Preface

Hello all!

Something different is up to come. I’ve written about my 2 week short-term Erasmus+ in Helsinki, about the 3 week Summer Intensive Language programme at Nazareth College (the U. S. ) and about my freshest experience, here in Graz. I discovered Budapest also during my Bachelor studies. From now on, my plans are to describe as many interesting places I’ve been at in my home country, Romania.

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My birthplace is the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, but most people call it shortly just Cluj (in Hungarian its name is Kolozsvár, and it has a German name too, Klausenburg). I lived here for 18 years, thus I can honestly say, there’s no other place in the world I know better than this. However, 4 years ago I started studying abroad. My decision of studying abroad was influenced by the fact that my brother was already studying abroad, moreover, due to the opportunity to study at a more famous university, being able to study in Hungarian. In Romania I could have studied only at a Romanian university the major I wanted to. Last, but not least the willingness to start my independent life and challenge myself in new surroundings were both important reasons. What I wanted to illustrate by this little reflection is that although I spent my student years far from my home, I didn’t get distant and I’m excited about writing about Cluj. I always go back home happily, and Cluj will still remain the city that defines me the most.

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When I decided to start blogging about my home country, I didn’t expect that it would be this difficult. I don’t even know where to start and how to structure my post. In general I will speak a bit about Romania’s landscape, culture, and of course about Cluj a bit more in detail. It’s hard to formulate a description about my home country because I lived 18 years there. Not a blog, but a book won’t be enough to write everything I know and I want to share about it. Furthermore, I don’t even know whether I can write or not about it. It’s like writing about myself because my place of life influenced my personality and sharing ideas about it is like presenting myself as well. Moreover, I haven’t lived in my country as a tourist, but only as a simple local, thus I can’t describe Romania as a tourist guide could do it, only from the perspective of a native inhabitant.

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When we’re tourists in a foreign country, we often tend to see everything beautiful and catchy on the surface. Well, this blog is going to be totally different. 100% realistic, showing Romania’s perfections and imperfections altogether, good and bad equally. But don’t panic, I try to share useful information and to remain student-oriented, and prove that Romania is a cool cool cool place.

I will speak about things people around the world might not know about Cluj: like that it was European Youth Capital in 2015, that it is hosting annually the worldwide famous Untold festival and Electric Castle festival, that it has a beautiful landscape, it’s a multicultural typical university city, where to hike, what to see, what to eat, and many more chapters that prove Cluj is a very special city. I will make you think about applying for ERASMUS or just simply visit the country. I bet on that!

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Thanks for reading. Dora.

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