Madrid, Spain ! :)

Good morning!

You know, when I found out that I got Erasmus scholarship I was absolutely sure that I will love the Spanish life more than my practical training. And it is very surprisingly amazingly awesome that it is the other way around. I mean, I love my life here - people, parties, environment, food, weather, public transport etc, but I cannot say that I am thrilled to wake up every morning for that.. I am thrilled to wake up every morning to go to my practical training though.

Thing is that Erasmus is not about studying. It's about cultural exchange, new people, living in a totally new place and well the studies are like extra thing.. My Erasmus is vice versa: studying and doing my practical training is the most essential and most enjoyable thing and everything else comes extra.

But well, I finished my practice on Wednesday. Ah, it was emotionally very hard.. to say goodbye to all those awesome physiotherapist and patients. I am going to miss the heck out of them! I know that people don't understand it, they tell me "Well, it's part of life and you will find another job and other practical training places etc" but it's not true. Well, it is. I am going to have practical training next year as well but not as this one. Because from this one I gained so much more than just knowledge about my field.

First of all, I got motivation to study harder so once when I start working I will be as good physiotherapist as my tutor. I got to know the working environment and the working team I definitely want to be part of. I want to have these patient that you don't even treat but still come to you on your last day and say "Keep on smiling. Good luck in life!" or "I love you! I will miss you." I want all of that. Here I actually want to get up in the morning to go to work because if you actually want to do that then it's not working. I want this actually not working thing.

On my last day, I baked them a cake. It wasn't my most amazing cake sadly. Anyways. At the end of the lunch brake they told me they have a gift for me. I was so surprised about it since they really didn't have to do it. The gift.. it is the most amazing and sweetest thing ever! I absolutely love it!

And imagine my face when I found Estonian there..

Or when I read "I'll be watching you"

..and then both of us did the thing with the fingers.. you know what I am talking about.

Oeh. This is so hard... I am leaving Spain tomorrow and I am ready to leave. I can leave. I don't want to but I can handle it. I can't really handle leaving the hospital though. It seriously brings tears into my eyes so I am kind'a happy that I am home alone right now and nobody can see me.

And for last.. Me and my tutor. The woman who made my practical training what it was! You have a piece of my heart! I really do want to be as smart and as awesome tutor one day as you are right now.

What I want to say is that. Spain has amazing positive affect on your professional and also private life. If you have the opportunity to do an Erasmus, do it! Just freakin' do it! It is the best time in your life so far! Afterwards it will just get better! :)

As I said on Wednesday, I won't say "Adios!" to you. It is "Hasta lluego!"

I promise.

Greetings and farewell to Malta!

My name is Rasmus and I'm a 2nd year radiography student from Tartu. I've been in Malta for 3 and a little over months and I enjoyed my time here. This is first and also last post and I hope that it includes all the things I have seen and done here.

Coming here went without any trouble. When we arrived it was already night time and we didn't even know where our apartment was exactly. Even the taxi driver had some trouble finding it since he wasn't familiar with the region we were staying at, but luckily we got there on the first try. We had a couple of days to spare before our first meeting with the ERASMUS people here so we had a good first weekend.

On Monday we went to the hospital to get some details where and how our practices are going to be. If I remember correctly the next day was a public holiday so "Yayy" for us. On Wednesday we had a tour around the University campus and we also started our practice. I was a bit nervous cause I didn't know what kind of people were there but luckily I stumbled upon some really cool and friendly staff members here. We were also given some assignments to do. They were quite bothersome but all were done and graded well.

Practice itself was good. The people are ready to help you and teach you but only if you really want to do something. Some will give a push and get you to do things but some won't. The local students really just sit around the howl day and talk with the radiographers. They way the radiographers communicate with the patients is also really different from Estonia. The radiographer and the patient are like best friends. They talk about almost everything, like about their personal life and so on. And they can sometimes be quite loud but that's just the way they talk. But you can really feel relaxed doing your practice here. You learn new things and at the same time it's really fun.

