A bit late to the party but now I am also here and sharing my Erasmus+ Experiences with you, that I made in Schio (Italy).
Schio is a small city near the slightly bigger city of Vicenza, which in turn is near the way bigger city of Verona. (Just for context.)
The reason I am in the middle of nowhere is that I am doing this internship independently, so there is no agency to assist me in any way.
Why I chose to do it this way you may ask? Good question, I was following the recommendation of Mr. Crewe, who said that if we (basically our parents) have some contacts who could introduce us to some internship abroad, we should try to take advantage of that.
Normally you have got better chances of keeping costs low and also the chance of getting better work.
That is the reason why I am writing to you now from the middle of nowhere.
And I do not regret it at all!
The company I am working for is called Andritz AG, a major Austrian company and the branch in Schio focuses on hydropower and I will be assisting in the purchasing and sales department until the middle of September (So you are going to hear from me for a bit longer! :))
I arrived on late Sunday after nearly ten hours of travel by train of which I was standing for two hours because the train from Innsbruck to Vicenza was missing two compartment cars.
One of them was the one where I had reserved my seat. But well, that's the way the cookie crumbles...
The rest of this day wasn't that interesting, I got the keys for my apartment (which my company is paying for [so do an independent internship!]) and that was basically it.
Work really started on Wednesday as we still had to face some of the bureaucracy that is taking place in Italy. So the first two days were mostly free time.
On Monday I got to meet all my colleagues and superiors and I also received basic safety instruction.
The people that I am going to work with are all wonderful people, who I already really learned to cherish within my first week of being here!
Also, I got a company car until Wednesday and for all the coming weekends I will have one too (also for free, so really consider doing Erasmus+ independently!) so that I can explore my surroundings.
On my first day I did the basic grocery shopping in the next Town Thiene as the mall was recommended to me.
Please do not ask me what precisely happened and how often I got lost. Thank you :)
On Tuesday I had lunch with two of my colleagues and later on in the afternoon I explored Schio for a bit and I have come to the conclusion, that I consider it a beautiful place.
Wednesday was the day my work started and the first thing we did was going to the employment center to handle the paper stuff.
After that, we headed straight to work and I got to join the procurement (purchasing) department.
My supervisor Matteo Cavedon went on to spend a great part of the day showing me what Andritz Hydro was all about, what the procurement department was precisely doing, how turbines function and what to consider. It was very interesting and I really enjoyed it.
On Thursday I spent most of my time watching what day-to-day business looks like in procurement and in the evening I got to join the "aperitivo", basically a company party and I learned a lot from and about my new colleagues. Overall a great day that I also really enjoyed!
Friday was a very calm day where most people either were on vacation or in Home-Office.
On Saturday I went back to Vicenza, but now with the company car, and I have to say that this is one of the most beautiful towns that I have ever been to. Also on my way there, I passed through a lot of really beautiful small villages that I promised myself to visit later on.
Most bigger buildings in this area have been designed by the architect "Palladio" and I have to admit that he has got some taste.
One of the other things I discovered was a "EU bench", or at least I would call it that way and for Mr. Crewe I was somewhat obliged to take a picture of it:
My last station in Vicenza was the park and I am glad that I went there.
It was incredibly beautiful and it is also the first park that I have ever seen that hosted a variety of animals (idk if this is wanted or not), particularly a lot of roosters and also bunnies, which were adorable!
The strangest animal that I found in the park was something called "Nutria", a "beaver-rat" of what I found out later.
I had never heard of it before and when I first saw it I got really confused as I could not figure out whether it was a beaver (weird tail for a beaver) or a rat (way too big for a rat).
Simply look at the picture below and you can probably understand why I got so confused by it:
This was basically my first week and I am going to report back to you in another one!