I was excited to start my exchange period in January. I had never been to Italy before, and neither had I been living in a country other than Finland. There were so many things I was looking forward to. I wanted to experience another culture and get the most out of it. The exchange took place in Rimini, a lovely beach city on the East Coast of Italy. I was traveling with my classmate from Finland and we decided to get accommodation together. We couldn’t find a suitable apartment for the first month so we stayed in a hostel for a few nights and then switched to a nearby hotel. The staff there was lovely and they often offered us a cup of coffee on our way out to the university.
The start of the studies was exciting. It was nice to get to know all the other exchange students on my class. We didn’t have too much school and lectures, only a couple of hours per day, so there was a lot of free time to explore the city and get to know places. Our professor made sure to get us familiarized with all kinds of cultural things and even arranged visits to other cities. He also told us a lot about cities we would possibly like to visit and what we should see and try in these cities. We only had a couple of hours of school per day, so we had a lot of time to discover the streets of Rimini.
After the first month we got an apartment in a beautiful house near the beach. It was a rather old one, but looked lovely and was inexpensive. It was pretty close to the hospital as well, so it was nice not to have to wake up too early for the morning shifts. Our practical training in the hospital of Rimini started in the beginning of February. I had been waiting for it since I knew there would be differences to the training and practices we have in Finland, and I was curious to see how things worked in the radiology department. Our class got schedules for the training, and I got to practice on a different modality every two weeks. I started the training in MRI, and after that I got to see x rays in the Emergency Rooms and mammography in the Senologia department. The last two weeks were in CT, first of which in body imaging and the second one in neuro. I didn’t get to do too much every day since not every one of the instructors was comfortable with guiding a student in English, but some did it in Italian and I got to learn a bit more of the language, which was very nice. The shifts lasted six hours and we did morning shifts and evening shifts. Morning was from 8am to 2pm and evening from 2pm to 8pm. If we had to recover a sick day or another absence, there was a possibility to do three-hour shifts between 10am and 6pm. I thought it was very convenient.
In the free-time I liked to visit new restaurants and cafes. There was always something new to try and I have to say I miss authentic Italian gelato. There were so many flavors to choose from and I liked every one that I got to try. Every city I went to had their own charm and I enjoyed being able to experience it all. I can’t wait to go back to Italy, and perhaps the next time I can communicate a little bit better with my Italian.
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