My accomodations in Hungary and Austria
Thanks to a lovely stork, I firstly saw the daylight in Zalaegerszeg. At the end of middle school we moved from an old maisonette to an own, renovated flat. After the middle school I followed my own way to become a master (like the young people did in the Middle Ages in faraway guilds).
Veszprém
My first station of my journey was Veszprem. I lived 3 years long in my first university town. During this time I have got a dormitory place with state support. In addition to the state support, my family summor was also really crucial. Faculty of Engineering is not a joke. The curriculum in the first years is pretty dense, if you followed it right. In my second semester I had a subject, where almost everyone was unkown for me. They came from the upper grades. But I don’t want to speak about the vicissitude of being a student, I will do this later in an another article.
I made a layout about my dormitory room:
The dormitory was pretty big. It’s rooms followed the mirrored style. These small appartmanents gave roof for two students. Every person had a desk, a shelf, a bed, and two different cabinets. We had for shared use a clothes hanger, a kitchenette (with a sink, micro, refrigerator, and a couple of shelves), a dining table and a shelf over the dining table. To these things you should have marked the 50-50% virtual line. My roommates said often that I don’t respect this and I have too much room for myself. I can get in the privatzone of others pretty easy and I don’t feel myself uncomfortable.
Source: Hotel Magister website
The room a bathroom with a shower, a sink, and WC. This bathroom was also used by our neighbours. So were 2×2 dormitory units formed. I was lucky in the first two years, because I alwasy got older (almost graduated) roommates, and they were rarely in the apartment. So I could feel and live better on such a small place and I got more privacy. Every floor had an ordinary kitchen. The house was big, if I left some kitchen accessories in the room I had to walk back. Therefore I often completed my everyday walks inside the building. Thus every floor had a washroom with a room for selective waste.
I had at least 5 different roommates in 3 years. It was interesting to see how other people adapting to each other. Everyone was unique. They had different advantageous and disadvantageous personality traits. I would not say living together, I would rather say living side by side.
The monthly rent was about 50 $. People without state support paid a lot higher fee for living here. You could choose a room mate and the type of your desired flat (2×1 or 2×2) in the end of summer. Mostly these requestes were fulfilled. The system was flexible. Additional costs were: coins for washing machine, fee for parking lot if you had a car, and fee for the gym if you wanted to use the basic gym of the house. Nevertheless you had to pay for being late with the monthly rent. Once every year you had to pay for two months. If you overlooked it, you had to pay double penalty. The list of non-payers has been posted on the corridor. And sometimes was the list pretty long. I was careful with this, but other people just didn’t care.
Leoben
In my third year my motivation level droppend below a certain level. At first I was pretty enthusiastic, everything was new for me, I found always new challenges. After a while you find out how things on a university work, how theory-oriented is the major, how an exam takes place, what kind of traps will you face, and you will loose your motivation. That was the time, when I felt, I really need some airchange and refreshment. I applied for an Erasmus scholarship to Austria for 2017 spring. I thought this scholarship is not popular at the uni, and I had a good chance to get one. My application was successful. I lead a blog during my Erasmus adventures. You can see this here [LINK]. I could lead it pretty well. I had a lot of freetime for blogging, and I wanted to share my new experiences with other.
I was too lazy to make a layout about my room in Austria, but it looked something like this:
Soure: OEAD Mineroom website
Let’s speak about the expenses. The monthly rent was 335 €. For this price you got a room with own bathroom in a 2 person apartment. If I remember right, the gym was free. You could buy washing coins, and a space in the parking lot. It was too expensive, I rather used the street and the parking lot of a supermarkt near the house. In the end of the semester I rented a basement parcel for my bicycle (25 €).
Marcali
After the idyllic life in Austria my next life station was in Marcali. I earned an intership place in a manufacturing company. I had to make an intership and a thesis for graduation. The company rented an old dormitory as a boarding house for workers.
