Hi again!

I wanted to say few things about the dormitory, where we stayed. The dormitory itself was nice, conditions were quite good. The rooms were decent size and looked nice. There was even TV. Two of us where staying in double room and one of us was staying in single room. In the single room was separate toilet and bathroom, but in the double room there was one little room for both of them. The comfortable thing was that the cleaners were changing bedclothes and they did that in every two weeks.

They closed the doors after midnight and so you did´nt can go out or come back in to the dormitory. Then they opened them again after 6 am. Only thing that was awful was that there was no kitchen and because of that there was no refrigerator. So we didn't can make a proper warm food. When the weather was colder we kept our food outside in the windowsill, but when the weather went warmer we could not do that any more.

So we needed to go shop every day to buy food. It was quit annoying. In the ground floor was canteen. The food there was very cheap and we visit it quite often.

So in general, we are very glad, that in the end we went to Bulgaria. It turned out to be a adventure of our lifes.

Best wishes

Astrid, Kairit and Merit

We have been back in Estonia more than two weeks now and living our normal life again. It is good to be back to see our families and friends but at the same time we miss our Bulgarian life. Unbelieveble, how fast time flies, especially if you're spending good time:) And our last Erasmus month was more than good, it was perfect!

When we finished our last practise, there was time for travelling, oh, and we visited a lot of countries: Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and also went to the Black Sea. During these trips we met a lot of friendly people, tried best Balkan food and learned how wrong prejudications sometimes can be. Lot of people warned us not to visit some of these countires, even if they weren't visited these by themselves. Maybe we were lucky, but we have only good and funny memories about these trips.

But as they say that one picture can say more than thousand words and we
have more than one picture;)

Kairit, Merit ja Astrid

Laboratories in Bulgaria

Our first practise was in clinical chemistry and haematology laboratory. Our work day started at 8 o´clock, we changed clothes between analysers because in the hospital there weren´t changing rooms and somewhere we had to do it. Our colleques were so fiendly and nice although we had a huge language barriare, we communicated a lot and tried to understand each other. Only person that we could talk an english was a nice doctor, everybody else we talked russian-english-bulgarian-bodylanguage and sometimes used even online dictionary, hehee.

We archieved our goals and saw a lot in the hospital because we had a chance to take blood from the patients and see the rooms and behind wings. We should be so happy in Estonia, because we have so high laboratory quality!

Second laboratory was infectious microbiology. Again – perfect colleques! They were so friendly and intrested about us, Estonia and spending our good time in Bulgaria! Comparing Estonian and Bulgarian microbiology laboratory the differences are not big, just they are using metal and we are using single stiches. We were communticating only in Russian and that is why Kairit and Astrid got good language practice.

Third laboratory we are having is pathology laboratory. Morge is just next to our door and the man who is taking autopsy is a frequent friend in our rooms. Again differentses are not big comparing with Estonian laboratoryes, but just they are using working instruments much more longer than us. We like there and we can do all that our staff does, it is very interesting because for one thing they have easyer method. Funnily we are talking with our staff in Bulgarian…not that we can talk that language, but there is no language that we all can speak, but yes – we can do it!

We like here a lot and we hope that the rest of the practice time in Bulgaria is going well:)

Kisses

Kairit, Astrid and Merit

Trip to Turkey

Hei, we went to Istanbul by bus and the jurney with our long duty-points took about 7 hours. We were 12 Erasmus friends from our dormitory. We, Estonians did not have to buy visa, but our polish friends had to pay 15 EUR. Istanbul were so beautiful and colorful place we would all like to go back one day.

Our guide was our friend from Istanbul and he showed us real atmosphere of Istanbul! There is stormy sealife, lovely architecture, interesting believes and so much more!

We were visited different churches and mosques, Hagia Sophia museum, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace Museum, the Great Bazar and went to asian part with ferry.

It is hard to forget a little red bread boxes, old red sweet trams, destiny bunnies, ice cream and candy mans and all the funny men selling a different kind of stuff on their heads.

Hugs

Kairit, Astrid and Merit

Probably the last post from Turkey

...and it's from Atatürk airport in Istanbul. I have many hours here before my next flight, so I'm just going to take the time, and think back to my Erasmus experience. I remember when I first came to Turkey on March 11, I saw Istanbul from the airplane, the palm trees, the mosques...that was the moment I fell in love with Turkey. Of course there were many things that also shoked me at first, like the crazy traffic, trash on the streets, wondering dogs, staring people etc, but I adapted well :D

These three months have gone by more quickly than I expected, I didn't even have the time to miss my home. I'm going to be back in Estonia today, just in less than 10 hours, and I still can't believe that I'm leaving.

I met so many amazing people here- people from all around Europe and also turkish people, I visited incredibly beautiful places, I tasted interesting foods, and I am going to miss all that.

Being an Erasmus student is really something everybody should try.

And one thing is for sure- I'm going to go back to Turkey some day!

The last from Lisboa

One week and then we`ll go home. Such a short but rather fulfilling experience. We finished our practice last week and had to to a powerpoint presentation in the school here. After presenting our case studies, the head of the physical therapy department asked us questions about our time here. Are we satisfied? Did we learned something new?
Satisfied..definitely! Sure there are things which could have been better, but experience like this shadows all the `could have beens`in the sentence. Learned...Yes, quite much actually, and not just during our practice, also in everyday life. And isnt life just about learning and exeperienceing? That is what this time here really was for us.
So now we have some time to rest and just enjoy our time in one of the best places in the world- Lisbon, Portugal.







Atè logo!

Ave, Dagmar & Mihkel (FT2)

Oha!!

The weather in Turkey is really hot now, and getting hotter every day. We're quite sunburned now :)

Anyway, the hospital practice is over now and in 2 weeks Erasmus will be over for us, which I don't want to think about yet. The last department that I was in, cardiology, was super, best one so far. I got to see angiography and help the nurses there a bit. The saddest thing ever was the pediatric angiography. There were mothers waiting in line with their children, aged from 17 months to 5-6 years, all crying. And when the children came in, they were so confused and upset, it was really heartbreaking.

And also, in Estonia I worked at emergency cardiology department as a assistant nurse, so it was interesting to see the differences between the cardiology department here and in Estonia.

And the personnel was great, I even called one of the nurse mom, cause she was always worried if I had breakfast yet and if I'd like some tea etc :D

And I lost my sunglasses today :/ for your information :)