Travel stories

Trip to Turin

I don’t have much to say about the outbound trip, as it was quite comfortable to get to the airport, and once there, we took a taxi and quickly arrived at the residence. Also, the company Didaxe was very attentive to us and quickly resolved any problems we had. As for the return trip, it was a bit more complicated because there were no flights departing from Turin on the day of our return, so we had to take a flight from Milan. This meant we had to take a taxi very early to get to the bus station and catch a bus to Milan, which took about two hours. Additionally, once we arrived at the airport, we had to wait quite a while to check our luggage, and it was a bit tiring since we hadn’t slept much.

Impressions of the Country

Regarding the country, ever since it was chosen, I knew I would enjoy it a lot. I already liked the culture, gastronomy, and many other aspects before going. After the trip, I can say it fulfilled all my expectations. It was my first time in Italy, and more specifically in Turin. At first, it took me a little while to adapt to where we were living, but in the end, it became very comfortable, and the city was well connected with public transport.

Trips

I’m very happy with the things we got to visit. It's true we could’ve seen a lot more if it hadn’t been for the constant rain—we had weeks where it rained every day. But even so, we enjoyed many activities, especially with the Portuguese students who were also on Erasmus. We visited several museums; the one I liked the most was the Automobile Museum because I got to see the whole history of cars. We also visited some parks and did a lot of walking. What I remember the most are the nights out with the Portuguese girls—they were really fun—as well as the trip we all took to Milan, where we visited many shops in the city center and went to the San Siro stadium.

Internship

Our internship mainly involved solving problems that students or teachers were having with their laptops. For example, we had to replace some screens, add a new hard drive to another device, etc. I personally was assigned a more complex task: we were asked to migrate the entire configuration from one server to a new one with an updated version. Due to version differences, some tasks were difficult to complete. Another task that was challenging but that we finally managed to complete was configuring all the network switches on each floor of the school. Each floor used a different subnet, which wasn’t a problem. The issue was that the switch had a very complex configuration menu, and it took us a while to figure it out.

The Company

The company where we did our internship was actually a vocational institute offering post-compulsory education, with various programs such as cooking, arts, etc. The facilities were generally quite good and well-located, being near the city center, although the commute from the residence was a bit long. Also, the “lab” where we spent most of our time was cluttered and sometimes lacked space. On the other hand, the chairs we used were quite good, which is important in our line of work. Another positive point was the flexibility of the schedule—if we had any issues, we could arrive a little later or leave earlier without any problems. Regarding our supervisor, we had no language issues with him, but communication with other teachers or students was more difficult if they didn’t speak English. We had to find ways to make ourselves understood in Italian or Spanish.