Thanks to the Erasmus+ project of Consorcio Barcelona 2021, 4 students from the López Vicuña Center in Barcelona left for Athens, where our Greek partner SBIE organised for them a one-month internship experience they will not forget!
In this article we’ll read the stories of 2 of them, that worked in a local geriatric residence during those 30 days.
Saray’s experience
Hi, I’m Saray and I’m studying Nursing Assistantship at the López Vicuña Centre. After submitting my application, doing the interview and being selected, I joined this Erasmus project.
I was lucky enough to be accompanied by classmates from the same cycle, we also met a couple of girls from our same school, so we were able to compare our experiences.
In my case the destination was Athens, and I was doing my internship in a geriatric residence. As for the residence, the conditions did not meet our expectations, but I learned to work with the resources offered to us and under other customs and protocols. Not all the geriatric patients spoke English, but interpreting I could understand what they asked me, although not always, in those cases I used an app on my mobile phone to translate.
In my case I shared a flat and internship place with 3 other female colleagues and despite the fact that we had different timetables, we coincided in some hours. Our routine was not difficult or different from the one in Spain. We got up an hour before the starting time, we got to the residence with a couple of buses, we worked and we were offered food every day. When we got home each one of us planned it’s own evening. Sometimes we went shopping, sightseeing or stayed at home finishing some course work.
Life there is not very different, but you could find typical food in any supermarket unlike in other countries I have been to. Public transport is accessible and there is a wide variety of options.
If you are thinking about going on Erasmus or have ever thought about it, do it. It’s an amazing experience even though it has its pros and cons, like everything else. It helps you see life differently and pushes out your independent spirit. I would definitely do it again.
Carla’s experience
I am here to tell you about my experience in Greece, more precisely in Athens. It has been a really difficult and challenging experience for me and my family, for the simple fact that I haven’t been in a really good state for most of my stay. However, I totally have to take something positive from this: thanks to the difficult situations I have experienced, I have seen what the outside world is really like.
What I mean by the outside world? I have gone to another country that has nothing to do with Spain, where the beliefs, attitudes and ways of thinking are very different from ours, which in one way or another I have been unable to really adapt to. Anyway, the best memory I keep with me about my experience at the residence, is the super nice group of old people from there, of whom I am proud to have helped during my stay.
I have to admit that it was quite difficult for me to adapt to this place for the simple fact that they have their own habits and their own way of doing things, which I didn’t always agree with, especially with some behaviours of the residence’s nurses and auxiliary staff.
I think that the main problem of this stay in Greece was the internship itself. What I mean by that is that outside of the internship, specifically in the evenings and at weekends, it was another thing, at home I was feeling comfortable and free, I was visiting places, staying with people and doing things that I liked.
I have had many moments where I said to myself: “stop, goodbye Greece”. I have even spoken to my parents because in some moments I wanted to return home. But I have not given up, even though I was having a hard time, and I think that this has made me grow a lot as a person.
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