I like movies, TV shows, music, gadgets and games. And cats.

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.

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…

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).

Due to me not having our usernames and passwords yet, my blogposts of previous days are a bit delayed.

Getting up early, double checking the luggage, saying goodbye to friends and family and I’m ready to go to Italy for six weeks as part of my college course.

It’s been years since I flew with an airplane so I was pretty excited to fly again. After dropping our bags off we were ready to board the airplane. It was a small airplane and the available space inside it wasn’t that luxuous but I guess that’s the price we pay for a cheap ticket. We did get to see some beautiful scenes from the sky and managed to take some pictures of it.

One and a half hour later we arrived in Bologna. Took the (cramped) bus to the central station and then hasted for the train to Ferrara. Trains don’t differ much from the ones in The Netherlands: they’re pretty much the same (which is a good thing).

We finally arrived in Ferrara but still had to walk a distance (with our heavy luggage) to our apartments. As expected, the English went from okay at the airport to zero at Ferrara. Furthermore, Italy is known for their afternoon breaks meaning they’ll take a break from approximately 13:00 to about 15:00. But it seems the Italians are also known for their laidback-ness and slack…They’re so slooow, it’s not even funny. We had to wait in front of our apartments for the receptionist to come back from his break and it took another two hours before we were able to shower and eat something.

After dumping our luggage and doing some groceries, we had to do some necessary cleaning. It seems that our previous renters weren’t very clean (or AcerFerrara’s cleaning ladies were just slack…). We loved the view and space but man, the place was dirty.

Figured we were tired so we pretty much stayed inside after cleaning and went to bed soon thereafter.