PEOPLE+ | Life goes without stopping

Hi, I am Berkan. I came from Turkey which is a beautiful, warm and wonderful country. Let us go back to the beginning of the whole story. By the way, the story is no longer as you expect.

I was born and raised in Turkey. I have lived in Bursa until I left for university. I had started university with really high expectations. After a short time later, I realized that would not pass as I had expected. Any different things had not happened at the beginning. I was solved later. Then I went to France for some kind of volunteering activity. We were at least 20 people from different parts of the world such as Russia, China, Spain, France. That was the first culture shock that I faced in my life. But I quickly figured out that to find a common point to start a conversation then everything went on. Some bad thing happened in France. I faced the problem of lack of speaking English. I still have the same problem but I am better than that. That project was the beginning of my change.

Then, I participated in 2 more projects. The first thing that comes to my mind when I heard an Erasmus project is to spend a good time and learn key competencies of the EU. The atmosphere of Erasmus project was beyond my dreams. I learned lots of things as much as I can. When I went back to Turkey, I was not the same person. At that day, I decided to go back and be part of a multicultural organization.

I always love to be in challenging situations ever since I could remember. My university challenge has already completed. I was looking for a new adventure to change my perspective. Life goes without stopping. I have FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I do not want to miss nothing that happens around me. This is what it means to be FOMO. So, I decided to go abroad after a long quarantine and spend time with family that will help me for the rest of my life. This is why I am here.

Erasmus is not a temporary learning process. Erasmus is a life-long learning process. I am here to gain lots of things about multicultural projects and also contribute to the whole things that I have. I believe that I will come back to Turkey with good experience, good friends, and good memories.

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Berkan Aydin, volunteer@ICDET

VIE+W | My love for international relations and the European Union

Hi! My name is Marta and I come from Padua in the North-East of Italy. I really like my region since, from a geographical point of view, it has everything: mountains, hills, lake, rivers, and the sea.

After the high school years, in which I studied economy and obtained a chartered accountant qualification, I decided to go to the university. I enrolled in a private university in Padua called CIELS, in a degree called language mediation for international and diplomatic organizations.

During these three years, I was able to improve my language skills in English and French and to study topics like international law, contemporary history and diplomacy. During the first semester of my third (and last) year, I went to Mons, in the Wallonian part of Belgium, for my Erasmus. I loved living there. The city was not at all big, so you could walk everywhere and it had this nordic vibe with these typical Belgian brick houses that I love. Moreover, I loved the multicultural atmosphere Belgium has and the fact that you can easily travel across all countries. I think that my favourite Belgian city was Bruges (or Brugge in Flemish), it’s really a medieval jewel. If you have never been there you should go.

After my bachelor degree with a thesis on the translation of comic books, I started working as a language tutor, teaching English and French to those students (both young and adult) wanting to obtain a diploma. At the same time I have also translated two comic books (The Shepherd and The Last Hunt) from English to Italian.

My love for international relations and the European Union has led me to enroll to a Master degree on European and Global Studies at the Università di Padova, a master degree completely taught in English and focused on the understanding of the European Union and its institutions. In the future, I would like to work in an international environment, preferably in the EU.

I decided to do my internship here, at ICDET, because it is an NGO working with the EU and with trainees coming from everywhere and because I had never been to an eastern country and I wanted to know it. Unfortunately, I will be here only for two months, but I will do my best to learn as much as I can.

I am currently working in the Project Development department since it is about what I have studied in my Master degree. I hope I will develop some interesting projects!

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Marta Bragagnolo, intern@ICDET

LIFE+ | Indian engineer in Bulgaria

I am Akash Kambampati pursuing my master’s in Aerospace engineering at Sapienza-University of Rome.

My interest in management brought me to ICDET organisation in the city of Sofia, Bulgaria through the Erasmus program. Upon my arrival at the airport of Sofia, I was received by one of the associates of the organisation who helped me to reach my accommodation and make me meet my manager who also made a warm welcome for me and also, they even made sure to get my basic groceries from the nearby supermarket where I find it difficult to get at new place with new language and culture. This was a sweet gesture by the organisation which made me less worried at a new place.

The place where I was accommodated has a kitchen with a private bathroom and the ambience is peaceful with a nearby metro-station, mall, supermarket, and beautiful park with a lake which makes it a perfect accommodation for new people.

The first 3 days are my on-arrival training days where I will get introduced to my work in internship, but after that I was ready for some exploring.

It was cloudy, perfect weather for a tourist to explore a place in my opinion and being one I thought it would be a great day for us to explore the city of Sofia. My friend and I got ready and started from the place by taking a one-day transport pass which costed us 4 leva each.

We took a metro from Druzhba to Serdika, walking through the beautiful streets of the city we reached “St. Geogre Rotonda”, surrounded by the modern buildings the church was preserved at the center. St. George Rotonda church is cylindrical domed structure built on a square base with frescoes inside the central dome was built in early 4th century which makes it the oldest building in Sofia.

And from there we took the streets to walk into the city garden where you can also find “Ivan Vazov” national performing arts theatre facing towards garden. This cultural theatre was opened in 1907 that makes the theatre almost 113 years old and has gold finishing on the sculptures of the theatre which strikes at instant look even from a certain distance.

After having a pleasant lunch from an Indian restaurant our next stop is the most iconic Bulgarian iconic church in Sofia, “Cathedral St. Aleksandar Nevski”, which is a Patriarchal Cathedral Stauropigial Memorial-Church.

Since it is not possible to visit all the landmark places of Sofia in one day we left some more places to visit on an another day. By the end of the day we are tired but enjoyed the beauty and culture of the city. The interaction with the other interns and colleagues during the work and my free time made me feel comfortable which happened because of their kind and welcoming behaviors, I feel.

These are my first impressions and on-arrival experience after coming to Sofia.

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Akash Kambampati, intern@ICDET