Going to Siena this weekend to visit my ex-flatmates and the two English I met in September. Very excited to go there! I caught a plane to Pisa and back for only 10 Euros, can you believe it? Well, thanks to Ryanair.
I'm in a rush so I will only tell you on a short note that I saw a Shaggy concert last night - the first concert of this sort I've ever seen, and it was very disappointing. He was there not even for an hour from 1 to 2 and shook his hips and all his bling-bling. But the Italians loved it. Oh well... gotta go, have a nice weekend!
2009/11/27
2009/11/24
Culture and routine.
Long time no blog entry. Partly because I have a lot to do, had a visitor (my dear mother) :-)) and every day life is getting a hold of me.
But I do have something new to post: I am amazed by the amount of cultural events that are organized here in Bari. There seems to be some different kind of film festival every week, at different places, about all kinds of topics. Last week I went to "Balafon film festival" for two days and saw movies from Malawi, Egypt, South Africa and Camerun. Have you ever seen any movie from one of these countries? Probably no, because Hollywood makes us blind for the rest of the cinematic culture on this planet. Another day I went to see an old Italian movie which was also part of some film festival, and last week there was another European film festival... and for students it's all free!
I don't think we have this variety of authentic interesting films even in Cologne. Maybe in Berlin, I don't know - but who would have thought I'd find it in Bari, city of 400.000 people in poor southern Italy?
And there's more: literature sessions on women's role and oppression in Iran, English-Italian cineforums, Spanish music...
Bari surprises me more and more, it has much more to offer than I'd have thought.
Tonight, by the way, we're having a Turkish dinner at my place. :-)
But I do have something new to post: I am amazed by the amount of cultural events that are organized here in Bari. There seems to be some different kind of film festival every week, at different places, about all kinds of topics. Last week I went to "Balafon film festival" for two days and saw movies from Malawi, Egypt, South Africa and Camerun. Have you ever seen any movie from one of these countries? Probably no, because Hollywood makes us blind for the rest of the cinematic culture on this planet. Another day I went to see an old Italian movie which was also part of some film festival, and last week there was another European film festival... and for students it's all free!
I don't think we have this variety of authentic interesting films even in Cologne. Maybe in Berlin, I don't know - but who would have thought I'd find it in Bari, city of 400.000 people in poor southern Italy?
And there's more: literature sessions on women's role and oppression in Iran, English-Italian cineforums, Spanish music...
Bari surprises me more and more, it has much more to offer than I'd have thought.
Tonight, by the way, we're having a Turkish dinner at my place. :-)
2009/11/11
Surprise!
Today, 2 out of 2 professors came on time. My jaw dropped to the ground, and I am having trouble fixing it back into my face.
If this happens again, I might just die out of surprise.
If this happens again, I might just die out of surprise.
2009/11/10
The infinite chaos of Bari's Policlinico.
It all started off with a simple question - I asked the girl sitting next to me in class how I could find out in which group (afternoon course) I am and where this class would take place.
What followed was an odyssey of the clinical setting (which is as big as a middle-sized city itself!).
The girls in my class, at least the ones I talked to, were convinced that I needed to go find some professor and sign something/subscribe to sth... but they weren't all that sure. One of them accompanied me to the central information to ask if I had to do anything special to subscribe to that class (I thought that had already happened). They told us to go to some professor who was supposively responsible for our year. Went there, after 20 minutes walk got there, found out after asking 3 different secretaries that this guy is not responsible or at least said he wasn't responsible. Went back to info centre to ask for the right name. Got another name, but, surprise, noone knew where we could find this new guy. They knew the rough department which has branches in different parts of the clinical setting, walking to all of them would have cost us at least 2 hours. We spent at least an hour searching for this person, but noone had ever heard of him. (And he's not just some nobody but our class coordinator...).
Went back to class. One of the other girls told us she thought that I was already on the class list and didn't need to subscribe to anything else. Someone else said there was no need to subscribe, I could just go. Went back to info centre to ask for group lists (this was my original question, in which group I belonged and where I had to go later). Well, group lists don't exist. A couple of phone calls later, they mysteriously found out I was in group 14.
I spent two exhausting hours running around in Policlinico, for nothing. Well at least I got to know another person of my class who was really nice and helpful.
And now the biggest surprise of all: of course, no professor appeared in the afternoon. Today afternoon class also didn't take place because the professoressa is out of town. For the rest of the week, there are no more classes scheduled. Can you believe it??
