I am Giulia Pisani and I come from Italy. I am almost 32 years old. I have been living in the Netherlands since November 2016. I have a bachelor degree in Energetic engineering and I worked 5 years in Italy for the mechanical planning for buildings.

I moved to the Netherlands because my husband started Post-doc in TU/e. At the time when we moved he also had a job offer in Germany. But we decided to go for the Netherlands for two reasons: the first because we knew that the english language was easily spoken here and this was a very important point for the main integration, or at least for interacting with the people around. The second reason was the Get in Touch program. TU/e sponsored this program for the employee and we thought that was interesting. But I could not imagine at that time that it would become a new part of my family. I think that I have been very lucky to come in Eindhoven exactly in that period, or maybe it was just my destiny. I connected in a special way with other spouses who are now my very best friends. We shared many things together during the GiT meetings and outside.

For me it has been challenging because it was difficult for me to express myself in English and to leave my comfort zone. But I was curious about the people around me, with a different story, a different culture and all of us were already connected because we were there, together, even far away from our family, beginning a new chapter of our lives.

What I would like to say to the future GiT member is to be brave and curious. Don’t stop with the thought that you can have about the program. Leave your safe shell and start to discover the outside world where you can find people very different from you at the first impression but who are more similar than you can ever imagine.