A little chaotic blog from Thursday

 

I didn’t really know what to write today… It was another lazy day due to an online meeting that we eventually forgot to attend. As everyday today also had some highlights such as a beautiful sunset or the amazing quesadilla I made for dinner. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of my quesadilla but I’m doing it again tomorrow I will show you 😉

But there is something interesting I want to tell you. So, we got to Warsaw by car. I always wanted to go on Erasmus by a car, mainly to see as much of the road as possible. In 2019 I applied for Erasmus in Rovaniemi, Finland for 2020 Spring. And I always wanted to go there by car so a) I would have been able to see the Baltic states, and b) I could have driven to Nordkapp, Norway the most northern point of Continental Europe to see the Northern light. But due to Covid-19 and my status at ESN Pécs I couldn’t go.
Then Sara and I applied for Erasmus again, this time everything was set. We applied for Bordeaux, France in the first place, and second was Warsaw, Poland. We did get accepted to France, we were really happy to go to a place that far away home – this might sound something completely different than it wants to sound, but I think the best country for your Erasmus is the furthest country from your home. Let’s say I am living in Budapest, Hungary. Would I go to Bratislava (Pozsony), Slovakia on Erasmus? No way! It’s a 2 hour drive from Budapest I could go there whenever I wanted to! But Bordeaux? That is a 25 hour drive, one day wouldn’t be enough to get there, so obviously you would never drive there just to visit the city. And if you go further away the more chance for you to meet different culture so there are many reasons why further is better. But back to the point, why France would have been a perfect Erasmus destination. So, my plan was to put a bed in my car and drive to Bordeaux with millions of stops thru Italy and the French Riviera. It would have been a 2-3 week journey. I basically got everything planned when I received a half English half French email from the university. At first glimpse I thought the coordinator was making sure everyone at the French office was able to read it, but to make sure my theory is correct I put the text in to Google Translate and boom. The letter wasn’t finished in English it went on in French, saying something like “I’ll switch to French since you will speak French when you get here:” I was able to apply for Erasmus there without them warning me that although they do have English courses does are not for Erasmus students, so without speaking any French there is no point of applying. (To make the whole story clear my coordinator did warn us that this can happen sometimes, but the webpage of the university in Bordeaux said they have English courses!) So, this is one of the reasons we are in Poland right now.
Ahw seems like I got a little carried away. So, the whole point of me telling this story is Sara’s parents and friend are planning on visiting us next month and they are not sure how should they get here, and this makes me wonder how would have gotten here if not by car?
So there are a few alternatives to get from Pécs to Warsaw.

a)      a car: it is a 900 km journey – without using toll roads! – it takes 12-13 hours and if the car’s fuel consumption is 6l/100km getting here costs 27,000HUF (calculating with 500HUF/liter diesel prizes)

b)      train: by train it takes 14-15 hours to get to Warsaw, but it would cost somewhere between 10,000-30,000HUF/person! – for Sari’s parents it would cost 50,000HUF/person and just to get to Warsaw!!!

c)      airplane: this is definitely the fastest option, 1 hour 10 minute is the time of flying from Budapest to Warsaw, plus you have to get to the airport 1.5-2 hours earlier, plus you have to get to Budapest by train, which is a 3 hour purgatory, aand of course because MÁV trains are always late you want to get to Budapest 3-4 hours(!) before the plane departures, so adding up those times the journey would take 11 hours, plus it takes time to get from Warsaw airport to the city- this almost equals to the driving time. The train ticket to Budapest costs around 2,500-3,000HUF plus the plane ticket which can cost between 7,000-35,000HUF, plus the laguage which can cost a lot. When I started writing about planes, I didn’t think they gonna be this bad in these many aspects.

As it turns out traveling from Pécs to Warsaw a car is the best choice. But what would have we chosen if not a car? Probably a train because it is more polar bear friendly and you can find cheap tickets if you are lucky.

Have you been on Erasmus? Where? How much did your travel cost? Let me know in the comments bellow!

I hope you are well, and my upstairs neighbor will shut up soon so I can go to sleep haha.

See you tomorrow

Almos

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