When I came back on the 7th of January 2019 after spending Christmas in Estonia and NYE in Austria, my throat was not good and wanted doctor to have a look. I had some white dots and something more on the throat, not a pretty sight. Our Erasmus teacher/coordinator Gary took me to the hospital and helped me talk to the receptionist, nurses and doctors. Without him would have been hard to understand anything, what to do and where to go + Greek all around looking at me. The doctor told me to buy and use one mouth wash thingy before she prescribes antibiotics, maybe it works and no need for antibiotics. If does not work, come back in a week. Gary took me to the pharmacy after as well and I started to use the mouth wash. In the end it did not help and I needed to go back. This time Gary could not come with me and I needed to go alone.
I took a taxi to the hospital and I'm sure the taxi driver asked more money than the ride cost. I went to the registration where I was told to go to one room which was the same as last time with more people waiting behind the door. I waited and waited so they would call me in as my appointment time had already passed. I knocked on the door and asked when can I come as no one had called me in by the appointment time. The nurse asked my name and told me to wait more. When they finally called me in (I waited 30 minutes or even more) a new doctor checked my throat and prescribed antibiotics. Those were the first antibiotics in my life. They were in a powder form and I needed to put the powder in lukewarm water, mix and drink it. I also continued to use the mouth wash thingy til it finished.
In conclusion, my Greek hospital and doctor visiting experience was complicated. Getting there, finding out which room to go wait at, waiting and waiting and not knowing when I am called in and not understanding anything what is going on. I assumed when I have an appointment scheduled, I will be called out at that time, but yeah nope. But when I went to the examination room it was easy. The doctor spoke English, asked questions and prescribed me the antibiotics.
I brought a warmer jacket with me when I returned. Greece had gotten really cold and my previous jacket did not cut it anymore. We were wearing the jackets inside the classrooms and other uni buildings as they did not heat the uni rooms all the time, only in the morning and afternoon, to cut costs. And our Erasmus building they did not heat at all. Greece is seen as a warm country and all the southern countries do not have heating installed in their buildings. We had A/C in our rooms but they are meant for cooling the place not heating it so they were useful but only a bit + they were really loud. During the nights I shut the A/C off so I could sleep but towards the end I left it on as it was really cold in the room. The A/C turned itself off when it reached the temperature which it was set on and turned back on when the temperature decreased. We got a radiator from Gary which we shared between three rooms. Towards the end he gave us a fan as well. The A/C + the radiator and fan divided between three rooms was the best what we had. I was also afraid of the fan catching fire. I did not have the best sleep in the cold in Serres. Either the loud A/C, concerned over the fan catching fire and well because of cold itself. In addition to all of that, the doors were letting a lot of air though. Trying to heat the room was basically impossible. I used some covers from the mattresses to block the cold coming in. Better than nothing.
I also asked the German guys to turn my A/C on when we all came back from the holidays as they arrived one day before me, this way the room would get a couple of degrees warmer than outside.
The Finns were supposed to spend the Christmas and NYE in Athens and then come back to Serres (flying to Finland was too expensive for them) but at some random time they wrote in our group chat they will not come back as something had happened. We were thinking later with the guys that maybe that ain't true and they had planned that beforehand. Going to Athens with all their stuff and going straight from there to home. Well no idea and tbh I did not care about them that much. They complained a lot and nothing was to their liking. Plus after they left we had a radiator and a fan divided between only two rooms. Yay
When we had classes the teachers gave us a lot of papers to read. Or books they printed. We did not have much power points or anything like that. Mostly teachers talking or discussions where they handed us additional papers and books to read. Most of it was printed on each separate paper, not on both sides so that was a waste too. I also left most of the papers in my dormitory room, in the drawer in hope the next students will read and use them. I did not want to just throw them away, same with clothes. I also did not have space in my bag.
I had 5 courses meaning 5 exams. Two exams we did inside the uni on paper, two in the computer and a case study. One of the exams on paper required us to write an essay about a topic beforehand which was half of the grade. The 2 in the computer were supposed to be in the classroom but the teacher could not come to the uni due to snow and slipperiness so he sent us the questions online. Fine by me. I could Google the answers and talk to others what they answered. The exams were easy to pass and my grades were from 7-10. Greek grading system is from 1-10, 10 being the best grade.
When we were done with the exams, Gary took us to Cityzen restaurant as the last meal together before we left. He is a really sweet guy who always helped us when we had questions or issues.
We also had the last meal with our Greek Erasmus mates. We took a taxi to tavern Kapileio Kostis Steakhouse which I had to scroll up in our Erasmus chat to look up the name of the restaurant. The food was good as always.
They also gave us a small present and surprised us with pancake ice cream. Very nice :) I had to wake up early the next day for my bus to Thessaloniki and I had not finished packing, so I did not go with them to the bars afterwards. I also could not drink because of the antibiotics.
Here is the report I wrote to my uni in Denmark about my experiences in TEI, Greece:
Why Serres?
Greece was my second choice for my Erasmus, my first option had become not a partner school anymore. I chose Greece because the accommodation and meals three times per day were free for Erasmus students. This meant I could use the Erasmus grant on travelling inside Greece and to its neighbor countries, which was one of my goals on Erasmus.
Living in Serres and the accommodation
The closest airport to Serres is Thessaloniki airport and it takes about 2:30 h to Serres: 1 h from the airport to the bus station and 1:30 h to Serres. When I arrived to Thessaloniki it was late in the evening so I needed to spend the night in the city as there was no buses to Serres anymore. Next day I got a ride to Serres with our teacher/coordinator Gary who was taking care of the business department Erasmus students. He showed me where is the accommodation and canteen.
