The 1st Report about the Project Meeting Erasmus+ “Career Perspectives in Europe – Chances and Challenges” in Bologna, Italy, November/December 2015
by Thalea, Meret and Franzi.

Sunday, November 29th

From the 29th of November until the 4th of December the first meeting of the Erasmus + Project “Career Perspectives in Europe – Chances and Challenges” took place in Italy, Bologna. The topic of this week was “How our schools prepare us for our future”. In the morning we met our teachers at the airport in Hannover. After checking in, we went to our gate and waited for the departure of our flight to Bologna via Paris. In Paris we could hardly wait but we cheered too soon. After we left Paris for Bologna and flew about half an hour we had to fly back to Paris, because the machine, which is responsible for the de-icing of the airplane was not intact. So we waited around 90 minutes to catch a new airplane. I have to admit that we were all a bit terrified about what could have happened.
But after this turmoil we arrived in Bologna at 6.30 pm. We were all so nervous about meeting our host families. But everything went well. All the families were so friendly to us and our fears were not necessary.

Monday, November 30th

After the first night in our host families, we met each other at school in Bologna on Monday morning. Everybody was really excited and wanted share the experience, we made in our Italian host families. Nonetheless, there wasn’t much time to talk, because we had to start our presentations.

Each country presented its school with a short video to give the others an impression of their schools. In addition, we prepared a PowerPoint-presentation to give an overview of the many possibilities, our school offers to prepare us for the future work life. After lunch in the school, we explored the center of Bologna and a few sights as well. In the evening, we returned to our host families and went to bed.

Tuesday, December 1st

On Tuesday the day started in the host families as usual. After breakfast we were either brought to school by car or bus. At school there was a bus waiting for us, which took us on a trip to Venice. We arrived in Venice after around two hours of driving and then walked to the harbour together and crossed the Mediterranean Sea to another harbor in Venice. Then we walked through Venice, through plenty of small alleys, across many beautiful bridges and past old buildings to the famous Canale Grande. After that, we had some free time for the rest of the day and we all went shopping without the teachers, did some sightseeing and had a lot of fun. I will never forget the impressions we were able to gather that day. Venice is a beautiful city especially because of the doves and you can get lost in your dreams.

After this long impressive day we met at St. Mark’s Square and a boat brought us back to the bus. When we arrived in Bologna again, our host families picked us up. Finally, the day came to an end at our host families.

Wednesday, December 2nd

At 10 am we had a meeting with experts of the “Sportello Aldini Lavoro” (Municipality of Bologna) to discuss the topic of our week in Bologna. The “Sportello Aldini Lavoro” is an institute, which does vocational guidance and works counseling in cooperation with the school
After this meeting we made a scavenger hunt and sightseeing tour on foot to get to know Bologna. The rest of the day we had free time and spent time together with the other students.

Thursday, December 3rd

On Thursday morning, we visited an exhibition of the industrial development of Bologna, which was separated in different parts, such as the changes in the fashion industry or the ones in the technical production. After lunch the program continued with the visit of the ”Carpigiani Gelato University“, an institution analyzing the improvement of Italien Gelato which is a special kind of ice-cream. We were even allowed to see the production of the ice cream machines and try a bit of the self-made Gelato.
Then we went back to Bologna and after having arrived there, we hiked to the historical building ”Santuario della Madonna di San Luca“, which looked pretty amazing and breathtaking at night.
Since this was the last evening together, we all ate pizza in a nearby pizzeria. Moreover, everyone received a small souvenir, which was distributed after mentioning the achievement of the scavenger hunt from Wednesday.

Friday, December 4th

In the morning we ate breakfast in our host families and left for school. There we worked on questions for a survey on the main subject of this year’s Erasmus project “Career perspectives in Europe – Chances and challenges“. After comparing our results, we had to say goodbye to the students of the Netherlands, who had to leave that afternoon. Later we went to the city center of Bologna. Since we had free time for the rest oft he day, we went out for a meal, went shopping and entertained ourselves. In the evening we took a train to a shopping mall. Actually, we wanted to go ice-skating, but since it was very cold and quite late, we decided to eat something instead. Our last evening together was very funny and nice, but also a little bit sad. After dinner, we went to the park together, where we all said goodbye to each other, before we were picked up by our host families.

The whole report as.pdf