We also did some sightseeing in Malta and also in Gozo. Here are some picture about the things that I saw here...

Azure window in Gozo

Little town of Xliendi in Gozo

Our ride in Gozo

Doing some checking.

 (Second later I was running away from the water)

The water here looks so nice but is really salty.

Our home town, Marsascala.

***

This is actually says "Türi" on the upper left corner.

Nice!

This is what the nature looks on the local islands.

I also went to the Earth Garden music festival which was awesome. It was three days filled with different kind of folk music from the local bands. I was able to get a tent and stay at the camping area. The tent I got from my supervisor and also my friend from nuclear medicine. Also there were many people selling cool stuff for the entire time. I would recommend this event for everyone to get the more relaxed feeling.

This was like a small gathering corner where people

could come and perform what the wanted and also just watch others perform.

The place was filled with little shops like these, but they were a bit expensive.

Had some trouble finding this cat statue. It was quite big.

So this pretty much sums up what I've been doing here. I also went to Sicily but unfortunately I forgot my cameras memory-card so I don't have any picture from that trip. I went to Mt. Etna and a little city called Modica. I wouldn't recommend to go on Etna, because for me there wasn't much to see but you get a nice view from up there.

So tomorrow I'm going home. I really enjoyed my time in the practice here and I would really like to stay a bit longer but also I would like to go back. I would really recommend to come here on ERASMUS because there are so many things to do here and the weather is always nice. I actually miss the rain. So yeah, three months filled with sunny days and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea is perfect for a practice. But there isn't much nature here, mainly rocky terrain and some bushes and few trees. Also the streets are quite dirty but you can easily overlook that.

And that is it!

See you soon in Estonia!

Rasmus

The Malta Experience

Hi everyone!

This will be my last post here, because on this monday, I had my last hours of placements in Mater Dei Hospital and I reached the 400 hours required by University of Malta. Tomorrow I will have the documents and over it is.

But it feels like I just started, the three months have passed so quickly. In one way I am happy that this experience will end, because Estonia is waiting and I´m so looking forward to go home, but in the other way I´m sad to leave, because I really liked it here, I made some friends, I liked to work in the Imaging Department, especially in CT, I got a lot of experience etc.

Here I would like to thank everybody, who made it possible for me to go on this Erasmus exchange to Malta and also all the radiographers in Mater Dei Hospital, who were really welcoming and kind. Thanks to them I enjoyed every hour of it. Grazzi hafna!


Now I will have 8 more days here in Malta and I will make the most of it.

Sun is setting for my Malta experience

Thank you all and see you in Estonia!

What cannot be seen or heard is mysterious!

Kristjan Noormets

RT2 

Blue Lagoon

St Peter´s Pool

Ramla Bay

A nice view from a cave looking over Ramla Bay

St Julians Bay

Greetings form Foggia!

In this post we are going  to talk a bit about our practices in the hospitals.

Egle: I was doing  intensive care and geriatric practice. At first intensive care practice took place at chirurcical department and when we asked can we see an intensive care unit also, they said yes for a week. So, we saw actually two wards and we could do different procedures. Most of them we knew already, but some of them were new. Most of the collegues were friendly but they did not speak much english. It was difficult to communicate with them, but other italian students helped us out.

On geriatric ward the welcoming was warmer and people there were friendlier. They really wanted us to show how we do procedures ant they let us do almost everything. Mostly the hospitals looked the same as in Estonia, but there are differences how they did procedures and what they used for doing them. Some of the things looked weird to us, but it is obvious because our cultures are very different. The thing I liked the most is the way how doctors talked with the patients. They really communicated with patients, not only about medicine, but about life and so on. And they  are supporting them by holding their hands. To sum up, the experience in these wards was great and I can share them later with my schoolfriends.

                                          

 View from the ward

Pille: I am doing my practice in d'Avanzo hospital and in here physiotherapists work together in one big gym.

