From Pitesti to Eskisehir

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I graduated from university in June/July 2004 and less than 2 months later I was packing my stuff and embarking on what was going to be an exciting first cultural experience. Carmen, a university mate and I had been selected, after some serious Aiesec training and hands-on assessment of our adaptability, leadership and cultural ambassadorship potential to go on an Educational Traineeship and teach EFL ( English as a Foreign Language) in Turkey. We had been told that the school where we were going to teach was one of the best private institutions in Eskisehir, a large Turkish city with a population of over 600,000 inhabitants, renowned for its beauty and for having mainly a young, student population. Needless to say we were both over the moon!😊

We left Pitesti by coach and it took us about 16 hours, if I remember precisely to get to Istabul. From there, with the help of an Aiesec member who helped us purchase tickets and acted as our interpreter, we hopped on another coach, this time much more comfortable and 7 hours later we were in Eskisehir.

I must confess that I wasn't impressed very much at the beginning, as the coach was taking us through the outskirts of the city and it didn't look impressive at all. Luckily, a couple of Aiesec members were expecting us and after squeezing all in a taxi and shoving our luggage in the boot of the car, we took off aiming to reach asap the place that would become for the following months, our home 😊 We were exhausted and a bit stinky after being on the roads for 2 days, with no decent place to sleep or have a shower.

Stay tuned, there's more to come!

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