Hello everyone, my name is Alba Ruiz. Now I will tell you about my stay in Lithuania during my Erasmus training internship. Four classmates and I travelled to the capital of this country, Vilnius.
The trip did not start very well as we had problems at the airport in Italy due to covid-19 situation. We had to stay overnight at the Milan airport which is the biggest and densest airport I have ever seen but not at all comfortable to sleep in. That night we didn’t sleep at all and it made get me a bit anxious.
Once we arrived in Vilnius, after three stopovers…. We were very tired. We went to a hostel where we had to stay in for the first 10 days to do the required lockdown time. After 10 days we finally went to the residence which I have to say was not very nice and life in that place was not very nice and cheerful.
Well now I will talk about my internship. The truth is that our boss was very nice and he always cared much for us. We could work both inside the offices with the computer or doing paperwork, as well as outside with the girls who worked as sales clerks. Most of the time spent outside the office was in the warehouse, we always did things like taking things and putting them into their place or checking the products and putting their prices for example, among other things.
With regard to tourism, this country is quite different from Spain. Here there are very big offices and all with big glass panels, very nice and cool buildings that are not common in Spain. There are some museums, many big parks where you can do sports and walk, but above all, there are many shopping malls, wherever you go you will see shopping malls. Then there are more cool things to visit but they are not in the city and with the covid-19 issue we have not been able to move around as much as we would have liked.
We went out some nights to have a drink, here there are many pubs that are very elaborate and everything is very cool. The disadvantage is that people here are very close and when it comes to making friends it wasn’t that easy, compared to what people are like in Spain. Yet we made some friends in this trip, these people love Spain and the Spanish people but they still have some prejudices. It is a not very developed country, we encountered very macho situations, we were told not nice things for the way we dressed up. we were not very well regarded if we spoke loudly,
As I said earlier, covid-19 affected our trip quite a bit. The good thing is that people here don’t wear masks in the open air spaces and at least you can breathe a little of fresh air after so much time wearing the mask in the streets in Spain
Finally, I will tell you a little about my personal experience here. I have grown a lot as a person since I had to sort out many problems that I encountered in this trip, flights, apartments, departures.
I had never worked before, so for me it was also a breakthrough to work for the first time in another country, which is not my own, with other languages and other people. I am also happy to have taken this step since one of the reasons why I came to Erasmus is that I wanted to improve my English, and well, one thing for sure is that I improved my level of English on my own, as the course we were told to do did not help me much in my learning of the English language, really.
One of the things I am proudest of is the fact that I lived and fended by myself. I had never been so independent before, I had never been away from home and I didn’t know what it was like to have to do everything by yourself because otherwise no one else will do it for you. So I’ve learned all that and I’m happy especially for me and for the big step I’ve made and all on my own feet and will. And finally I want to thank my friend on this trip, Judith, whose support was of great help to me. On the whole and despite some drawbacks, it was a positive and enriching experience.
ALBA RUIZ
