The reason for this post is a wonderful one: We moved to a new flat! Yes, it's true we loved our old apartment, but unfortunatly there was a double booking on it. In the beginning the house administration told us we get almost the same flat in the same house. So it was ok for us. But then suddenly last Friday, when we had to do some administrational stuff we were told: "Girls, you have to move on Monday"... not enough they only told us three days before, they also told us it will be a totally different house in a different street. After being upset for three days we finally saw the apartment on Monday: It must be heaven up here!
6th floor, loft 170 m² 3 bedrooms with own bathrooms walk-in closets whirpool bathtub fireplace heated floor amazing view ... I could go on for ours, but you should check out the pics!
All in all I can say: We love it! Especially since we found out that the pre-lessor the American consul is ;-) Now I am sitting in front of our fireplace in a big lether armchair and enjoy the most incredible flat I've ever lived in, wondering: How should I get used to my little room in Germany again?
"Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood" - Oscar Wilde Last Wednesday around lunchtime: Finally we are complete! Our third roomie Alex arrived. So us three are ready to enjoy rest of the week: To be exactly, we had a pub tour, where we also had to fulfill some tasks. Well it's all about enjoying this beautiful city and get to know some more locations! But university here is still exhaustig: I am sure we'll never complain again about any work we have to do in Nürnberg. On friday we had already our first presentation (yes, in the first week we already had to do a presentation!), but besides that we do a lot of teambuiling for our "Business competition" project. Here we are in groups of 4 and have to start up a business for a months, sell things and make money. It's like English class at home, but in real ;-) Reading, reports, presentations... we are already very busy! But soon the weekend was there and it got time to party again: On friday we went to the "warming the dormitories/ welcome exchange students" party...and we had a loooooot of fun! Dancing, Tequila and our new favorite drink "Latvian Vodka & Multivitamin juice"! In conclusion: it was quite hard to walk home at the end of the night on our highheels :D
On Saturday we went out to the city, because it was "Riga festival" with a big firework competition, so we were standing with thousands of Latvians and tourists next to the river Daugava and watched 8 great fireworks in a row. It was sooo beautiful!
After these two exciting days, we decided to have a more relaxed Sunday and went to the zoo of Latvia. It was already a little adventure to get there, because we went by bus! It was complicated, because noone of us speaks any Latvian and usually not so many people understand English. But we managed to get into the bus (without ticket!? We don't understand the system here!) and had a 30 minutes trip to the zoo. The bus drove outside of Riga and for the first time we saw the poor parts of the city. In some points it was shocking for us, so far we were only used to the rich and beautiful parts. But also the zoo shocked us a bit. A lot of animals were alone in little cages, without anything. It was a strange and sad atmosphere... But I guess it was also good for us also to see this side of Riga. Although I still have to say, that we were glad when we returned to the embassy district with a lot of police and securtiy.
Still, I love this city, every part of it is very special. I live together with two awesome girls, met already many cool people and we have a lot of fun. Yes, we definitely enjoy our time here!
"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came." - John F. Kennedy Last tuesday we (Exchange students & some compadres) had another awesome activity organized by our dear Aisma, we went to Jurmala by train to go to the beach. Jurmala is ~20 minutes away by train and a wonderful place, where a lot of rich people have their houses. The beach is very nice with quite soft sand. The sea was cold, but of course it didn't stop us from running in and enjoying our time. Also some games at the beach and just relaxing were included. I can tell you, it was so nice to see the seaafter one year again. For me it's kinda magic :)Afterwards we went to Jurmala to have dinner. Vicky and me were already looking forward to eat something Lativan, so we ordered the chicken and had typical beetroot with caraway (they it it with eeeeverything) on it. It was... how can I say?!...well, we were not used to this kinda taste. The chicken tasted a bit like fish, I would say it confused me a lot and I guess I won't order it again. But it was an experience we had to make! And all in all we had a nice sit-together in this restaurant.But the best part of the evening was still in front of us. A little group of 8 people was not ready to go home so Vicky, me, Jan (Germany), Diego, Eloy (Spain), Manuel (Portugal), Nebi (Turkey) and Aisma (Latvia) went to a little open air bar to have some cocktails. I have to say: Riga is special, even when it is not weekend bands are playing music outside and a lot of people are on the street at night, it's just incredible. But suddenly it started to rain really really hard and we had to change table. (Un-)Fortunatly the band was playing "Sex on fire" when it rained the hardest. It was not possible for Vicky and me to stay on our chairs and we run to the dancefloor and danced with some other random girls in the rain like crazy. It was so much fun! (And we were not THAT drunk!)It is just the spirit here, which makes you do this. Finally at 1 am we went home soaken wet with a lot of water in our shoes, but just happy.You all can see I love this city and totally enjoy my stay here!
