First of all, I want to recommend Austria for students who still think about where should I go to do my exchange studies. A lovely country, beautiful views, amazing mountains and friendly people. But I also want to recommend to choose better than me. If you have two options: Vienna or Wiener Neustadt. You should definitely choose Vienna. Wiener Neustadt is a nice city but in here the only option is to live in Wihast Dormitory. Actually this student dormitory is located in the middle of industrial center (middle of nowhere). Only good thing in here is that you can spend time with other exchanger students but actually we have only 30 exchangers here. Up to this point, we have had a lot of problems. The company Wihast, who owns this dormitory, doesn’t care at all. Fachhochschule Wiener Neustadt itself is good but it doesn’t compensate that. Anyways, if you still want to come here in Wiener Neustadt, I really recommend to rent a private apartment in the centre of Wiener Neustadt or try to get someway an apartment/shared room in another dormitory (FH Dorms or Orange dorms).
Time runs here so fast. I’d just realized that it was over 2 months since I arrived in Vienna International Airport and started my journey to Wiener Neustadt city. The Wiener Neustadt city itself is quite small. There are 42 thousands inhabitants. But if I compare this city to my hometown Nokia in Finland where there are living 33 thousands people, the difference is so huge. Here is nice old town in very nice atmosphere. Actually, there are so many shops and restaurant and even a huge shopping center that I was quite shocked at the beginning. I really thought this should be a small town.
In my opinion, local people are more purposeful, sometimes even aggressive, they actually say what they are thinking, but also they really respect and love their own country and other people. Austrians are proud of their homeland and this is something that I want to bring home from here. Finland is also a great place to live and we have so many good things. Unfortunately, often you have to travel first outside to Finland to realize these facts. We Finns can also be proud of our country.
Before this journey I decided to travel as much I can. I have had the opportunity to explore 4 countries and 8 different cities. Most memorable moment was in Prague. Marvelous city, which offers possibilities to get known to Prague’s history, feel the passion of city itself and taste some local food and of course local beer. We are planning to go to Italy, Slovenia and Croatia at the end of November and on December but time will be the biggest problem so we have to leave some of those journeys for the future.
Until now, amazing journey behind and lots of experiences and knowledge from other countries and cultures! There are still many awesome moments ahead.
Wünsch eich no an schenan November!
Alles Gute euer Sami
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