Haoran in Reykjavík

Today couldn’t get worse for us. First of all, my bike got stolen…All that was left was the front wheel. I didn’t take a picture because I was so pissed at the time. I had to rent a new one at the rent a bike store. Secondly, some bird poo-ed on Jeroen’s head and that was, admittedly, quite funny to see. Third, a storm was coming up and it started pouring. Guess where the three of us we: from the farthest place away of our complex imaginable: outside the city walls. We were all soaked by the time we reached our apartment. And last, Tessy’s bike fell apart while we on our way in the rain. I didn’t see how it happened or how it looked like because I was biking ahead. Unfortunately, Tessy didn’t take a photo of it. So yeah, it was quite a crappy day for us.

The park, the area outside the walls and shops we visited during the day were nice, however.

Twas time for the laundry and since we all had to do quite some laundry, we decided to design a magnificent construction to put our clothes on for drying. See the photos for the results.

Our first coffee in six days, you wouldn’t expect that from Italy, huh? I guess it’s the lack of opportunities and available shops near our complex. Anyway, the coffee was great (as expected).

Dinner was at the roof for everyone and it was very nice but it got cold real fast. After some casual drinking (well, not me), we went to the Architettura party just outside the city walls. The spirit was great but the music was baaaad…If they had one in The Netherlands, it would have been great.

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Today was our first lesson day, but first up was registration at the Ferrara University. As usual, it would take a very long time before we finally got registered. I found it weird that our tuition fee, after we semi-registered, had to be paid at a bank and then had to go back to finally get enrolled. It took us three hours in total.

The university and hospital weren’t that impressive, I’m afraid. I guess we’re used to the luxury of Maastricht University. It was a half assed park due to the old buildings. After finding our way to the main room and the introductions of our new Italian tutors, we started with the discussion of the cases. Unfortunately, no Italian students are among us right now due to the fact that they have exams in June and July (what a disappointment!). The discussion wasn’t different from the ones in Maastricht, apart from the fact that they were in English now. The case wasn’t too specific either and therefore not very interesting.

The one time that friend Jeroen decides to eat an apple, he loses his iron thingy from his teeth (picture). Yikes, but apparently nothing to worry about.

We all decided, after a long day, to go out and eat pizza with everyone. Our initial idea was to eat at the so called Pizza boat but it was closed (on a Tuesday?) so we had to look for another option. A kind woman led us to a place where she’d always get her pizzas from and with enough space for twenty people. The pizzas were delicious, but the owner (or one of his co-workers, actually) tried to rip us off! It was actually really funny to see because we were (obviously) very stubborn and wouldn’t pay what they asked (in total, it was about €100,- too much). That’s where our Dutch greed came into play, but we had the right to do so anyway. Eventually, they gave in and asked for the right price (kind of). We even gave them a huge tip of fifteen Euros! I thought they didn’t deserved it but oh well, some hadn’t paid yet while the amount was reached and wanted to.

Something I forgot to tell on the fourth day (Rent-a-bike):

Jeroen found these enormous, gross cocoons in his curtains. I don’t mind insects but that really freaked me out. I don’t know what they were, but it seemed like they were moths or something. Could be spiders too though, because we shoved them with a broom and when they broke, we saw these little dead insect bodies…Ugh.

And last but not least: Jeroen said he wanted to eat the sun so…

We’ve only walked up until today, because busses are very, very uncommon in Ferrara. I was quite surprised by that but could understand why they did it. I mean, the city isn’t too big. Everything is within walking distance. Still, walking to the center of the city each time (+- 3 kilometers) isn’t much fun and going back and forth to the university and hospital would be a pain in the ass as well.

By now, everyone has arrived and they all had to register and sign the contract for the apartments as well…As you could have guessed, it took sooo long. I’ll be saying this a lot, but man, the Italians are slowpokes.

Once everyone had signed and freshened up, we all went to the central station together to rent a bike. The owner did not speak English and pretty much tried to rip us off with €100,- for six weeks (previous med students hired a bike for €60,- for three months). Obviously, we would explore other options and the one rent a bike store advised was near the cathedral. To our surprise, the owner spoke English very well and the process of renting our bikes luckily went easy peasy.

Having our bikes gave us enormous freedom. It was great to go from A to B within a few moments. Definitely worth it and pretty much mandatory.

This is what you get when it’s sunday, when the shops are closed, when it’s hot and while we’re waiting for our colleagues to arrive because we have their keys (but don’t know their arrival times…):

The reception gave us the keys of our colleagues’ apartments because they knew they’d be arriving today and the reception was closed. Except…They didn’t give us the paper with the arrival times with it (nor the telephone numbers). All we could do was wait, really.

As you can see in the picture above, we tried to improvise. Our complex has an arcade hall so we went there and played some. They also have Dance Dance Revolution!

Diner was nice with the newly arrived (pasta from a restaurant within our complex).

We all slept very well in our new beds and got up early in the morning. After breakfast (cornflakes!) we decided to check out the gym and study rooms. The apartments are divided into towers (one, two and three) and in order to get to the gym we had to cross the balcony to tower one (we were in three). Unfortunately the door to the gym was broken and the study rooms weren’t that special but the view from the balcony was amazing!

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