My life as an Erasmus

My life as an Erasmus in Hungary

After four years of studying in Romania, at the History Faculty of the University of Bucharest, I decided that it was time to try something new and go for an exchange program somewhere in Europe. And out of the four or five options that I had to choose from, I chose Hungary. After this, everyone started asking what I was thinking, going to Hungary, given the well known prejudices that flooded Europe about the ancient and never-ending “love” between Romanians and Hungarians. But when I made the choice I took into account the fact that the Eotvos Lorand University, and the Faculty of Social Sciences from Budapest, where I would study dated back to 1634, that it had an amazing student-friendly system which answered all my exchange-student questions, that Budapest was an extraordinary city, not to mention that I was really close to Romania – I was just over the border. Plus, I was thinking, it can’t be that bad. And it wasn’t.
I arrived in Budapest on the 2nd of February. It was still a winter day, it was windy and snowflakes were falling from the sky. Thank God, the mentor that the University assigned for me, picked me up at the railway station and took me to the dorm and later on showed me all the things that I would desperately need to know: where to buy a tram ticket, where to buy food and water and which is the way to the University. I totally admit that I wouldn’t have made it without her help. Because, you see, at the beginning of my first week there I was asking myself the same question that others had asked before I left: What was I doing there? Because of the season, Budapest seemed gloomy, the language people spoke was klingonian to me and I soon found out that Hungarians only speak Hungarian.
So what could be done?
The first week was a decisive one. I registered at the University, I got all the subscriptions possible and the list of courses to attend and I found out that Hungarians are not that bad, and even if they don’t speak foreign languages, they are really nice and helpful. Since the first weeks of the semester are always about registering and choosing courses, I had enough time to do sightseeing around Budapest, to mingle with the other Erasmus people, to discover the cafeteria at the basement of the dorm where I ate far too many goulash dishes, to discover the wonderful bakeries, where again I stepped in too many times (but sweets are a passion of mine) and to get to know the people from the dorm. Where to my surprise, there were only two other Erasmus students and the rest were Hungarians.
Life at University in Hungary is a little bit different from Romania. Although no one seemed to care that we were Erasmus students. All of us joined English courses also attended by the Hungarians and it was sometimes funny to see professors stumbling upon words and saying them in Hungarian. But the grading was fair and the amount of work that had to be done was carefully divided so that you have time to do everything you had to do and still have time to get into the Erasmus atmosphere. What I really loved at University courses in Hungary was the ability of the professors to adapt to the surroundings and the way they encouraged the students to participate in class. For instance, I had a class on Anti-Semitism where our professor took us to several museums and played movies so that we can better understand the phenomenon. And she even brought a friend of hers, who was a survivor of the Holocaust to talk to us about what he lived through. There was another class, this one on Political Theory of War on Terror, where the professor wanted to get us involved, even when it was sunny and warm outside, so we had class outside, in the huge park surrounding the University buildings. It was great, we bathed in the sun and still managed to have high academic talks about American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Plus, the professors wanted us to talk during classes, to express our opinions and get involved in the topic, to make the strangest and funniest analogies. No one forced us to do the readings for the classes, but since everyone was participating in class, you somehow determined yourself to do the readings. And all in all it was great. The midterms and the research papers were not that difficult as I expected, they were stimulant and I benefited from a lot of freedom in choosing topics and bibliography, but the only inconvenient I faced was getting back the grades. The professors were nowhere to be found, they didn’t reply e-mails and all of us had to pester out Erasmus coordinator to see if we got all our grades and credits. Seems that professors are the same everywhere.
Life in the dorm in Budapest was also great. Since I was sharing the kitchen with the rest of the floor I managed to meet a lot of Hungarians and even to make friends with them. One girl living next door was really helpful while studying for my Hungarian language exam. She gave me a lot of tips and practiced a lot, and thanks to her I got a very good mark in the exam. I think the rest of the Hungarians enjoyed having Erasmus students in the dorm: they loved to talk in English to us, to practice their language skills, they had a lot of fun asking me why a Romanian chose to come to Hungary, they showed us a lot of useful places around the dorm, such as medical facilities, supermarkets, parks, restaurants etc. I also made friends with the two Erasmus girls who were my neighbors: one of them was Polish and the other Dutch. We lived together for five months and we shared a lot. We went shopping together, to the cafeteria; we went to parties and to different cultural events together. I remember a time when we were looking for the laundry room in the dorm and since the porter didn’t speak English, Marta, the Polish girl, and I drew a washing machine and showed it to him. J We eventually found out where the laundry room was, but there was another problem: how to use the machines? So I had to ask someone – and, just my luck, I could only find boys to explain how to operate Hungarian washing machines.
Being Erasmus has its undeniable charm. There are thousands of parties to attend, trips to go on, and pubs to visit. The Erasmus community is a vivid one. Many say that it’s worth being Erasmus just for the parties and the trips. But it depends on your interests. Parties are fine at the beginning when you are still meeting people. Afterwards, they become a routine – always with the same people, always in the same pubs. There are still some wonderful things such as Balkan Beats at Godor, when you could enjoy Balkan music and dances, different kinds of festivals and fairs that are happening every week and what ever you want to enjoy: museums, exhibitions, low priced tickets at the Opera, open air shows, Hungarian dinners etc.
At the end of my time in Budapest I can say that I have some achievements, apart from passing all my exams. I made really great friends there, to whom I love to chat on Skype every now and then, I lived for 5 months in an incredible city, which seems to never go to sleep, I had a great cultural and social experience, which changed me a little bit, for the better, of course. And being Erasmus in Hungary was a real challenge, a way of overcoming limits and prejudices and a way of discovering a new culture, but also a way of rediscovering me.