We got 3 meals every day in the canteen. We had one menu for one week and another menu for another week and switching between those two menus until the end of our stay. Twice a week we had a soup day and once a fish day. The school also had a cafe, gym, library in addition to the uni buildings and classrooms.
We had an entire building for the Erasmus students which was connected to the canteen. It had many bedrooms and one big common room with microwave, stove, fridge and sink. When we first arrived, all the dishes and stove were left dirty from the previous Erasmus students. The rooms were for 2 people and I was lucky to get a private room, because we were uneven number of people, 5 Erasmus students in total. All the rooms had 2 beds, 2 tables, 2 chairs, 2 closets, balcony and a bathroom with a bath, toilet and sink. As the building was connected to the canteen, our showers were heated some hours in the day when the canteen was open. Many times it did not have warm water at all, sometimes the water needed to run a very long time until it got warm. The water rarely was hot and if it was hot, it was during the canteen opening. If one person took a long hot shower, others could not have hot/warm water after that. We did not have a washing machine on the premises so we needed to go to the laundry place towards the city from time to time.
Around every 5 years the winter gets really cold in Greece with lots of snow. 2018 was that year. In Greece, they did not heat the classrooms often, to save money. Only in the morning and lunch. Due to that reason, it was not very pleasant to go in the classrooms and be in the lectures, we usually wore our jackets during the lessons. Our accommodation buildings heating was connected to all of the house, it was not possible to heat just one room. So when they would want to heat the building, they would need to heat the whole building, even the rooms which were not in use. So to save money, they did not turn the heating on at all during our stay.
We had A/C´s in our room, but they did not help much as the rooms were big and doors were letting air through. When we left for classes, we left the A/C on so it would get a bit warmer. Sometimes we had to leave it on during the night even though they were really loud. Our coordinator gave us one heater before Christmas which we shared between 3 rooms. In January he gave us another one which helped a lot. Before I came back from Christmas and New Years Eve break, I asked my fellow Erasmus people to put the A/C on in my room. Otherwise it would be too cold to live there as it had not been heated for 3 weeks.
Courses and exams
In total we had 5 Erasmus students: me, 2 boys from Germany and 2 girls from Finland. Our courses were held with 2-5 people, depended who took which course, we were not put together with other Greek classes. This was a big minus for me as due to this, we did not meet many Greeks and did not get to explore the Greek culture as much. We were not put together with the locals as they do not offer classes in English. Also, many Greek people did not speak English so it was hard to communicate with them. We did have some Greek Erasmus volunteers who helped us and invited us to meetups. In my opinion there is not so much to do in Serres. When out classes were cancelled, we went to hike to the valley or to some cafes or restaurants with the people we knew.
Mostly the classes were held by the teacher talking and sometimes using slideshows or Google to explain to us better. Mostly we had theoretical classes, a couple of times we had practical classes in E-business. Our courses were E-business; Digital Marketing; Business Strategy; Service Management; European Union Policies; International Management and Marketing and Innovation and Technology Management. Most of the teachers were nice, helpful and wanted to get to know us and teach us, but some did not care about us at all. One teacher cancelled the class when we texted her asking when she will be arriving. Next week she cancelled again. We needed to ask her if we have class, she did not even care to tell us. I only saw her twice: first when she introduced herself and the course, which took 10 minutes and second time when we had the course, where she just read from the slides. After that she cancelled 2-3 times and I decided not to take her class anymore. She told to us in the first meeting that if you want to cancel it is not a problem, but just tell her couple days before. She did not follow her rules. If she would tell us a couple of days before, I could leave earlier to travel longer. But as she could not manage her time, I had no choice to wait until the next day..
Another teacher was really old fashioned, sexist and only wanted to hear the exact answer (for example: not forest, but trees). But the teachers who cared about us and our studies, moved the classes to other dates if we could not attend, we had nice conversations about the studies and our lives and went to the cafes and restaurants with them. It was interesting in those classes and talking to them. When we had a class with 2 or 3 people and one of the students could not attend the class, the teachers decided to cancel the class if we could not find another date for the class, so none of the students would miss anything. With 5 students courses it was still okay to miss the class. They did not check the attendance in the classes as well. I had classes 4 days a week in different times a day. It was surprising for me that some classes were held during the evenings and the last one ending at 21:00. Sometimes we had free time during the day when we finished our morning classes and were waiting for the evening classes.
In the end, I had 4 exams and a case study. Two of the exams we did from the student accommodation from our laptops and could use all the material which was given to us by the teacher. Originally, we were supposed to do it in the classroom but it was snowing and the teacher could not make it to the school. 3rd exam we did in a classroom with open books and 4th one without materials. It was relatively easy to pass the exams in TEI.
In conclusion, if you would want to get easy grades, not spend much money on Erasmus and travel, TEI is the place for you. But keep in mind that the accommodation situation is not that good during the cold and if there are only a couple of Erasmus people, it might not be that fun. I got to travel a lot in Greece and to other countries during my study exchange which I wanted. If you are a fan of dogs, you will get to see many of them on the premises of TEI and all over Greece. They are friendly stray dogs who want your pets and snacks if you have.
In conclusion conclusion, it was okay and I had fun. I would not choose that place again if I would have the chance and would not recommend it much to others. When I was there, I was complaining that this is bad and I do not like this but 1,5 years later when I am writing about this I do not think it was that bad in the end. I am happy that I used the chance to go to an Erasmus, cuz why not use this opportunity? I was also happy that I got to leave Denmark for a bit.
I left Greece for good on the 16th of January to Tenerifeee.
