Considering Erasmus? My advice: DO IT!

May I start by confirming the fact that choosing to do Erasmus is probably one of the best decisions you will ever make, so put aside any fears about language barrier or the distance from home! After a year you will have loads of friends from every corner of Europe, speak another language with confidence, be ludicrously employable and have had some unforgettable experiences.

In pretty much every university the Erasmus students form a very tight community, so any problems with language barrier are instantly removed by the fact that everybody else is in the same boat! I personally found the mixture of people from all different nations absolutely mind-blowing. I wasn’t very well travelled before Erasmus and thought it was going to be a problem: on the contrary, I think that’s why I enjoyed it more!

Conversations consisting of more than 3 languages at once will become the norm and you will not cease to be amazed by the cultural and linguistic peculiarities of our neighbours. Exploring the language and culture of the host country with your new Erasmus mates makes it so much less scary and a hell of a lot more fun. I met some incredible people whilst in Santander and if it wasn’t for Erasmus I would have never met anyone like them in a million years!

During the first month living in another country everything is pretty daunting, but at the same time massively exciting! The language learning curve is incredibly rapid and after 4 weeks, your confidence is sky high and you will wonder why the hell you were ever worried in the first place! And if that still isn’t enough, may I remind you that 47% of the EU speak English as a second language, so you have nothing to worry about!

It is probable that many of your fellow Erasmus students may be doing the year for little or even no credits, so keep this in mind towards the end of the year when deadlines are approaching, especially if you want to do well. If you are writing a thesis or project out there, remember to see your supervisor as much as humanly possible and continuously ask members of the group questions.

I would advise you to try and organise a language buddy with a native speaker as soon as possible, because it is tempting to only hang around with Erasmus guys which linguistically is a bad move! Also try to join a local gym, sports team or some form of club as this will allow you to widen your social network and get some good local chat on the go!

Make sure you get a Skype account for a free or very cheap way to call back to the UK and most importantly: go on a road trip with your new mates early on in the year when the work has not started to build up. I went on a 10 day road trip of 30 people to Andalucía in November and words cannot express how awesome that was!

End of Erasmus

So, it finally happened. On the Saturday 30th of June 2007, I caught a plane back to England, marking the end of my Erasmus placement at the University of Cantabria. A sad day that I really hoped would not come, but as they say: all good things come to an end.

My final exam was an oral presentation in Spanish explaining my thesis. After this finished, I wandered over to the International Relations Office to get my form signed confirming I had been a student there all year. After, I dumped my stuff at home and made straight for the Segunda Playa de Sardinero to enjoy the excellent 27 degrees and blazing sunshine. Nothing like a cheeky bit of after-exams sunny beach Pimm's! No wonder I'm such a happy chappy in the photo!

The my final night in Santander involved the classix rendez-vous in the main Plaza before heading out to BNS, a club literally on the beach front (Primera Playa de Sardinero). There we enjoyed the delights of both a beach party (complete with guitars in addition to multi-lingual crooning and multi-national banter) and the nightclub itself. It was a fantastic night and my flatmate, his brother and I stayed on the beach, singing and playing the guitar until sunrise, with the company of a random Spanish group who were a very appreciative audience!

So after (eventually) arriving back at the flat at 10am, we embarked on a marathon 4 hour cleaning session still devoid of any repose at all! When the landlady finally came to collect the keys, all three members of the flat (and the brother of one) said our final goodbyes and then I made my way to the airport. Here's a funny photo of us in our kitchen at about 10.30am during the clean and final goodbyes:


I am going to miss all the people I met there massively, especially my two flatmates, you boys are top dollar! All the best to all the people who were graced with the joy of my presence over the year and thanks for helping make it the best year of my life so far!

DJK's First DJ Set!

So I finally tried my hand at DJing in public on Thursday at an Erasmus party! My buddies at www.europesounds.110mb.com were organising a Hip-Hop party at Bar Sahara in Santander and asked if I wanted to try and do a little warm-up set for them. Naturally I jumped at the chance!

In January I bought a Hercules MP3 controller for my laptop which came with some DJing software and have been trying my hand since then. Thursday was the first time I tried in public and although I still have a lot to learn, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Hopefully this summer I can spend a bit more time learning and need to upgrade my kit: currently I'm using Virtual DJ but I think it is fairly recognised that Traktor VinylScratch is top banana. Also I either need a second sound card for my laptop or to get a new MP3 controller with one built in: I didn't realise in January that with the controller I bought, you can't listen to the incoming track on my headphones. Which is kind of the point of DJing. Silly sod that I am.

My Drunk Aussie Mate

Here is a video of my friend Hartley drunk on St Patrick's Day. Needless to say he was in no fit state the next morning to cook the afforementioned meal.