So i’ve been in Budapest now for roughly 2 and a half weeks, and it’s been a pretty intense few weeks. I’ve found a flat right in the heart of Budapest, just near the main railway station. Its a cosy 3 bedroom apartment and takes 8 minutes on the tram to get to uni (which makes the 8.15 starts slightly more bareable). I live with a german guy and a french girl, who are great to live with. They are both very different from the majority of french and german people on exchange who seem to almost exclusively hang out and live with people from their home country, luckily for me this isn’t an option as i’m the only Australian on Exchange at BME
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The orientation program was organised by the Exchange Student Network (ESN), made up of hungarian students known as “mentors”. It went for a week, and it was awesome. Each day or night there was a different event, where you put into a different group and were forced to meet other people, and do activities such as Tour the campus, pub crawl, drinking games, city rally and a welcome party. The week finished off with a camp at Lake Baliton, which was a smaller town a few hours from Budapest, where we did more activities, explored the city and did some swimming. It was an awesome week, i meet loads of people, its safe to say a few beverages were consumed in this week.
One of the major difference between Sydney and Budapest is the price of things, Budapest is soooo cheap! A pint of beer costs around $1.50, you can get kebabs on pretty much every corner for about $2.5, you can get sandwiches from uni for $2 (so its not even worth your time to pack a lunch) and rent is about half what I pay in Sydney. So far i have no idea how much i’ve been spending because roughly 1AUD = 200 Forent, but i’m getting used to it.
University is reasonably similar to Australia, where you have lectures and tutorials although my classes are quite small. Also their online resources are pretty much non-existent, so that could be interesting. I’m also taking a Hungarian Beginners Course, which is actually a very difficult language, and the elderly hungarian woman who teaches us is very impatient 😦
So far i’m absolutely loving this city, and excited for the next few months!
Luke Rowntree
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