I lived with an another trainee in a living unit. We both had a room with a shared shower/WC. The furniture was really minimalistic. I had two bed, one desk, a nightstand and a built-in closet. Interestingly, I got used to the shower just right away. No kitsch, no promincence, just a curtain and a tray. We got a refrigerator on the corridor. And it is not pleasant to wake up on a shouting like: who drank my morning cacao?! The kitchen was in the other side of the building.
The rent was completely free for workers. In the first couple of months I didn’t have internet connection. At first I didn’t have heating in the colder months (around October). It wasn’t so bad, but I didn’t have any future here. I went home in the end of the year.
Pécs
After I gradueted I got my first and real engineer job in Pecs. I applied more than 30 job nationwide. I had 4 interviews, and I received 2 positiv response. I had two different choices. The first one was in a village at the croatian border. The second one was in Pecs (the fifth biggest town of Hungary) beside of the Mecsek-mountain with a better position. The decision wasn’t hard. Big town, Mecsek, good work position, all I wished for.
The accomodation was here also from the company. We got the second floor of a family house. It had pros and cons too. It was good, because I have never lived in a family house. It has a garden, the parking was easy, and the the office was near. It was bad, because it asked for a renovation (the closets came from 1987), the room temperatre was 10-15 °C in winter mornings and it was far away from the city life. Once It took me 2 hourse to walk home after an evening party. We got a bathroom with washing machine, and a separate toilette. I could even store my bicycles in an outbuilding. Altough the house was on the outskirts of the town, the traffic was pretty heavy and noise. There were always traffic jams before the work. And thin double windows weren’t so effective. They barely holded the warm in, but they let the noise came in. It was pretty ironical that the wastewater system of the house was clogged. And the company was engaged with water and wastewater treatment.
The monthly rent was free. I only paid the 1/3 part of the operating costs. This was between 10 (in summer) and 30 $ (in winter). This was a really friendly fee for living in such town.
Vösendorf
After one and a half year I was looking for new opportunities again. I applied for two job in Austria. The first job was in Vienna, the second was south of Vienna. I didn’t get any response from Vienna. But I get an interview date from the other company. After the second round (where I had to do a task) my application was successful. The timing was pretty miserable, because the politic introduced strict restrictions and regulations due to the epidemic.
Surprisingly the accomodation was a much harder question than the job. I got a temporary accomodation close to the office. Because I was on trial I could not get a proper flat. In this case I could cancel the reservation in the next month. Other flats/landlords require you to stay for at least 6 months. I felt mixed emotions about the flat. On the one hand it was good to be alone in a whole apartment, on the other the flat needed renovation and it had bad solutions like parquet in the kitchen, flat water tap at the sink, the wall painting was damaged. And the air of the flat was terribly dry. I bouth a humiditymeter and it humidity was between 40-50%. In the rain was the value about 60%. The sleeping was really problematic for me. I was not able to sleep more than 5-6 hours. I always woke up with a dry throat.
The furniture of the flat was pretty good. It had a wardrobe with sliding doors. I really liked it, I want to buy one in my next accomodation. It had a double bad. The mattress was too soft and it supported my back poorly during sleeping. I don’t really like mattresses with springs at all. The kitchenette was a little bit too small for everyday use. I cook almost everyday. And I didn’t have too much storage. The bathroom wasn’t too special. The sunk was really small for washing. The flat had modern platic windows, which are good, but they killed the ventillation of the flat. I don’t have a glue how people could survive the winter in this flat.
The monthly price for the flat was 560 €. For this price I expect everything to be great. For such a high fee there shouldn’t be any compromism or failure. You can find a lot failure in this case. I will write an article about my new flat later.
Summary
As you can see from above you can not leave the family nest and live without family support easily. I tried to move forward from year to year. I accomplished many things during the years. One of my dream was to live alone. I could realise this dream and I am really happy about it. It is much harder than it seems at first glance. The next step might be to live with a girl together. And I climbed up the ladder completely.
