My Erasmus experience as an Italian in Türkiye

  Ludovica Santarelly

Choosing Türkiye as an Erasmus destination meant to go on an adventure for me. While staying in the European Union would have been easier and required less challenges, I was fascinated by the possibility to live in an ancient and historical city like Istanbul. And I did not regret my choice.

As soon as I started exploring the city, I fell in love with it. Coming before the start of the lessons gave me the opportunity to be a tourist and go around; seeing the most important Mosques, the historical areas and monuments, walking around the sea and taking ferries to cross the Bosporus has been an amazing experience. Istanbul has a charm of its own, and even if it can be chaotic and crowded due to the amount of population and how big it is, it is still a gift to be able to enjoy its atmosphere.

The university has been a positive experience too; I am grateful to have encountered such good professors and such a nice group of Erasmus people. There are only two main things that, in my opinion, could have make it better: having a more active Erasmus office that would take time to organize things for us during the semester, in order to involve us more in the local life; having the possibility to study the Turkish language inside the university, with a course made for us.

Bureaucracy was the toughest part of the journey: at first, it was difficult to understand what to do and answers had to be sought. The residence permit was a journey, but everything came out fine in the end. People are willing to help, even if the language can be a barrier.

I was surprised by how many things Turkish and Italians have in common: the hospitality here has been wonderful and it reminded me of my homeland in South Italy; the way we take life, we think and we act are also very similar. For example, we are both very loud and cheerful!

Türkiye has a big culinary culture, it was great learning all the different traditional dishes and having the opportunity to taste them. Being vegetarian was sometimes hard since meat is highly used in recipes, but I almost always found an alternative for me. And of course, çay (tea) can never be missing on a table.

It was extremely interesting to learn how religion is viewed and impacts the society, and I find it wonderful that the city has a very multicultural environment when it comes to faith, allowing everyone to have their own places to pray. There is a lot of respect regarding the topic.

Finally yet importantly, Istanbul cats have a space in my heart: while seeing so many strays saddens me, I know that the people take good care of them, and I try to make my part, being glad to meet so many kittens every day.