First days in Forli
7 February 2019
No matter how difficult a new beginning may be, things will always work out in the end - this is what our student Tom Philips finds out in the first week of his Erasmus+ placement in Forli, Italy.
One thing that I didn’t quite grasp until this week was that for all you think you might be prepared for something like a year abroad, you’re really not (especially if you were born a disorganised mess like me). Ranging from not realising that September in Italy is still incredibly hot (that probably wouldn’t have been hard to find out) to turning up at the registration desk in Forli and being told I was actually supposed to be studying an hour away in Bologna, I haven’t exactly come across as the most with-it Erasmus student. Other things like rent complications and taking a week to realise I’d sent my learning agreement to the wrong place, or the fact that I just cracked my phone screen whilst writing this, have all left me a little overwhelmed at times. However, the truth is that these are just those John Prine moments when “it’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown”, and things tend to work themselves out in the end (uni staff both in Forli and London have been really helpful). Once you zoom out a little my first week here has been as exciting as it hectic.
Having spent all my life in London, being in Forli represents a big change for me in that it’s about the size of a London postcode- meaning getting to grips with the city geographically has been fairly straightforward. Like seemingly every Italian town I’ve been to, it’s built around a pristine square, which is filled almost exclusively with cafes and pharmacies and then surrounded by windy little streets all named after either Garibaldi or Mazzini. The student community is small but welcoming, with a de facto Student Union organisation running plenty of events to help out new arrivals.They even sorted out a flat for me, and then met me at the station to get me settled in. The two people I’m living with (one engineering student and one 55 year-old man who spends a lot of time shouting into one of those Bluetooth earpieces) have been nothing but kind and made an effort to brief me on various aspects of Forli. Perhaps helpfully, neither speak English so I’m actually practicing Italian, which is somewhat a relief since I’ve so far been spending time with Erasmus students from all over Europe who in all honesty speak better English than I do. As for the university, I only start lectures next week so I’m not entirely sure what to expect, or how I’m going to keep up with lectures in Italian. At this point, having said that, I’m just excited to get going.
By Tom Philips