First light experiments

Sometimes when you do not want to study....some things occure....










Maybe we try to right in Cyrillic the next time ;)



Mr. T was also present...















Of course a pano at the end....

Studying, Election Day, Austrian Cuisine.....

It was a lovely Wednesday when I received a note from the University that a parcel for me arrived. The procedure to pick it up is a bit different. First you have to go the University and get a “pick up ticket” which you need to get the parcel at the post office. Not only the pick up ticket is a constraint to get the parcel, you also have to find the post office.…. I thought that I know where the post office is but it turned out that I just knew the building where it should be. I went to the wrong wing of the building, where all P.O. Boxes are. As mentioned in previous posts Bulgarian as not likely to speak English. Surprisingly an nearly 70 year old lady was “able” to communicate in English (a few phrases) and was so kind to guide me to the post office…..

Some might say that you are not learning/studying while being abroad. To my regrets this is not true for Christopher and me e.g. on Thursday I finished my homework for Accounting, which took me 10 hours or 34 pages as well as a lot of other assignments and pre-readings. It seems more likely that we have more to do for our courses than people who are permanently studying at AUBG. Normally it is and should be inverse. In my humble opinion we are not only here to spend 10 hours per day studying in our room and just to leave it for classes. In this case would it really make sense to go abroad? I venture to doubt that…

Earlier as expected a letter arrived....(last Friday)

In order to carry out my duties as an Austrian citizen, I received a letter from the municipal office of my hometown. I requested this letter to be able to take part in the upcoming elections. I had to cast my vote for the next major and the municipal council as well as for the Upper Austrian state government. Easy procedure….as you might realize from the photos below.

A short introduction how you to cast one's vote while you are studying abroad.

1. Request the necessary documents and hope they will arrive on time.

2. Open them, sign the ballot (Wahlkarte)

3. Cast your vote for the major, municipal council and state government.

4. Put the ballot in the correct envelope (violet for major and municipal council and grey for the state government) and give both envelopes in the big envelope in order to assure secret voting and seal the envelope.

5. Send it back.

What you should NOT do:

Drink the night before........

Finally we were capable to cook for the first time in the dorms. The mission was clear, it should be something traditional, Austrian cuisine as well. We decided to make Wiener Schnitzel....(see picture)

What Mr Wikipedia tells us about it: “Wiener Schnitzel (Wiener Schnitzel in German, where Schnitzel means a cutlet without bones) is a traditional Austrian dish and is a popular part of Viennese and Austrian cuisine, consisting of a thin slice of veal coated in breadcrumbs and fried. In Austria the dish is traditionally served with a lemon slice, lingoberry jam and either potato salad or potatoes with parsley and butter. While the traditional Wiener Schnitzel is made of veal, it is now sometimes made of pork, though in that case it is often called Schnitzel Wiener Art (Germany) or Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein (Austria) to differentiate it from the original. In Austria, the term Wiener Schnitzel is protected by law, and any schnitzel called by that name has to be made from veal.

Well we made it with veal and pork as well. It turned out that the veal was not the best quality and it tasted more like a breaded chewing gum...but the one with pork was really good.

Language, Fast Food, Swine flue...

It is not so easy for us to practise our Bulgarian skills, because we just know a few phrases and expressions so far but also it is not very common to communicate with other students in Bulgarian. Even not with Bulgarian students (as mentioned more than 60 % are non-Bulgarian students). If you greet someone in Bulgarian it is very likely that he/she responds in English…

In the dorms I have to share my room with two other guys, Теодор (Teodor) and Преслав (Preslav). I knew Teodor before I came to Bulgaria, because he did his exchange semester in Salzburg last summer. Both are really nice guys and we have a lot of fun, especially when we are introducing ourselves to eating and drinking habits of our countries. Today we had some “Russen” (wheat beer with sprite). Nevertheless I would prefer to have an single room for my own, more private sphere and a quite place to study….

The city Blagoevgrad has about 75,000 inhabitants and two universities. Thus it is a bit strange that they do not have american fast food restaurant. Even my hometown with approximetaly 18,000 inhabitant has a McDonald’s. That does not mean I want to go to one, I prefer дюнер питка (Dönner pitka). This is like a Kebap in Austria but they also put French fries in it, very delicious and cheap (€ 1.20). But I really miss an Ikea store . In the whole country they do not have an Ikea right now. My room mates informed me that they will start to build one in Sofa soon.

I read that swine flue is an big issue at Isabella’s university in South Korea. At AUBG it is also an issue as the number of infected students is growing. Up to now there are 7 confirmed cases but a few are not clarified yet.

In order to be informed about things going on at home I tried to watch Austrian newscast (ZIB on Demand) or listen to Austiran radio stations via web stream (Ö1 and fm4, the latter offers some broadcasts in English).

Finally again some picture…


Finally my parcel arraived after 3 weeks with some stuff, which I was not able to take with me by plane. (limit of 20kg...)



The New Academic Building on a nice day...




View from the Main Building, 4th floor

Pizza Party, Going out...

