I´m exhausted. It´s 21:12 ZULU, 3.2. 2015. I came to Belfast on Wednesday 28th of January. Tomorrow it will be one week. And only now I have accommodation where I feel good.
The thing with Erasmus accommodation is following. You will probably have everywhere the first right to occupy some university residence, but while people going to eastern Europe will make money on Erasmus scholarship, people in western countries will use all the scholarship only on accommodation and the rest like food and fun they will have to pay from extra budget. Personaly I find this very unfair especially because here is everything including food three times more expensive than in the Czech Republic but salary of my parents and my savings are valuable still in context of my home country. Whereas UK student can come to us and earn some money by Erasmus even though for them it would be less painfull to buy here food and other stuff.
That means I wanted to save at least part of my scholarship to be able to go for a beer sometimes or just eat whatever and don´t use much extra money. In western and northern countries (UK, Sweden, Finland,...) it´s often possible to find an accommodation in private sector, which is sometimes nearly half of price for university accommodation. So I was looking and I found.
I found a seriously looking comapy handeling more flats around Belfast. They had nice webpage, they were very comunicative, nice talking. So I decided to trust them and pay my deposit. Photos of all the flats looked nice. They had free room from beginning of February. And after we exchanged lots of emails, we agreed on me taking it and paying the deposit to book the place for me. I was happy because they seemed fine and I needed somebody like this when I was looking for a flat over half of Europe.
So this was the reason why I ended up in need to spend my first nights somewhere else. I hoped the best way will be to contact the girl from my faculty who was in Belfast for autumn semester, that she will live in some nice place. I knew she was living far away from center but I didn´t know it will turn out to be a social living old house full of dust, without heating and warm water and with messy kitchen. It also smelled like such house. But I think the biggest problem for me in these houses is not that they are old and a bit messy, but that I am allergic to dust and other nice things in old houses. So I had running nose all the time, it was hard to breathe... And I was looking forward into my private sector flat.
When I came there, first thing which I recognized was awefull smell. Totaly awefull. Totaly gross. I don´t know what it was. Then I saw kitchen, which smelled in a different way, because there was also a washing and drying machine for clothes and obviously nobody was caring about opening windows. I can´t talk about the fridge. It wasn´t dirty but smelly like hell. On stairs there was a carpet, but in the house was no vacuum cleaner. And the carpet looked accordingly to it. And of course was totaly dusty. So before I went upstairs to my room, I had running nose again. In my room was window, which was possible to open only for 2 cm. And on a wall a gray blight. I called her Emilka. Last thing which killed me was totaly green shower. And everywhere the horrible smell. Lastly there was nobody in the house using central heating so it was very very cold. Outside -4°C and not proper window. What can I say... I was very happy. But I didn´t have another accommodation. So I went to buy pillows and duvet and bedsheets. I haven´t slept peacefully since I came to Belfast. Still waking up, having need to blow my nose, dry and swollen eyes. And I really couldn´t use the green shower.
After two nights in my new flat I went to university accommodation and asked them if there is still some free place for a poor Erasmus student. They were very helpful and in half a day I made everything needed. I packed again and with all my luggage (and now also with duvet, pillows and bedsheets) I moved into Grant house university residence. I am so tired of still carrying my luggage over whole Belfast. Totaly exhausted I finished my first day of lectures with hot nice shower. I was doing "Oooh" and "Aaaah" all the time. It was best experience of my life. But I don´t want to know what other people from the residence now think about me and showers.
Maybe it looks like I´m crying here a bit, but what I was trying to say is that anything can go wrong even though you were trying to prepare for it. And the university is hopefully able to help you too if you would appear in such situation. Consider wisely if you want to save money or if you want to have certainty. And think about sources from which you gain information and contacts. I think I didn´t do anything totaly wrong but still I experienced quite a lot during this first week. And here I am, finally in university accommodation without all of my scholarship. Thanks God I have such great parents who will help me survive here. Hi Mom and Dad!
On the other hand, thanks to all of this I was in a quarter where even Belfast inhabitants often don´t go in their entire lives, I got to know lots of local people, I discovered a lot about bus system here and I lost some prejudices. I would call it a full experiencing of Erasmus potential... I guess not much people here in residence could say that :D.
Motto of the day: Shit hapens. Anything can be solved.
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