Part 1: Why Lithuania and useful things to know before your arrival

Hello, awesome people of Erasmusu. I chose to speak about how to live on a budget while in a foreign country and make the best of your experience. The city I chose to do my Erasmus was Vilnius and I have to say it was my first and only choice. While many of my classmates went for the typical Eastern European going on Erasmus in the West, like Belgium or France, I decided I will go to Lithuania instead and make this experience the highlight of my college years. I was the only student of my nationality there and during my stay I did not encounter a single student coming from my country. I took that as an opportunity to become the best picture my friends will ever get of a Romanian and as I was always telling them, their impression on me is their 100% impression of Romanian people they got so far, as they knew any person coming from Romania besides me. If you are coming from a country like Germany or Italy, be aware that the scholarship is around 200 euros per month for Lithuania. It was a bit more for me but I find this amount of money to be kind of satisfactory, which means I would say you can pull it off with 300 euros per month if you follow my advice. I will talk about accommodation, where to eat, how to use the public transportation, library, coffee shops, where to shop for clothes and others, leisure time and travelling. All of this taking into account the 300 euros monthly budget.

One thing people don’t know about Lithuania is that their ESN is just great. They won first prize at the European level this year for their performance. They have the mentoring system in place for 10 years now and it’s simply amazing. Whilst people I knew struggled with cities in Germany or France where they had no mentor at all, I had Agne and she was an angel from Earth and a blessing. Mentoring system in Vilnius is there to provide the incomers with all necessary help during their stay: from picking up mentees at the airport to helping them pay their first rent, buy buss tickets, enrolling to classes and such. Besides Agne, I had also done some individually research on the internet before arriving in Lithuania and it’s actually pretty simple to find useful information with the help of this wonderful 21stcentury technology, from expats experiences to just useful advice and weather channel. Everything you need to know, just one click away. I started preparation in the summer holiday, even if I was only to arrive to Lithuania in my spring semester. But the intensive research I did was in the Christmas break..

The first piece of advice I can give you if you are thinking about coming to Vilnius is take the offer and sign in for a place in one of the dormitories. Don’t go all fancy and pretentious with a rented flat in the city centre. I knew people who were paying 300 euros per month for rent just to have their own room in a shared flat. Sure, they were living 10 minutes away from the university, but we were the ones having more fun each and every day as the dormitories have so many Erasmus students and just going to grab some food from the fridge will probably get you to know at least one new person per day in the first weeks. And that’s what Erasmus is about: cultural experiences. You will not be happy eating instant noodles alone in your 300 euros per month room in a fancy central apartment thinking how much you are spending for living expenses but you will sure be feeling good about it when at 3 am being part of the Noodles Brotherhood with people from all over Europe. And the best part about it is that the monthly rent in the provided dormitories is around 50 euros per month, give or take. The main dormitories for Erasmus students are Olandu bendrabutis and Sauletekio student campus, but they make sure everyone gets a place so if you will not be given one in Olandu or Sauletekio, then they will give you a place in Didlaukio which is kind of for Lithuanians only and a bit more far away from the city centre, but still cheaper and better to live in than in a rented flat. I got a place in Olandu and at first I was a bit disappointed that they assigned me in a triple room (because I had a nice GPA and I thought I would get a double room) but then I learnt that double rooms are only for full time students and the Erasmus are only getting the triple ones, so this was a trap on their accommodation website I would like to make the others aware of. You get there 2 pillows and a blanket, linen and towels if you want to. (The linens might be older than you, but they are still very well kept, you can use them wholeheartedly) The reception is 24/7 and the guards will be so happy if you can memorize some basic Lithuanian words to ask what you need for in Lithuanian, from the vacuum cleaner, to the laundry room key. But they nevertheless understand English and it’s ok if you decide to use English instead. Back in my days, the administrator was having the office in the uni main building, but now she has been prepared an office in the dorm and if there is anything at all you need, just go there and talk to her. Also, Olandu dormitory is closer to the city centre, so close you can walk up there and it will be a 20 minutes’ walk through Uzupis (which is the neighbourhood where the dorm is located and an awesome place as well, I will make an entry about it).

Another piece of advice I can give to you about going on Erasmus whether you are going to Lithuania or to another place is to get informed about the country at least the tinniest bit before arriving there. Just some basic facts such as the flag, who is the president, a bit about their recent history and such wouldn’t harm for you to know. Remember you are going there to enrich your cultural knowledge and while living there, it would definitely be a pity if you didn’t understand the political context and the country. I took the opportunity and I enrolled to classes about Lithuania and the Baltic States in general. These were the best classes I took and I have to say that I went from the phase were I was thinking like the majority of people: "The Baltic States, they are pretty much alike" to the: "Oh my, you think Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia resemble, you uncultured swine! " So just to brief you in, the flag is tri colour and it goes like this: yellow, green and red, the president is Dalia Grybauskaite, the most popular newspaper is Respublika, they are members of both NATO and the European Union since 2004, the Prezidentura Palace (the place where the president actually works) is right next to the University which means you will get to see the president at least once when going to classes (How cool is that? ) and if the president of your country or a delegation from your country is coming to visit Lithuania, you will know about it just by going to classes because you will see they have raised your country’s flag in front of the presidential palace. They are Catholic, so expect that the Easter holiday will be according to the Catholic celebration of the Easter, their most sizable minority is the Polish one, but the country is quite homogenous with around 3 million inhabitants, only 3 to 4% are making up for the minority group. Also fwi: Vilnius is the home for 600k + Lithuanians and the other most important two cities are: Kaunas and Klaipeda (which is at the seaside and the furthest you can travel by train from Vilnius, it takes around 4 hours to get there with national Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai trains).

You might want to get an ISIC before getting there. Sure, during the orientation week, the people from ESN will tell you all about the LSP card (Lietuvos studento pazymejimas) which you can get for 5 euros. This will give you access to the main library (which looks like -just to summarize in one word- Hogwarts) and a bunch of other discounts. I didn’t get the LSP card and I managed to get around just the same without it, because I used my ISIC every time there was a discount and it worked just as well. From day one I got to Lithuania I already got the bus pass for the student price, the Vilnecio Kortele which was 5 euros per month. And if you think there might be a discount for students somewhere, just ask. They might not have it advertised, but there are a lot of discounts for students to pretty much everything. Just ask!

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