Bulgaria – the country where people shake their heads for “yes” and nod for “no”

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller.

Maybe Bulgaria seldom pops up as the ideal holiday destination. For sure, our small country is not in most people’s “bucket list” of places to visit before they die. It is never featured on their ‘vision board’, or fantasized about in their daydreams…which tilted more toward love affairs with a Spanish macho in Barcelona, or (let’s face it) meeting Angelina Jolie at the top of le tour Eiffel in Paris…In fact, many people cannot even recognize Sofia on the European map. For them our small country is just a mystery.

So let me try to introduce to you this sweet, fantastical, (and occasionally dangerous) unknown.

The land of roses, Bulgaria, is a small country of ancient culture, scenic beauty, friendly people, hospitality and warmth. It has always been a crossroad between the East and the West, between the oriental and the modern. Although Bulgaria occupies only 2% of the territory of Europe it is generously gifted with natural landmarks and diversity of landscape, mild moderate climate, rich variety of flora and fauna, and abundance of curative mineral springs. Bulgaria is by no means a wealthy place in terms of money but what it lacks in finance it makes up for with a huge amount of beauty and culture!

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Polak, Węgier dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki!

We are András Király and Dávid Timár from Corvinus University of Budapest Hungary. We strongly recommend you to spend one or two semesters in Budapest, at our University.

Why?

There are lot of reasons, let’s begin with the University. Corvinus is the best and oldest university in Hungary focusing on economics and business. Predecessor in title of Corvinus was started in the early 1910’s as an independent department of economics in the National Academy. After World War II, it became fully separate and independent, by the name of Hungarian University of Economics. In the communist era the university was renamed after Carl Marx. The final and current name – Corvinus – was given in 2004, after a great fusion between the economics, business, social sciences departmens and the College of Public Administration and the former University of Horticulture and Food Industry [http://portal.uni-corvinus.hu/index.php?id=44616].

Therefore, our university has the best economics programmes, recognized by the labour market. A degree from here is a good entrance. The education is of high-standard, lot of very well-known international professors, economists, politicians come to hold here for some lectures. The latest “big name” visitor was Ban Ki-moon [http://www.un.org/sg/biography.shtml], Secretary-General of the UN!

uni

The main building

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Let’s meet Victoria!

I would like to take this opportunity to share some insight on a place I do not believe any of you have ever visited. It is in a far away land, a land we Hosers call CANADA. Look as far West as possible and you will see an island off the coast of British Columbia named Vancouver Island. Not only is Vancouver Island home to amazing fishing, skiing, surfing, mountain biking, hippies, and the coolest climate in Canada, it is also home to the capital of British Columbia; Victoria. Victoria is at the southern tip of the island and has everything a student can ask for in a city. Just writing this is making me miss the place. It’s amazing.

Victoria

The University of Victoria is situated 15 minutes from the inner harbour and less than 5 minutes from the beach where every student will gravitate towards on sunny days. Now, for you Europeans, I am sure you are curious about a few things such as workload, what type of activities you can do on weekends, and how much a pint of Canadian beer costs. Since I have never been an exchange student at UVic I decided to ask a friend I made in Victoria who is from UEK and did this exchange to Canada last year. If any of you decide you would like to talk to my friend please send me a message and I can connect the two of you.

Campus of Uni of Victoria

The Campus of University of Victoria

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DIJON – the capital of French cuisine

[POLISH]

welcome

Welcome to France! The official welcome!

Why this choice?

Long time I wondered where I should go on the Erasmus program … Our university has a rich offer. I focused on France. I started studying French, and what is more, I love cooking – so maybe this place will be my little paradise? 🙂
The decision about the city was quick. I do not like big cities, so I eliminated them. I met up with a friend of Beaune (village near Dijon), which, as every local patriot suggested  me Dijon…Why not ? I’m going!

city centr

Dijon – the city centre

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DIJON – stolica francuskiej gastronomii

[ENGLISH]

welcome

Welcome to France! Oficjalne powitanie!

Dlaczego Dijon?

Długo zastanawiałam się gdzie powinnam wyruszyć w ramach programu Erasmus… Nasza uczelnia oferuje szeroki wachlarz ofert. Skupiłam się na Francji – w końcu rozpoczęłam naukę języka francuskiego, co więcej uwielbiam gotować – więc może to miejsce okaże się moim małym rajem?

