My ERASMUS Experience – a Story to Remember ****************************************************************************************** * My ERASMUS Experience – a Story to Remember ****************************************************************************************** This article was submitted by Timea Udvarhelyi from Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, R competition held by the European Office of Charles University by the occassion of the 30th the Erasmus programme. Timea Udvarhelyi studies Computer Science and is at present hosted Mathematics and Physics of Charles University. Hello, dear reader! Welcome aboard. Make yourself comfortable because the cruise begins it few minutes. In the meantime, let me tell you what this trip will be about. If you are exp school style essay, I am sorry to disappoint you, but you bought a ticket for a wrong ship is all about heroes, kings, castles and monsters. Sounds fascinating, right? But wait a mi all of this have to do with Erasmus? A really a good question my dear reader. Let us find anchors are being raised. The journey has just begun! I mentioned heroes earlier. ‘Who are they?’ – you might ask. Well, in my opinion heroes ar students who take the opportunity to participate in this amazing programme called Erasmus. not everybody has the courage to participate; I think they might be too afraid of the mons talk about them a little bit later but for now I want to start from the beginning of the j footsteps of a hero. Here, after you hike over the Paperwork Mountain and stumble through the Waiting Period Va yourself standing in the middle of a magnificent and unknown realm. In my case the heart o Republic: Prague. After my arrival, I got introduced to the royal helpers: the Faculty of Mathematics and Ph welcomed me in the name of the great king, Charles the Fourth, King of Bohemia and Emperor I have seen the the Great Hall of Knowledge, the School of Computer Science, where I start the next five months and have found the teachers really kind, helpful and, of course, full Sating my curiosity, I have explored the city of Prague. I have never seen such crowds bef upon all the tourists I realized that, despite my extended stay in Prague, I was one of th Prague; from the Castle to the Old Town to Vyšehrad to the parks, bridges, cafés, metro st all fascinated me. However, if I remember correctly, I said something about monsters before? Some of my monst such as: ‘What if I don’t fit in?’, ‘What if I make no friends?’, ‘What is life in a dorm like?’, ‘What if the courses are too hard?’ I believe everyone has these questions and many more like them. Some, who chose to stay at just comfortable there and perhaps they don’t desire to gain such experiences as described doesn’t apply to me, having come to Prague with an intention to enjoy every second of it! So, this is where I ended up, going to social events such as: Let’s Explore Prague, Social even some parties; all organized by the Erasmus associations (in particular the IC CUNI cl joined the Czech language class, an experience I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone. of friends at these events to add to the people in my dorm who are really welcoming. As ab I am working hard to keep up with everything but one thing is for sure: I don’t regret my here. Not even for a minute. Oh, I’m afraid we have reached land again. The cruise is over. I hope you enjoyed it. I su like good-byes. I am certain that when these five months will be over I will still conside second home. This period of time will forever be a special one for me and so… until the ne shledanou (goodbye)!