Hello, I‘m Vytautė Petkevičiūtė from Lithuania, at my home university studying Multimedia and Internet Technologies, here in Ostrava spent 3 months studying Applied Informatics at OSU and now I‘m going to tell you one of the best experiences in my life. It‘s called „ERASMUS“.
Author: Vytautė Petkevičiūtė
„3 hours only left, you must try to write that letter“ – text of the message from my friend. He was talking about motivation letter for Erasmus+ studies. I was staring at the computer screen for 5 minutes and was thinking how the hell I am supposed to write that letter in only several hours? The funniest part was that I haven‘t had any idea which universities I can apply to and in general what am I was supposed to do. However my inner voice said „Just do it” and as you see I did it. Best things in life aren‘t planned, so as Erasmus for me.
Now, 3 months after my beginning of Erasmus studies I‘m sitting in my dormitory, in Ostrava, in my new home, which I‘m sharing with a lot of other crazy and amazing people and what I can say, it was one of the best decisions in my life. Some people are choosing Erasmus because of partying, other because of traveling. What is Erasmus for me? It‘s like a big workshop where you are building yourself, trying to deal with your fears, get out of comfort zone and challenge yourself.
On Erasmus, time and everything is just running so you don‘t have time to be scared or think what‘s going on around you. So when one shy Lithuanian girl (who couldn‘t imagine what‘s going to happen to her) arrived to Prague main bus station, she, after just one month later found herself on one of the ~3000 m tops somewhere in High Tatras, alone dealing with her fear of height, trying to survive but absolutely happy and full of life. One more month later, she went to Italy, to Alps with her roommate and her broken leg. It wasn‘t enough of adventures for her, so she also went to Serbia and from there to Macedonia.
However Erasmus is not all about travelling, it‘s about people. I will always remember how I was standing at Budapest train station with my Estonian and Hungarian friends all together and crying, because we needed to say goodbye, but we didn‘t. We prefer „see you“ instead of goodbye. When you are living with the same people from all over the world in the same dormitory for more than 3 months, when you are sharing your food, drinks, your songs, stories and experiences, 3 months is not enough, so we promised that we will meet each other, and we will, I know.
Everyone says that you should travel, go out of your comfort zone, meet new people from foreign countries, go to Erasmus when you are young and so on. You heard that million times, but please, just do it, and when you will do it you will have tears in your eyes, not because it‘s sad to leave your new friends and memories you made there on Erasmus, but because you are freaking happy and full of life.
Thank you ESN members for all that you did, thanks to dormitory ladies who tried to understand my extremely poor Czech, thanks to trolley drivers for patience with our loud songs on 11 pm while going to Vrtule, thanks to lecturers and BIG BIG THANK YOU guys, my friends who I met here and will never forget.