Buongiorno!! my name is conor crowe and i come from portlaoise in co. laois (great spot). i’m currently in my final year studying commerce and italian which i’m delighted to be doing. honestly. for my third year i went on erasmus to milan. it was excellent. i went to milan because i wanted to go see the san siro (a football stadium). we caught all the great games and some not so good; united losing 0 – 3 nearly ruined my whole erasmus experience. the year abroad offers so much. apart from leaving ireland for 1 year you meet so many different people from all over the world. amazing.

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for those of you thinking of going to milan its too good an opportunity to turn down. with so much to do and see i can’t possibly list everything. i’ll try. it must be said that theres something for everybody in this city. as well as wine, pizza and football theres a vibrant fashion culture. its not called the fashion capital of the world for nothing. dolce and gabbanna, armani, gucci all have headquarters in the city. for those on a bit of a budget, the bangladeishis and pakistanis sell prada handbags for very cheap. fake of course but who can tell.
of course milan is built around one of the worlds most famous cathredals, the duomo. this is a truly magnificant building. the gothic architecure is incredible and really sets an imposing presence in the city centre. while i never had the chance to go inside (entry for free), its a must-do. you can also climb to the very top and on a good day you can get a marvellous view of the city and way beyond. delightful.
Milan is is a very muti – cultural city. People from all over the world come to visit the city. Some of the more likely places that you’ll meet these people are on “Corso Como” (a particular street full of bars and clubs) and Via Torino. This is the main street in the city centre which has plenty of shops, restaurants, bars and homeless people. It’s the equivelant of Graffton Street in Dublin but bigger and busier. Best to bring your credit card if you plan on doing some shopping.
Without doubt the low point was towards the end of Erasmus. Each night seemed to be somebody elses last session. It meant that while during the year you could go out in a group of 20- 30, towards the end it was just the four irish lads with some stragglers from Portugal or france.
All-in-all though it was an amazing year. Definitely a must do if you get the opportunity.

Niteclubs in Milan resembled “superclubs”. More often than not they were two or three floors and held at least 1200 people. Each night we (the erasmus students) had a new club to go to. As we were foreign students we got a good few perks when we (eventually) arrived at the doors. No queing up, cheap drinks vouchers and entry up until around 3.30am. That was something we loved about the clubs over there; they all stay open until about 6am so we usen’t turn up until earliest, 2am.

A lot of the clubs we used go to were owned by celebrities. “Hollywood” was part owned by Poalo Maldini and Pippo Inzaghi while “Just Cavalli” was owned by Roberto Cavalli himself. These are two of the trendiest clubs not just in Milan but in the whole of Italy. Hollywood always had famous celebs in it. We met Coolio in there once and I had the pleasure of doing shots with him. All on the house of course. Micheal Jordan was also there one night but didn’t want to join us. His loss I thought. After all the Serie A games the players would be in Hollywood. We came across Vieira, Adriano and Barzaghli to name but a few. On any random night you could pay up to 150euros to get in but we used to get in for slightly cheaper; 10euros with two free drinks. Not so bad.

Drinks in the clubs over there were ridiculous. We wouldn’t drink beer when we’d go in, just cocktails. These cocktails were never measured and were unbelieveably strong. A long island iced tea was roughly 90% alcohol so max three and you’re gonzo. It was kind of strange but nobody used drink beer in the clubs. Thats just the way they do it on the continent.

We didn’t tend to mingle with that many Italians when we’d go in. There used to be so many Erasmus students that you’re too busy getting to know them.

When we went to Rome it’s so different to Milan. They only had one club which was almost just a disco – bar. I must admit though that for the weekend that was in it , it was savage craic. Paddy’s weekend, Ireland v Italy and about 15,000 messy Irish people. Quality.

Ciao tutti! Mi chiamo Steph, ho vent’uno anni e ho fatto l’Erasmus a Trento con Cliodhna.

Trento is truly one of the most beautiful places i have been to- from the amazing mountain scenery surrounding the small city (cittadina) to the beautifully kept old buildings and squares (piazzi). But theres not much point in me describing Trento again as Cliodhna has already described it beautifully! Brava Clio! So instead I’m going to describe my experience of the year and what I took from it….

The Erasmus year for me was the best year of my life so far… Even though I fractured my wrist(more on that later), was homesick, didnt get to go skiing or snowboarding and my laptop got stolen on the first day(Beware of Stazione Centrale di Milano- Milan Central Station), I will always remember the year and cherish the memories of my friends and our experiences forever! In italian there’s a saying “tutto fa l’esperienza” theres no english saying I’ve found that truly translates to match.

I’m really glad that I went on erasmus with cliodhna. It made it all the more easy to settle in as it was pretty daunting at first, moving to a different country. We decided not to live together so that we would make more friends and wouldn’t get caught in the trap of sticking together and not making new friends. I think it really worked to our advantage. We still saw each other all the time because Trento is such a small city but I lived with 4 italian girls and 1 bulgarian girl who had been living there for 6 years and so I had to speak Italian every day which really helped me alot.

As I mentioned, I had the misfortune of badly fracturing my left wrist at the beginning of March. I somehow managed to fall off my bike(we cycled everywhere, it was great craic!) in the middle of the day in the middle of piazza duomo in front of everyone. I spent the whole day at the picnic thinking i had a sprain but when the pain got worse I went to the hospital and they gave me a massive cast almost all the way up to my shoulder. I looked a fine sight for sore eyes but it became my “ice breaker” as such for making new friends at the many parties we attended.

Because of my injury and a bad flu earlier in the year, I didn’t get to ski or snowboard which I was very dissapointed about. but I hope to return in January for a short trip and hopefully I’ll get to have a go then. We travelled alot when we were in Italy as Clio mentioned, but I definately didn’t have the time to see everything. However, next year, when I finish my exams I plan to go travelling and hopefully see the things I missed and perhaps meet up with a few old friends.

I know everybody has said the same thing but the only real downside to the year was leaving. I never imagined how many true friends I could make in such a short space of time. It is true that it is the people that make the experience, not the place

All in all it was a brilliant year. I can’t praise it enough. I would reccommend it to you all. you’ll be missing out if you don’t.

P.S. Sorry about the length of my blog i got a bit carried away. Hope I didn’t bore you to tears!