which expects the unbelievable memories, taught you to some degree how to be an adult.
Read part I here: http://www.educationtrainingnetwork.com/magazine/2016/10/07/my-3-months-internship-in-potenza/
