“You’re a Erasmus student? Ooooooh, I see.....”

To begin this post, I am going to say that this is in COMPLETE procrastination from the law work I am supposed to be doing. :)

I thought I might write a little bit about this so-called “Erasmus” life that I and my fellow Erasmus students have got going on here. What I am going to talk about may not be generic to all the groups of Erasmus students across the world, but I do think that there will be some elements of it that will be present, purely because a lot of what I’m going to talk about is down to a “group” mentality, as opposed to a purely “cultural” one.

Now, the whole point of a Erasmus year/6 months is that you get to meet people not only from the country of your target language, but also people from all over the world. Here I have met a lot of Italians, Brazilians, French, Polish, Sloviakans, Germans, Irish, and many people. Surprisingly, not many English people ( :( ). But that’s ok. I came to speak Spanish anyway ;)

One thing that becomes glaringly obvious is how different people feel about their country. Italians, for example, on the whole seem to love being from Italy, and think it is the best country in the world, so much so that they seem to think that everyone else should know everything about Italy too. To highlight this, there was a delightful drunken moment when an Italian gentleman that I hadn’t met before brought out his wallet. This wallet as he said “is a map of Italy!” and proceeded to ask everyone around him, “Where is Rome/Naples/Venice?” with the expectation that everyone would know where that is. Delightful. Others haven’t been quite so into their country.

Us English, for example, we’re more likely to say how rubbish (I’m putting it politely) England is than to say that “It’s amazing and you should SO live there!”. That is all well and good, and I love to be self-deprecating as much as the next person, but it doesn’t half give you a shock to hear someone to so openly brag about their country. Which kind of makes me not.....like.....them? Does that make me a bad person?
Anyway, getting back to the Erasmus life. I think the only people that actually doa lot of work here are the Erasmus law students- we actually have to take more than 2 classes. I go to the University of Kent. They make us get quite a substantial amount of credits to make this year actually count for us. The other universities....not quite so much. Which means that as law students we have a lot more work to do. Now, that is not to say that no one else here does any work here. Of course they do. Just not as much. Which means that people get the impression that Erasmus students never do any work. And just go out all the time. I tell you. I wish that were true!

But most people here, yes, they do go out all the time. And that’s partly where all the gossip happens. I go to one of the most gossip-y universities in all of England (or so it appears to me). But even I have never quite come across this level of gossip. Part of this I think comes from the “popular” mentality that a lot of people have here. I think this partly lies down to the fact that many of these people have never actually lived away from mummy and daddy before- it’s like a holiday, where they just go wild. And that’s perfectly fine. But to be honest, I’ve done the whole, “Omg I’m free!” thing. I would like to think (emphasis on the “like to”) that I’m a bit beyond that stage now. If people like me-great, if not- I have friends anyway. But people seem to want to make a name for themselves, and it doesn’t seem to matter whether that name is a good one, or a less-than-flattering one.

I have heard people talking, “Omg did you hear what so-and-so did/said last night!?” and that’s just the guys. But, I have been quite behind on the gossip stakes. Something that I’m actually quite proud of.

I know of people here that have lovely boyfriends and girlfriends back home. But you would never think that from the way they act. They seem to come here, and think that their actions don’t actually have any effect. I’ve heard of people getting hurt because of what they’ve been doing. Oh dear, it kind of reminds me of Freshers’ year....which for me was 2 years ago.

I was told before I came out here, “avoid the Erasmus parties”....Now I can kind of see why. That is not to say that everyone here is horrible. Far from it. I have met some really lovely, really normal, and down-to-earth people. I am glad to have met them. If only to keep me sane from the rest!

:D