Lisbon

Boa noite !

Thank god for the Carnation Revolution in 1974!

Since here is a Freedom Day on 25^th of April gave me some free time to write to you about my stay in a lovely city Lisbon. Although I enjoy my time in hospital, I always look forward to these nice sunny and free days in Portugal. We, white Estonians, are already changing colour. J

Now, let’s begin.

First days in the big city were scary, I am quite used to living in Tartu, I even get lost in Tallinn, Lisbon is a whole new level for me. But the metro system saves me, it is very logical and only three lines, it takes people everywhere they like.  

It took me 3-4 days to find a home, since then I had a friendly host, now I live in Rua Campolide, I have a magnificent view to one of the sights of Lisbon - Águas Livres Aqueduct from my little balcony, plus I have a cat living here.  And as I am a lucky person, my internship place – Hospital Curry Cabral is just a 15-20 min walk away. Okay, I have to walk up to a hill to a nearest shop, but this is not a problem to a physiotherapy student.

Everyone in the school (teachers, international office) was very helpful, kind and friendly – this comes naturally to Portuguese people.  Of course Grete, who was already feeling herself home in here, helped me a lot. Thank You ! First days were full of different parties (it is a big part of Erasmus, specially in Lisbon) and sightseeing, few days and it already felt like home. But as a blonde, they will never take me as their own. Have not been homesick yet!

Today, it is exactly a month of my stay, just noticed that.  I have already travelled outside of Portugal (stories about our trips are coming), but I will never forget the first time I saw the ocean in Cascais (city near to Lisbon). 

I have already found so many friends, I am still finding new beautiful places in the city, more and more love my work/internship in the hospital, it has been SUPER and the best moments are yet to come.

Lisbon is the best city to do your Erasmus, different events EVERY day for international students, you just can not get bored here. 

Cascais

Tradition of Portuguese students is to arrange a dinner and after that there is a schools' ansambel Tuna performing and the traditional ceremony takes place. 

Picture of our hospitals' gym.

And the shopping places are fantastic. 

Liina Kõllamets

FT II

Bulgaria

Здравейте!

Shout-outs from Balkans! It is unbelievable that we have been in Bulgaria for 5 weeks already. Feels like just yesterday we arrived.

I guess the right way for estonians to start their blog is to talk about weather. Okay, it’s quite amazing. It hasn’t been too hot yet and of course the locals are still wearing jackets that a stereotypical estonian wears in the winter, but the weather forecast for may looks promising even for the locals. The temperatures will get up to 30 degrees, perfect.

Life in Bulgaria is very different from Estonia, especially when it comes to medicine. It’s definitely a good experience for us to see the life in Bulgarian hospitals. We live in Plovdiv, which is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after the capital Sofia. Plovdiv is definitely worth a visit, because it’s one of the oldest cities in Europe and is surrounded by beautiful mountains.  

We are staying in student’s dormitory which in general looks nice, the only downside is that there are no kitchens. Only a room with a toilet and a bathroom. But it’s very cheap so we don’t feel very bad about it.

This week we are going to visit Istanbul with other Erasmus students. Stay tuned!

Довиждане!

Teele Naar Õ2
Jaan Luts FT2

Hello, hello, hello!

Labdien!

We have had practice in Riga for five weeks now. Two of us were in the surgical unit and others in cardiology department. The practice has been quite instructive even though we can't speak Latvian and Russian well. Luckily here are some nurses and patients who speak English. However, the medical system seems a little less developed as in Estonia.

Riga is also very beautiful city. Finally good weather has arrived and made the stay even more enjoyable. We are currently staying at student hostel called Prima. The conditions aren't the best but we have many Erasmus students from other countries here which is great.

We also had orientation event in Jurmala with students from Red Cross Medical College and Jurmala as well. It was a great way to explore the city to those who didn't make it to the pedestal and didn't do any running. Runners or winners, however you want, had chance to enjoy their prizes and aching muscles. Anyways, it was a lot of fun for everyone.