I might stress this very often but we really have a great time here. We are busy most of the time because of the university, numerous leisure activities as well as going out 3-4 times per week etc. In Austria it would be really possible to go out that often or at least it would not be possible to consume the same amount of drinks. It would not be affordable. I mentioned differences in the price levels between Austria and Bulgaria, here are some more

• Beer € 1
• Tequila shot € 1
• Cocktails € 2.5 - € 5
• Kebap € 1.3

There is one thing, which I do not like concerning going out. In my opinion it is a pity that there are no restrictions to smoke in bars, restaurant etc. Thus it is same procedure here in BG as in Austria. By any chance the EU will be able to regulate that…hopefully soon.

Interesting enough it is not that cheap to buy food in supermarkets, therefore it is visible that labour is very cheap and therefore students are more likely to go out for lunch and dinner than cooking at the dormitories as mentioned.

Apropos money, after some problems with our Erasmus contract (caused by the Austrian Erasmus agency) we already have received the first amount our Erasmus scholarship. Furthermore I realised that banks charge you a lot when you withdrawal money from your foreign ATM card (approximately € 2). Thus I’m looking forward to get my Bulgarian ATM card not only because my Austrian ATM card is nearly broken….

Finally some picture of the “Pizza Party” on Thursday. Thank you Anthony for the invitation.

We were starving, but finally the pizzas arrived.




Two hot guys....





Differences in size (Kate and Goran)


People in motion:







Marta, me and Ania





Before Soundbar


Joseph, Kate and Ivan


1/2 Chris, Katarzyna, Ania and me
sorry Chris, your are to big for the camera ;)

First Pano Experiments

Yesterday we were invited to an "Erasmus Dinner". People from more 15 nations on one table, good food, nice conversations and shared experience about going abroad etc.


First attempts to make an panorama...


AUBG Main building


New academic building



My room

Cultures, weather and essential stuff to buy

How is the weather in Blagoevgrad?

Well, in the first two week it was really hot (35 to 40 °C). You have to know that I prefer the cold than the heat, unless I’m biking....Thus it is a bit to hot for me here. We were melting in our room (30 °C) while trying to study, to read or something even more exciting. If it is possible we try to spend the time at Aqua Park, a swimming bath 15 min. from the dorms, or enjoying the evenings sitting outside, drink a beer, having a blanket party and so on…

Going out culture. In Austria we are used to go out late, that means after 11 or 12 o’clock… In Blagoevgrad they are more used to go out a bit later (after 1 o’clock). Maybe an association with the time differences between Bulgaria and Austria? (Bulgaria is 1 hour ahead of Austria) I wouldn’t know. Alike I perceive they have only have clubs. I haven’t been to a bar/lunch yet, were you are going to relax, talk and drink a beer like at home...

Shopping is always a nice when you are supposed to study and you don’t want to. My st achievements from metro: Beer from the oldest brewery of the world (Weihenstephan directly imported from Bavaria, labels only in German), a Mickey Mouse cup and a Beer flavoured Chips (which I havend tasted yet)…


(I know it is a bad picture…)

I forgot to mention before that I have the best two room mates you can think of (Christopher might know what I am talking about *g*)… Today the invited me to drink some special Bulgarian schnaps called Rakia and of course we had to take at least three, just for health reasons the argued.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

As it is the second time such things happened, it might worth mentioning it. Today we were again at Kaufland, a big supermarket next to the dormitories, to buy some stuff. I wanted to buy some bacon and asked the shop assistant for 100g. She didn’t understand what I wanted, but she answer suddenly: “Sprechen Sie Deutsch”…..(the first time this happened was at Metro with a taxi driver who lived two years in Germany…). My Bulgarian roommates told me that nowadays German is the most popular second foreign language.

We already mentioned some difference in the price level between Austria and Bulgaria. Here is another one. In Bulgaria using your mobile phone (prepaid card) is slightly more expensive. It costs approximately 18 cent per minute, compared to 4 cent per minute in Austria. Anyway the network seems not to be really reliable. It occurs very often that Christopher and I have to try to call 3 times until it works.

Two pictures of the university....(main building, 8-10 minutes to walk from the dorms)

(Cultural) Differences

You might ask if we already have experienced some (cultural) differences. Well yes, we have. I really like the traffic lights in Bulgaria because they have a countdown attached. Thus you know how long you have to wait. As I told you students are not used to cook at the dormitory, they are going out for lunch and dinner.

In the dormitory you do not have to wash our clothes on your own, someone does it for you. It is the same procedure if you want to copy something at the library.

People do not eat their meals hot as we do in Austria, they eat it just lukewarm or even colder which I’m not happy with.

At the entrance of the University there are hub like the ones at metro station, which you have to open with our ID-Card , as well as metal detector. But no one of the securities cares about the signal which is triggered by nearly every student.

Traffic lights with countdown

After the ladies washed your clothes, you get it back in such packages, but washing is as expensive as at the dorm in Salzburg, € 1,5....