I have not written anything in a very long time and so I could therefore tell many different stories in this new entry. However, instead of doing this, I have decided to write about the people who have made my stories interesting thus far. Aristotle once said that friendship was a single soul dwelling in two bodies and I guess this is one of the reasons why I had such a hard time leaving Canada. I have been extremely fortunate though; I have met some terrific people during my time here, and I want to dedicate this message to them.
I have already mentioned my roommate a few times. He knows me like no one here, and having him by my side at all times makes me feel secure. He’s got my back, and I’ve got his. We rely on each other for many things, and although we are extremely different on some aspects, at the end of the day, we complete each other in a beautiful way.
I came here thinking that I’d meet a lot of Italian people, and I surely did. However, I didn’t really guess that at the end of my stay here, I would have created myself what I like to call a Turkish connection. Yeliz, Deniz and I live together and we’ve bonded over something that most people would consider superficial: relationships. When the three of us get together, we enjoy exchanging our thoughts about men, love and sex from both our past and present lives. I also like that we bring it often to a higher level. For example, we discuss what’s moral and immoral in and outside of a relationship. I have a feeling that in twenty years from now, we will meet up and discuss the experience that we are living now. We probably won’t even recall the names of the boys who fed our conversations, but we’ll remember how wonderful the exchange we lived together was.
Canada is a northern country and I’ve been told many times that my behavior, my attitude and the way I dress reflect this fact. Thus, it comes as no surprise that I became good friends with a few Finnish people. They too have experienced the snow, the storms and the wind and when it’s fifteen degrees outside, we like to walk around the streets of Bologna wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. I first met Emmy, one of the members of the Finnish crew, in an Italian philology course that was utterly boring. We switched it to a translation course that ended up being just as annoying, but at least we suffer through it together. I would often simply skip this class, but the idea of eating lunch with Timo and Emmy after often makes me kick myself in the butt and go.
I did meet Italians. After all, I guess I came to Italy for that particular reason. In a translation course, a French person had to be paired up with an Italian to do a project on verlan, the tendency French people from France have to switch the syllables in a word. That’s precisely how I met Elisa. I consider myself a social person. I’m not afraid to go talk to the people whom I think are cool and ask them to “be my friend”, to use kindergarten vocabulary. Elisa is exactly the same way, and this is probably why we ended up becoming so close so quickly. Our afternoons spent together always consist of a long walk in Bologna. She also doesn’t know the city very well because she grew up in Ravenna, another city in Emilia-Romagna. I’m not a prude person, and neither is she. We can talk about very personal stuff without any awkwardness.
I have many talents. Economics, unfortunately, is simply not one of them. About two weeks after my arrival, the university organized an information session for exchange students, and the Turkish connection and I went together. Every faculty had its own table, and we could ask questions to representatives. We walked around for an hour, at which point we agreed that it was time to leave. Yeliz was asking one last question about Bologna’s basketball team, and I decided to go to the economics table. I thought it could useful to take a basic course just to be able to manage my own finance. I don’t think Dimitar actually understood what I wanted at first, and to be fair, I probably wasn't very clear either. I guess it didn’t really matter because two minutes later, we’d stopped talking about economics and started talking more like friends usually do. He took my email address and sent me information about the different courses a week after. Since then, we meet up for lunch once in a while and we discuss life. Honestly, I still feel like I don’t know much about him, but something tells me that we could become very good friends.
I have met fantastic people. This one sentence really isn’t enough to express how any of these people have made me feel. This blog entry doesn’t even scratch the surface of the wonderful people I have met. I could tell you about so many more, but I think that this is enough for now. Ironically, I’m going to have to put my Italian life on hold because tomorrow I’m going to Madrid with my roommate. A very good friend of mine, Mary, is waiting for me. I have a feeling that our hips won’t lie and our bums will shake. And, as I’m running out of inspiration, I’ll practice my street dancing moves and get ready for Spain. Bailamos!
I have already mentioned my roommate a few times. He knows me like no one here, and having him by my side at all times makes me feel secure. He’s got my back, and I’ve got his. We rely on each other for many things, and although we are extremely different on some aspects, at the end of the day, we complete each other in a beautiful way.
I came here thinking that I’d meet a lot of Italian people, and I surely did. However, I didn’t really guess that at the end of my stay here, I would have created myself what I like to call a Turkish connection. Yeliz, Deniz and I live together and we’ve bonded over something that most people would consider superficial: relationships. When the three of us get together, we enjoy exchanging our thoughts about men, love and sex from both our past and present lives. I also like that we bring it often to a higher level. For example, we discuss what’s moral and immoral in and outside of a relationship. I have a feeling that in twenty years from now, we will meet up and discuss the experience that we are living now. We probably won’t even recall the names of the boys who fed our conversations, but we’ll remember how wonderful the exchange we lived together was.
Canada is a northern country and I’ve been told many times that my behavior, my attitude and the way I dress reflect this fact. Thus, it comes as no surprise that I became good friends with a few Finnish people. They too have experienced the snow, the storms and the wind and when it’s fifteen degrees outside, we like to walk around the streets of Bologna wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. I first met Emmy, one of the members of the Finnish crew, in an Italian philology course that was utterly boring. We switched it to a translation course that ended up being just as annoying, but at least we suffer through it together. I would often simply skip this class, but the idea of eating lunch with Timo and Emmy after often makes me kick myself in the butt and go.
I did meet Italians. After all, I guess I came to Italy for that particular reason. In a translation course, a French person had to be paired up with an Italian to do a project on verlan, the tendency French people from France have to switch the syllables in a word. That’s precisely how I met Elisa. I consider myself a social person. I’m not afraid to go talk to the people whom I think are cool and ask them to “be my friend”, to use kindergarten vocabulary. Elisa is exactly the same way, and this is probably why we ended up becoming so close so quickly. Our afternoons spent together always consist of a long walk in Bologna. She also doesn’t know the city very well because she grew up in Ravenna, another city in Emilia-Romagna. I’m not a prude person, and neither is she. We can talk about very personal stuff without any awkwardness.
I have many talents. Economics, unfortunately, is simply not one of them. About two weeks after my arrival, the university organized an information session for exchange students, and the Turkish connection and I went together. Every faculty had its own table, and we could ask questions to representatives. We walked around for an hour, at which point we agreed that it was time to leave. Yeliz was asking one last question about Bologna’s basketball team, and I decided to go to the economics table. I thought it could useful to take a basic course just to be able to manage my own finance. I don’t think Dimitar actually understood what I wanted at first, and to be fair, I probably wasn't very clear either. I guess it didn’t really matter because two minutes later, we’d stopped talking about economics and started talking more like friends usually do. He took my email address and sent me information about the different courses a week after. Since then, we meet up for lunch once in a while and we discuss life. Honestly, I still feel like I don’t know much about him, but something tells me that we could become very good friends.
I have met fantastic people. This one sentence really isn’t enough to express how any of these people have made me feel. This blog entry doesn’t even scratch the surface of the wonderful people I have met. I could tell you about so many more, but I think that this is enough for now. Ironically, I’m going to have to put my Italian life on hold because tomorrow I’m going to Madrid with my roommate. A very good friend of mine, Mary, is waiting for me. I have a feeling that our hips won’t lie and our bums will shake. And, as I’m running out of inspiration, I’ll practice my street dancing moves and get ready for Spain. Bailamos!