Italian physiotherapy students have more practice than we do. They study for three years, but in the mornings they have practice in the hospital and after lunch they go to lectures and do their exams. So, sometimes their schooldays might last until 7 or 8 PM.

Kristel: My first practice was with Egle, in thoracic surgery and intensive care unit. After that, I started a new practice in pediatrics, where I got the best welcome. I spent most of my time with medical students, who were very helpful and let me try to do all the things I was up to. Although the practice has ended, we are still in contact and I hope to visit them soon again.

The third practice is the one I was most afraid of- psychiatrics. There I’m also mostly with medical students, who try to translate as much as they can, but as 99% of psychiatrist’s work is verbal, it’s hard to translate everything. But still, I like being there.

All the best

Egle, Pille and Kristel

Nothing's true before it's real - Real Madrid, Spain ! :)

Ahoi!

Life is amazing, every part of it. They say "The perfect day is when you think, laugh and cry" and the cool thing is that you do not have to cry because you are sad, you can cry because you are happy. This is what I wanted to do today. Why? Take a look!

And imagine my face when I got my ticket ! (I am a huge Casillas fan!)

But what you can see? Well, for starters you can see the pitch from up high..

..and from the ground. The ground where Casillas has walked and Kaka has spit and Ronaldo has fell down.

I even sat on the chair where the bench people sit. Sadly Casillas too. :/ But since there is always two sides to a cookie: the chairs are really comfortable, so at least when you are this bench-person you are feeling comfortable!

And I got even sadder when I saw that his locker is in the corner.. 

And you can clearly see of which team the pitch takes better care of.. The guest teams' changing room.

But apart from that. Real Madrid was founded in 1902 and is the best team of 20th century. This is the proof of that - the best players etc awards !

And well, the awards for the amazing team itself! You know how every time a team wins, the captain of the team lifts the trophy above his head? Like, okay, I understand that you can raise this one..

..and this one..

..or even this one...

..but this one? It looks like the top is about to fall off.

And wtf about these?

Oh. And it is so cool to see the evolution of the football and shoes. First it was like this.

Then like this..

Then a bit better but still bad.

Then like nowadays.

And well.. now!

Oh, even a funny picture comparing the evolution of shirts.

And well, you can't really miss taking photo with the team! Oh my Gosh! Too bad it wasn't real. :/

Well, you still think life is not amazing? Think, laugh and cry! Or skip the last one and replace it with a smile or a balloon!

The Malta Experience

Hello!

Today was my last placement day in CT. Now I can say that I have achieved all the required hours from Tartu Health Care College, in all four modalities. Only six days of placements need to be done to get to the 400 hours limit set by University of Malta and then I have reached the end of the placements in Malta, Mater Dei Hospital.

But how is life here in Malta right now. It has not been so warm/hot, like in Estonia :D. When it was +30 in Estonia, we only had +24 or +25. When it was +30 in Estonia, it was raining here :D. So which country is the hottest? :D

When there are no mosquitoes in Malta, there are 5 cm cockroaches. Nice!

But there have been some sunny days

Bye-bye!

Kristjan Noormets

RT2

Ciao!

We are Pille, Egle and Kristel and we are doing our practices in Foggia.

The city has about 150 000 inhabitants and it is located in the southeast of Italy, not far from the Adriatic coast. City is small and compared to other italian cities, quite cheap. And one more good thing that it has a good railway connection with other cities. 

Main square in Foggia - Piazza Cavour

We arrived in the end of March … so we have been here for a while. In the beginning the weather was quite cold, but it is getting warmer and warmer every day. The hospital is very different from Estonian hospitals and only some of the staff can speak english. We can do the same procedures as in Estonia, but the way of doing them is different. The hospital, where we are doing our practices belongs to the university and is the biggest in Puglia region. Besides us there are a lot of local students also, who are basically our translators. 

Entrance of the park

The city is quite small and there is nothing much to do with our free time, so during the weekends we are travelling and exploring Italy. But about that in the next post.

Greetings from Foggia

Egle, Kristel and Pille