"A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning." - Benjamin Disraeli
It is time to write about my newuniversity: the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. Itis the "sister" school of the "Stockholm School of Economics". When I decided, that I want to have my semester abroad there, I knew that this school has an excellent reputation. But I had no idea how special this school is. This is the beautiful building:First we really had to get used, that every day tourist buses and groups stop in front of it. But there are a lot of other things I had to get used to. I was ready for a little culture shock, when I come to Riga. I got one, but a different one than I thought. It was more like a luxury culture shock... I guess the following pics will give you a good impression of the nice lecture rooms: Everything is so nice there, but also a bit crazy. For example: They have a leisure room, sponsered by P&G, with couches, kicker, Flatscreen and Xbox. Also everything is very personal: you call the prorector by first name and they all try to learn your name. On our first day we had a welcoming speach of the rector and some other people from SSE Riga. A choir was singing and all sang "gaudeamus igitur". It was a very special athmosphere, because they were all so proud to be part of this school. The students, who study with us, had a hard selection process: motivation letter, tests, interview... they take only 100 from 1000 applicants. I guess you can all imagine now, how good the students around me are.
Finally we met the other exchange students ~20 people. They are all very nice and we are a big group of Germans. (Btw: Be careful if you come here, a looooooooot of people speak or understand German very good.) So we had another personal induction done by Diana, our prorector, and Evita, our international coordinator. And there is another person, who enriches our daily life: her name is Aisma and she is a Year 2 student. She organizes events for us and showed us the school and everything. Some days after the first day at SSE, I can say, studying here is definitely not easy. They have high expectations and you always work interactive and in small groups. You write reports, have presentations (ja in my first week I already had my first presentation!) and exams. But you get a lot of support from teachers and administration staff. The athmosphere here is really special and it seems like the students are really really ambitious. (well, they pay a looot of money to go to this school)
To sum it up: the studying conditions are pleasant and people are nice. The courses are not easy. But this school really has a spirit and it feels like we can be proud to be a part of it.
They say Riga is beautiful. Actually my travelguide book says: "it has an vibrating athmosphere". I couldn't imagine what this means, but then on Sunday we had our first tour through this city and fell in love with its charme... After surviving the first night it was time for Vicky and me to explore Riga. The travelguide about Riga had a tour suggestion for the old part of the city centre inside and this was all we had with us, when we went out there at lunchtime to get a first impression of our new hometown.You should know that it takes us no more than 10 minutes to the old centre of Riga. We just walk through a little park and cross a bridge(which you can see in the picture). I won't write too much about the city tour, because I think the pictures will tell much more. But what I can say is that we were totally excited about the architecture and all the things to see there. But the tour also showed us some places far away from the main tourist attractions. These are the places, when we saw the houses, which we expected. Old dirty houses from Sowjet-times, but right next to them incredible new modern houses. We went from big streets to small alleys and just enjoyed the trip, until it started to rain; and when it rains in Riga, it really RAINS. The sun can shine but suddenly it gets so dark and thunder and lightning meet heavy rain. This was the reasson why we run to the next "restaurant" and so it came that although we wanted to eat something Latvian on that day, we ended up in an English pub. But once the rain ended the sun came out again and we could go on with our tour: You'll find much more pictures on facebook later. This tour gave us a first impression of the city, which is our home for the rest of the year. We were impressed by what we've seen and were looking forward to our first day at university...
When I left Germany, I told everybody that I won't write a blog, because I am too lazy... but I had no idea how curious you guys are and because I had to tell everything today 12 times, I decided that it makes more sense to share my experiences with you by creating this blog.Everybody told me that I will learn and experience so much when I am here, but the first thing I had to learn was even before arriving in Riga: Shoes are heavy! So I had to fight with my suitcase and my scales, before I could drive with Vicky to the airport of Frankfurt on Saturday morning.Our flight to Riga was very comfortable and we slept a lot (yeees flying is exhausting!)
Until this point everything was ok for us... then we heared that the flight will be approx. 40 minutes too late. We already felt sorry for the poor Latvian guy, who should pick us up at the airport of Riga, but I had no idea that he is like the Indians and Mexicans: not so caring about being on time as me ;) So when we heared that he will be one hour late we called the owner of our apartment to tell her that we'll be late, but she said: "You arrive today? I thought you'll be here tomorrow!" Yes, that is how it goes sometimes, so we had to wait until our driver came to pick us up and then another half an hour in front of the house until someone came and gave us the keys for our apartment.
The apartment itself is very nice, we have 3 bedrooms (you know, I live together with my wonderful flatmates Vicky & Alex), a nice kitchen with dishwasher, washing machine, gas cookeretc., a big livingroom and a very cool bathroom with a shower and a jacuzzi bathtub! And in case you are not jealous yet: A cleaning lady comes twice a week!Also our neighbourhood is sooo beautiful, we have a lot of embassies around (actually we share the house with the Georgian one), but this also means many security people and a lot of police. The only problem we had at the first day is that we arrived so late at our apartment. The shops here are open until 10pm, but of course we had no idea where the next supermarket is. We just run around and finally found one and bought the most important things. Well, I guess you all know that we are not so good when it comes to orientation But our panic-search for the supermarket brought us in contact with the first Latvians... the next thing goes especially to my dear male friends: you would loooove Latvia! A lot of girls with miniskirts and highheels... I have no idea why, but this seems to be some kind of lifestyle here. And to avoid any prejudices: it is sooo warm here! We have 30°C since three days. And what about Germany? ;)
So get ready for the next posts about or first citytrip yesterday and our first day of university today!
