10 things to do in Padova before the end of your Erasmus

One week before going back to Portugal I realised there where some things that I really had to do in Padova before leaving... Here are the top 10! 

1- Organising/participating in a meeting in Prato della Valle (drinks, games, music and lots of fun in the second biggest square of Europe for one last time with all the international friends I made along the year)

         

2- Having lunch/dinner in 212 Hamburguer & Delicious in the Ghetto (the famous fast food restaurant in the ancient Jewish neighbourhood of Padova, with a very original decoration, where you can sit on a swing instead of a normal chair)

                       

3- Visit Basilica di Sant'Antonio for one last time (even if you have a different or no religion at all, this impressive church deserves a visit)

       

4- Ride your bike on Via Umberto/Roma (for me, these are the two most beautiful streets to take a nice relaxing bike ride or walk)

                 

5- Have a bottellon in Piazza dei Signori (the best way to start any night)

       

6- Have a beer/cafe at Piazza dell'Erbe (you can also enjoy the famous fruit market that takes place every morning there)

                      

7- Have a Spritz at Hemingway (actually this is not the real name of the bar, but everyone knows it by this name, since the owner resembles the famous writer. Here you can have the Spritz with the oldest recipe in Padova, which according to the legend the owner learned from a monk when he was young)

                       

8- Go for Apperitivo at Sfizio (if you did your Erasmus in Padova, you will have spent a lot of evenings/nights at this students bar and you have to say goodbye to Mauro, or else he will certainly be offended!)

                         

9- Go out to Factory Club (the famous night club were all the Erasmus students spend most of their Wednesdays/Fridays)

10- And finally, the most important one, take a dive in the fountain of Prato della Valle (a tradion that every Erasmus student must do before the end of the program)

                     

Here you go! If you ever do Erasmus in Padova make sure you don't forget this list and try to check all of it at before you leave. 

Hope you enjoyed it and fell free to add some more ideas! :)

Bank wins - Round 2

I decided to go to the bank on a Friday afternoon (as I have always done) to make one last deposit in my account.
It was open and so I went in to talk to the guy that was working there.

Me: "Hello! I would like to make a deposit in my account"
Sir: "I'm sorry but you can only do that in the morning..."
Me: "I don´t understand... I've always done it in afternoon"
Sir: "Well, we are now closed for cash purposes all afternoons until 15th September"
Me: "Oh ok... (I don´t even bother questioning this type of thing anymore) How about Saturday, is it open in the morning?"
Sir, looking very shocked: "No, no! You will have to come back on Monday!"
Me: "Ok, thank you very much for the help! I'll be back on Monday..."

Another pointless trip to the bank! <3 Part of the stuff I will miss about Italy! You get to walk around avoinding to study for perfectly good reasons! ;)

Funny Facts of Italy #1

#1 - Toilets

No matter how much I tried I would never be able to explain you this... So you should just see for yourself.
I just want to mention how hard it is to find a public toilet in Padova and after midnight it will be nearly impossible to find any toilet as most bars and caffes are closed (which is mostly a problem for the ladies unfortunately).
Anyway, here it goes! Enjoy! :D

I'm not sure how normal this type of toilet is in your country, but it's definitely not comun in Portugal and I don´t remember seing this kind of toilets in any other country. Feel free to tell us your opinion! :)

Internet 1 - Erasmus 0

I know I already talked about the Italian internet problems before but today (once again) something happened that deserves to be on this blog.

Let me just mention that it's not the first time this happens so you can understand our feeling of helpless...

When we did the internet contract we decided to choose the method of payment where we would receive a letter every 3months and had to go to the post office to pay for it. (Anyway we couldn't choose the option of direct payment because we didn't have an Italian account)

Of course we never received any letter but eventually we got an email saying we were late on our payment.

       

So we went to the store with the document they had sent us and some cash to pay the bill.

Of course when we got there they told us they could not use that document and needed the one that was supposed to have arrived to our mail box. We kept trying to explain that we never received anything and after about 30min (and showing them on my email account that I had only received THAT document) they told us they could find some reference so we could do the payment.

Turns out we couldn't use cash to pay for the internet! And our cards are not Italian so of course they were not working!

Bottom line: we had the money in our hands, the document that said we had to pay for it but they wouldn't accept the money and the credit cards didn't work because they're not Italian! Lol!

The same thing happened today and now the guy told us we have to fill some kind of form (papers papers...) at the post office and deliver it there to pay for the god dam internet!... TII ♥️🇮🇹