Only memory remains..

Good-bye to you, beautiful Belgium. Good-bye my Erasmus friends.

Paris and Brussels. Again.

Because the time is running so fast, and my Erasmus adventure is coming to the end, I took advantage and I went for the second time in Paris and Brussels, two of the most European capitals.

Both of them are very similar and if you are a French guy, you will find Brussels like the second home. On my way to Paris, I had the chance to travel with TGV train.

My final exam session.

Today I had my last exam. This exam put an end to my last exam session for college. A wonderful feeling.

Once in a lifetime.

Two days ago I was asked by one of my friends: What do you feel now, at the end of this Erasmus experience?

“My friend, this experience is similar like when you are getting married. It happens once in a lifetime. Only here I had the chance to meet plenty of people from so many countries: Bulgaria, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, Turkey, Poland, Finland, Holland etc. Only here I could see so many places: England, France, Holland, Germany, Belgium and Poland. I am sure that you won’t see so many foreign people, maybe only in a pub like Irish Pub.

Here I’ve received my best lesson of my life: we can learn from each other. We are not so different as you think. You will be surprised to find out how many words and habits we have in common. And what it is more important: we think and act similar in most of the problems”

Let’s not forget this adventure. It brings us hope and inspires us. What we have seen here and learnt from it is to pay respect for everything important and for everything we forget.

My first Easter without my family.

I know that in this special moment for Christians, it’s a family meeting, but this year I skip this meeting. We did our best to prepare a similar party.

London Called…So I Went!

My impressions from London

I absolutely love London! I love the public transportation, and the attitudes of this city. I like all the public gardens, parks and public areas. I had the feeling of diversity in this city, there’s a great mixture of people and cultures in London (in special polish people). There are people from all over the world in London, just there to explore the city’s beauty, art and history. It’s a great feeling! If i will have to chose i place where i would like to live and spend some time, London can be one of my favorite destination. But you have to take in account, that London is one of the most expensive places from the whole world.

What I did in London

The time was very short and London is not a place for couple for hours. I checked out the, Tower of London, Millennium Bridge, Big Ben, House of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Oxford Street and many, many of the streets, parks and lakes. And I really took my time to take photos for each location. When I got tired I took lunch with my girlfriend somewhere around to Oxford Street.

What I Liked Most

The thing that I like most about London is because it hasn’t just one attraction, but the general feeling and experience of the city makes London a great city to explore. Maybe for most of us, their English accent can be quite annoying from time to time, but I could listen English spoken as it really should be. And it’s beautiful to hear! We were like because we had a beautiful day, we were scared that it might rain. It was an awesome day!

I am sure that London is going to be one favorite memories.

Erasmus Football Team

It’s a long time since I wrote my last post. Many things happened in this time. But most of the time I spent it playing al lot of games. Here you can see the Erasmus football team

First row: Ovidiu Majina (Romania), Rafal (Poland), Jaroslavs (Latvia),

Second row: Christiano (Italy) Aytac Tufekcibasi (Turkey), Matchin (Poland), Can Ismail Tekin (Turkey), Costin Oane (me, Romania), Matheus (Poland)

Get a piece of Nature!

Not too far from Kortijk, there is wonderful place called Harelbeke. My friend Steven invited me to his place and he showed me a real piece of nature. Thank you, Steven!

 

 

Gelsenkirchen. Düsseldorf. Köln

In my trip in Germany I visited 3 big cities: Gelsenkirchen, Dusseldorf and Koln. In each city the weather wasn’t so friendly. We didn’t pay to much attention on this bad weather and we tried to enjoy every moment in each place.

Gelsenkirchen is looking for a new image.

In this place I came back to rest and sleep. I had the chance to stay to some friends of mine. In the past, Gelsenkirchen used to be known “city of a thousand fires” for the flames of mine gasses. It was the most important coal mining town in Europe. Today in Gelsenkirchen there are no mines any more and Gelsenkirchen is searching for a new image. There no many things to see in Gelsenkirchen, but it’s a very nice place to stay and live. Is has all the ingredients: clean, peacefull place, nice pubs and restaurants, etc.

Dusseldorf, the best place for shopping and tasting a beer.

Düsseldorf is a city where everything is close together: just near the well known shopping street, the „ Altstadt” the old quarter of the city, you can also find more than 260 pubs and home-brew taverns, a place witch is well known as “the longest bar in the world”.If you want to see a great view of the city, you can you in the top of the light house.

Köln – Dom is an important World Heritage Site.

It is one of the oldest cities in Germany. Köln is known as an important media centre. Several radio and television stations are based in the city. Köln is well-known for its beer, called Kolsch . Was it is incredible is that at the end of the Second War World, 90% of the city was complete destroyed. It took some time to rebuild the city, but I have to admit that I really admire what they have done with the city. It’s a complete new city. The most important place to visit, it’s of course, the famous Dom. Construction of the Gothic church began in 1248 and took, with interruptions, until 1880 to complete – a period of over six hundred years. This famous cathedral described by UNESCO as an “exceptional work of human creative genius”. This building is one of the most important World Heritage Site.

Back home from Germany

I just come back from Germany and even that I am tired and sleepy I don’t have sleep if I don’t share to you some short opinions about my trip in Germany. You will see that in all my opinions I coming back to my Belgium experience trying to find out some differences between Belgium and Germany. Maybe you will ask yourself, why I don’t compare my experience from Germany with Romania and why I prefer Belgium? I don’t have something with my country and believe me that I would like to write about Romania, but unfortunately, there is nothing to compare with Romania. Romania is not Germany and it won’t be.

You need just 6 hours from Kortijk to Gelsenkirchen. In Gelsenkirchen I met my Romanian friends, they are studying there and that’s way I had a place to stay over the night. Nowadays is very hard to meet people like them.

In the next post, I will tell you more about the places I visited, but for now some short and general thoughts about Germany:

Trains. If you are coming for the first time in Germany, you will be surprised how big there are the railways stations, how clean, fast and comfortable can be. I think that every station has at least 11 or 12 platforms. And of course, all the trains are coming in time. It’s incredible how discipline, organize, punctual can be these people. It’s hard to admit, but these words like “punctual”, “organize” and “discipline” doesn’t have any meaning for Romanian people.

English. I couldn’t find so many people speaking English like in Belgium. If you are going in a supermarket or you are in a tram and you lost your way, I’m afraid that you won’t find so many people who can give you a piece of advice in English.

Weather. The weather wasn’t so friendly with us. It’s still winter there. Most of the time, it was raining and from time to time it was snowing. That’s way we couldn’t do so many things and we preferred to run from a pub to another.

Music. I am not very good in music but in the place where I stayed I had the chance to listen some german songs. I don’t understand all the lyrics, but from my point of view is more noise than music.

Beers. You will be very surprised to see people drinking beer in the street or in the tram. It’s not forbidden to take your beer and drinking it outside. In America, Belgium or Romania this habit is punished. They don’t have so many kinds of beers like in Belgium but they drink as much beer like them. Their famous beer is Beck’s, but is not the best beer from Germany.

Girls. From all the young girls I’ve seen in Germany most of them have at least one “piercing”: in the nose, in the eyebrow or in the tongue. It must be very painful. For those who have “piercing” in the tongue, I’m wondering how they could eat a chocolate bar full of nuts. A girl with a piercing in the tongue told me that most of the boys are really happy when they kiss (french kiss) a girl with a piercing. Can be a reason, why not?

Prices. The prices are really good compared with the Belgium prices. I dare say that the prices are really close to Romanian prices. That’s one of the reasons to believe that they have a strong economy.

I’m going to sleep.

Good night, Germany!