One Month in Bucharest

The Shining Youth (from the left): Carles, Eliise Luigi

Buna! I'm Eliise from Estonia, I just graduated from the university where I studied finno-ugristic. Before going to master's programme I decided to take a year off and here I am now!

We have been living in Bucharest for one month now. It has been full of new experiences and suprises, especially because I didn’t know much about Romania or its capital before. I knew some basic facts, a little bit about the history and some Eurovision Song Contest songs. Acctually this is the main reason why I came here – to get to know a region I didn’t know much about, where I probably never would have travelled for a holiday and where not many of the people I know have been to.

I didn’t have many expectations about my year before coming here and because of graduating from the university and writing my final thesis I didn’t even have time to read about the country much. So, I came here as a blank white page, or – as it seemed to me – as a stupid ignorant foreign who had no idea about the place she was going to live and work for the next year.

Although I didn’t have any prejudices before coming (acctually I did, of course, but knew they probably weren’t true), my family and friends kept telling me what a weird choice  I had made: It’s full of gipsies, you know, they’re going to steal everything from you, or Don’t be outside alone when it’s dark, the stray dogs are going to eat you. or my favourite: Oh, you’re going to travel back in time for like 20 years, are you sure you have internet connection at home?

I have to admit, it wasn’t all totally wrong what they said:  also the locals can’t get over about the gipsies on the streets when they talk about their country, there are really many stray dogs and our internet connection at home as never been very stable. Nevertheless, I’m positively suprised about the city! It’s full of contrasts and that’s what I like. You can never get bored of it. The moment you think it’s just a place full of blocks of flats and ruins from the communist times you discover an area full of dream-house-like buildings or the Little Paris part. Also, when you feel that every driver in the city wants to run you over and every person you see is mad that you’re on their way, you should go to some of the many-many beautiful parks, sit on the grass and enjoy conversations with locals who are truly interested in you and your county, not to mention your Romanian language skills, of course. Everyone wants to hear how you say mulțumesc or covrigi with your weird accent.

Acctually the Romanian culture is just one of the many to get used to and to learn from this year. We are working and living in a multicultural enviroment: there’s a Spanish, an Italian and two Turkish boys. It’s very, very interesting to get to know people from different countries, but at the same time it’s also difficult, because we’re so different. Besides having to get used to living with four boys there’s also different sense of time (five minutes can easily mean half an hour), work ethics (you can start working now or wait until the deadline is almost there), food (pasta-pasta-pasta or potatoes-potatoes-potatoes) and so on. It’s sometimes hard, but that’s one point of doing an EVS: broadening your view on the world and becoming more tolerant about different cultures.

All in all, I’ve had an amazing first month full of fantastic people and experiences and I can’t wait what the future has in store for us!

Eliise