Greetings from girls in Riga!
xoxo

The Malta experience

Bonjo Estonia! Hello Estonia! Tere Eesti!

Hometown Marsaskala

The time has passed so quickly. One month and one day in Malta has been full of different experiences: the warm(but soon hot) Subtropical–Mediterranean climate, different culture and people, interesting places and having clinical placements in a completely new environment. All the days are different, because in Malta you can never be sure that everything goes like you have planned.

But so far everything has worked out pretty good. I have finished my first placement in clinical imaging department- MRI(Magnetic Resonance Imaging). 

The GE 1,5 Tesla MRI scanner and the console/work table

All the placements are in the main hospital in Malta, Mater Dei Hospital. At the moment I have placement in RNI- Radionuclide imaging(Nuclear Medicine).

On the left the main entrance and the round roof of the clinical imaging departments reception. On the right the other side of the hospital and entrance of the day care patients.

There has also been time to go round the Malta main island and visit some interesting and beautiful places. 

Love for football- World Cup 2014 qualifier Malta 0:2 Italy. Unlucky score for the Maltese, it could have been 2:2.

St. Sebastian´s Parish Church in Qormi

Il-Kalanka, a bay in Delimara

Fisher village Marsaxlokk

First swimming in the Mediterranean sea, 19.03.2013

Emblem of the Estonian city Türi. Türi and Marsaskala are friends.

The streets of Valletta, the capital of Malta

St Thomas Tower, built in 1614.

There are a lot of lizards

Need some salt? From here you can collect it

A boat called luzzu coming out of a cave in Blue Grotto

I like this blue and clear water

Blue Grotto

Boats at the Blue Grotto

This is a little summary of my Malta experience in one month. But there will be more!

Enjoy the spring in Estonia, I will miss it.. :D

Kristjan Noormets

RT2

New 2012/2013 study year blogs

In 2012/2013 study year in spring 2013 30 Tartu Health Care College students will start their Erasmus exhange in different European countries, follow their blogs.

Finishing my practice in Rimini Ospedale.

Hi again!

So now I will write a little bit about my last practice. So the last practice was geriatria as I said earlier. There was a lot of Italian students in that unit. None of them were on the third year like me, so I got to do a lot more things than they (although I couldn't speak Italian so well).

The staff trusted me a lot. I could do everything alone, they weren't next to me when I was performing some sort of procedures. Although sometimes I asked them to be there, because the patients were asking me questions that I couldn't answer so...I wanted some extra help.

This was the only unit where the staff didn't speak English that well. Still we managed, because my Italian got better and etc etc, but it was still very strange that they didn't speak English because most of the workers there were very young people. But they told me that the English language classes are not very good in Italy and for that reason they can't speak English well.

I became friends with all of the staff members and the students as well, we still keep in touch on Facebook. I got a good evaluation from them, they were very happy with my practicing. All three tutors that I had told me to take Italian language courses in Estonia, get better at it, and then come back to Italy, to work in their unit, because in their opinion I will be a great nurse, who fits into the staff very well, because I get along with people really good. I was very happy to hear them say these things =)

So finally my practices were done and I was free at last! The sad thing was that my practices took so long that most of the Erasmus students started leaving right after I had finished my practices, so we only had like a week together. Still we got to do a lot of thing in that week, we were together every day, every night.

I'm extremely happy that I met those people, they were ALL perfect. There was not even one person who I didn't like. They were so adorable. And now I have the map of Europe on which we marked all the countries and cities that I can visit any time. This is an amazing feeling, having friends from different parts of the world. When I had to say goodbye to them it was very hard for me, because I felt like I have to leave my family. We will meet again, we made a promise to each other. But that will happen next year, when we will have our Rimini Erasmus reunion.

I will add some pictures of these beautiful people, so you can also see my international family =)

I started missing these people the moment they went on the train and I believe I will miss them until the day we meet again. Some people just steal your heart, and I don't mind at all! I am so grateful that I met them, I am so grateful that my Erasmus experience was so amazing...I'm a very lucky person, VERY...

Maarja from Rimini, Italy