What followed was an odyssey of the clinical setting (which is as big as a middle-sized city itself!).
The girls in my class, at least the ones I talked to, were convinced that I needed to go find some professor and sign something/subscribe to sth... but they weren't all that sure. One of them accompanied me to the central information to ask if I had to do anything special to subscribe to that class (I thought that had already happened). They told us to go to some professor who was supposively responsible for our year. Went there, after 20 minutes walk got there, found out after asking 3 different secretaries that this guy is not responsible or at least said he wasn't responsible. Went back to info centre to ask for the right name. Got another name, but, surprise, noone knew where we could find this new guy. They knew the rough department which has branches in different parts of the clinical setting, walking to all of them would have cost us at least 2 hours. We spent at least an hour searching for this person, but noone had ever heard of him. (And he's not just some nobody but our class coordinator...).
Went back to class. One of the other girls told us she thought that I was already on the class list and didn't need to subscribe to anything else. Someone else said there was no need to subscribe, I could just go. Went back to info centre to ask for group lists (this was my original question, in which group I belonged and where I had to go later). Well, group lists don't exist. A couple of phone calls later, they mysteriously found out I was in group 14.
I spent two exhausting hours running around in Policlinico, for nothing. Well at least I got to know another person of my class who was really nice and helpful.
And now the biggest surprise of all: of course, no professor appeared in the afternoon. Today afternoon class also didn't take place because the professoressa is out of town. For the rest of the week, there are no more classes scheduled. Can you believe it??
2009/11/02
University. Workout. Routine.
I'm afraid I'm writing a bunch of nonsense now, but life isn't always exciting... I've been in Bari for 5 weeks now and normal everyday routine is starting to get a hold of me...
News: Today some special classes were supposed to start, and I was very much looking forward to them - practical stuff in groups of 5 students, actually in the hospital and not in the lecture hall. But, we're in Italy, so it was no big surprise that these courses were postponed and are now supposed to start next week.
When I came to lectures today, I was expecting our psychiatry professor, instead there was another lady who I'd never seen before. It turned out that some witty university employee had had the brilliant idea of changing our complete schedule this weekend, and noone knew about this.
Well, at least I'm not the only pinhead here who never gets any information before it's too late. When I return to Germany one day, I'll be a much calmer person. I don't think anything will be able to possibly upset me after a year in this chaos-country. (You might think now "Poor girl, she needs to come back home...", but hey, this is fun - imagine living in a place where nothing works... then you don't have to work either! Perfect, isn't it?).
On a less funny note, I'm getting serious about my workout plan. Of course, my running partner wasn't very reliable (he's Italian, what can I say...), so I needed to find some plan of my own. Let's just say that I'll be a completely different person in four weeks if I stick to my workout plan (and I will stick to it). If you're interested in seeing me running around like a horse in a circus in Bari's only "park" (more like a playground), come by and visit.
Today was a warm day. Wore only a t-shirt at lunchtime, at night it's quite cool and there's a strong wind coming from the sea.
Ok - let's see what surprises await me tomorrow! It sure never gets boring in bella Italia ;-)
News: Today some special classes were supposed to start, and I was very much looking forward to them - practical stuff in groups of 5 students, actually in the hospital and not in the lecture hall. But, we're in Italy, so it was no big surprise that these courses were postponed and are now supposed to start next week.
When I came to lectures today, I was expecting our psychiatry professor, instead there was another lady who I'd never seen before. It turned out that some witty university employee had had the brilliant idea of changing our complete schedule this weekend, and noone knew about this.
Well, at least I'm not the only pinhead here who never gets any information before it's too late. When I return to Germany one day, I'll be a much calmer person. I don't think anything will be able to possibly upset me after a year in this chaos-country. (You might think now "Poor girl, she needs to come back home...", but hey, this is fun - imagine living in a place where nothing works... then you don't have to work either! Perfect, isn't it?).
On a less funny note, I'm getting serious about my workout plan. Of course, my running partner wasn't very reliable (he's Italian, what can I say...), so I needed to find some plan of my own. Let's just say that I'll be a completely different person in four weeks if I stick to my workout plan (and I will stick to it). If you're interested in seeing me running around like a horse in a circus in Bari's only "park" (more like a playground), come by and visit.
Today was a warm day. Wore only a t-shirt at lunchtime, at night it's quite cool and there's a strong wind coming from the sea.
Ok - let's see what surprises await me tomorrow! It sure never gets boring in bella Italia ;-)
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