Erasmus + Success Stories

“IT IS SAID THAT HOME IS NOT THE PLACE THAT YOU ARE LIVING IN, BUT THE PLACE WHERE YOUR HEART IS, SO FOR ME PAMPLONA IS MY SECOND HOME!”

Erasmus+ Period: 04/03/2019 - 03/06/2019

People have said to me that the Erasmus+ Programme is amazing adventure and worthy of living experience! If you want to know about mine, continue reading.

How everything started, I was wondering if going abroad for 3 months to do my diploma thesis will be a good idea, and mostly I didn’t know the main language of the country that I wanted to visit. Probably, now is the moment to share with you which destination was the one that I have chosen, it was – Spain, Pamplona. However, I decided to take the chance and to test myself if I am able to survive abroad, completely alone.

I had never heard anything about Pamplona that’s why I was not sure what to expect from this city. Surprisingly, when the plane landed, the only people that were at the airport were the ones from my plane, imagine how small was the city that I was going to (at least it seemed to be for me), therefore the first thought that crossed my mind was that maybe the only thing that I will do there is to work and travel a little bit, but guess what, it was not only that.

The first new thing that I had to cope with was the university and all the new stuff that I had to handle there. I won’t lie to you, in the beginning it was hard for me to understand the Span-sh-English accent that all the people had and sometimes I was only smiling if I didn’t get the idea that they were trying to explain to me. The second thing that I had to get used to was the new equipment and the way of teaching, which was pretty different from Bulgarian’s one. One of the first things that I learned there was that I have to do everything alone, to cope with the problems of my project, to think more and to solve the problems by myself. The truth is that it was scary but worthy, because now I can say that working in a lab is not easy, but it is really interesting, focusing, mind-taking and also super fun and exciting.

After my first days with not pretty clear understanding of Spanish-English (which I adored afterwards) I got used to it and this problem disappeared on its own. As you can see from the photos I met some new friends, I didn’t know it then, but they were going to become my friends for lifetime. Of course, we were not only working, we were going out almost every night, after the day in the lab, to enjoy Pamplona and to discover it. One of the first things that we had the chance to find out was the really famous juevintxo night (every Thursday) when you can buy the world famous “pinchos”, what is that, see the picture below.

Soon after the beginning of my Erasmus+ I met other friends from all over the world, mostly Italians but also Hungarian, Egyptians and German people. As a typical exchange student we were travelling almost every weekend so we visited amazing places for example: Las Bardenas (the desert), mountain San Cristobal, Costa Vasca and many cities like San Sebastian, Barcelona, Vitoria and believe me all of them were magical.

As I said in the beginning, it was not only working and travelling it was a way bigger picture. Who knows why, maybe because of that all of us were foreign students or because we just liked each other a lot or because all of us were a little bit crazy and strange (in a good way), but we became true friends and we shared everything from the homemade food to the happy and some-times hard moments that all of us had experienced there. So I found not only new people, but I found simple, crazy, goodhearted, intelligent and amazing friends.

It is said that home is not the place that you are leaving in, but the place where your heart is, for me Pamplona was my second home.

I don’t know how convincing I am now for going abroad and studying there, but if you are still not sure, if it is not enough for you, I hope that the following sentence will be “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”. Do something new, be brave and follow your heart.

P.S. With love to my Erasmus+ kindergarten family!