EVS.. from Bologna to Lisbon

Hello everyone I’m Maria Elena, but everybody call me Melens.

I am a 23 years old Italian girl.
But I need to be clear about this: I’m from Nuoro [ˈnu.o.ro] in Sardinia, the wonderful second largest Italian island (so not Sicily, the other one just under Corsica). Nuoro is my hometown, but since 2012 I moved to Bologna to study and now if you ask me, my heart would answer that I live there, even though I had to leave my house in Bologna to come here, in Lisbon.

So, let’s try to understand together why I decided to leave the land of amazing foods and wonderful places from the mountain to the sea..
Why.. why.. well probably I stil don’t know the exact answer to this question but it all started with my graduation and the end of my internship-post-laurea and the very big dilemma “..And now, what will I do with my life?”. So I started wondering “Wouldn’t it be nice to see the world, explore new places and meet new people and cultures?” at this question EVS promptly answered.
In fact searching on the Internet I found this fascinating project from Clube Intercultural Europeu, “Mais Bairro”, I applied, I was chosen and here I am!

Let’s face it, I thought it would be easy for me, I already did it once: I packed all my life in two luggages, took a plane and started a new life with the sea between me and my home. But I didn’t considered that this time I wasn’t leaving a small city of an old and a little wild island, I was leaving a big, young city full of life, a place that only after years and a lot of difficulties I finally started to call home.
With that said now I am in a new and very beautiful city starting a completely new adventure and if maybe the first days weren’t as easy as I aspected now I’m starting to live Lisboa and its bairros, with all the cultures and the nice little things that make Lisboa Lisboa.

And now let’s talk a little more about the EVS project I’m in. The complete name is “MAIS BAIRRO: Mobility, Art, Interculturalism and Social Media” and it’s under the Erasmus+ program. “Mais bairro” stands for “more neighborhood” and even if I participate in all project’s activities, I concentrate my energy especially in the “social media” part. After a week of language basis I finally started to work and, mammamia, there’s a lot to do!

So now the goal is to yield some return from my degree in Communication Studies.
Will I be capable of this?

Stay tuned to find out!