Decyzja odnośnie miasta padła szybko . Nie lubię dużych miast, więc je wyeliminowałam. Spotkałam się ze znajomym z Beaune (miejscowości obok Dijon), który jak każdy lokalny patriota zasugerował mi „swoje” miasto – Dijon… Dlaczego nie? Jadę!

city centr

Dijon – centrum miasta

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Kraj Basków, Opus Dei, byki – czyli Pamplona w kilku zdaniach.

”Gdzie się wybierasz na Erasmusa?”
”Do Pamplony”
”A gdzie to jest?”

Praktycznie za każdym razem taka była reakcja na informację o moim wyjeździe. Każdy zna Madryt, Barcelonę czy Valencię. Nikt nie mówi o Pamplonie.
Niewielkie miasto na północy Hiszpanii- półtorej godziny drogi od granicy z Francją.
Sama ,wybierając miejsca do których chcę wyjechać na Erasmusa, zaznaczyłam Pamplonę jako piątą pozycję.  Ponieważ chciałam studiować na południu Hiszpanii uznałam moją nominację za osobistą porażkę. Muszę przyznać, że była to najcudowniejsza porażka mojego życia.

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Do you want to STUDY abroad? Do you want to meet AWESOME people?

If you said “YES” probably you took part in the International Day on 24th October at our University! What was happened? More than a dozen stands that were „a piece of other countries” attracted with colorful flags, interesting decorations and the smell of regional dishes!

Nevertheless, the main purpose was that we all could find out important information how to spend part of studies at foreign university. Well-trained volunteers answered your probing questions. They could be easily identified by the white shirts with a writing about this event. Our lovely Erasmus students also helped us! Who can tell more about the country than the inhabitant of this country? Thank you guys for your help! 🙂

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CENTRAL EUROPEAN PLATFORM 2013 Košice, 10-13th October 2013

Thursday afternoon. Three ESN UEK delegates, together with other ESNers from all over Poland travelled to Slovakia, Košice to experience 4 awesome days @ Central European Platform 2013!

Central European Platform [CEP] is a regional platform which associates eight countries: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia. This year’s edition was held in Košice, Slovakia. Our section was represented by Paweł, Zuza and me, Ola.

The CEP’s program was pretty intense. Early mornings, plenaries, presentations, short breaks and crazy nights! One and each of the points in the agenda was literally great!

During the plenaries we had an opportunity to get to know lots of useful stuff. The President of ESN International, ESN Poland’s  representatives  as well as local sections representatives gave us substantial amount of interesting information. ESN UEK had its time to shine as well! Together with Paweł, we were honored to present our two flagship projects – Tour de Krakow and BLOG ESN UEK!!!!

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„100 people. 3 days. 218 kilometers…” = Integration Camp 2013!

100 people. 3 days. 218 kilometers. A non-stop party. The ESN Integration Camp in Murzasichle 2013 was legendary indeed. Here’s the full story (I do not take responsibility for the black holes in my memory):

Friday

At approximately 14.00 two energy boosted and party pumped buses of lovable exchange students and mentors began their journey from Kraków to the mountains of southern Poland. The weather was great, the atmosphere was even better. It wasn’t long before the first ‘na zdrowie’s echoed throughout the vehicles. As time and kilometers passed the landscape changed. We got to see both traditional Polish houses and the outlines of the breath taking mountains Zakopane.

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"100 people. 3 days. 218 kilometers…" = Integration Camp 2013!

100 people. 3 days. 218 kilometers. A non-stop party. The ESN Integration Camp in Murzasichle 2013 was legendary indeed. Here’s the full story (I do not take responsibility for the black holes in my memory):

Friday

At approximately 14.00 two energy boosted and party pumped buses of lovable exchange students and mentors began their journey from Kraków to the mountains of southern Poland. The weather was great, the atmosphere was even better. It wasn’t long before the first ‘na zdrowie’s echoed throughout the vehicles. As time and kilometers passed the landscape changed. We got to see both traditional Polish houses and the outlines of the breath taking mountains Zakopane.

murzasichle Continue reading