Agnes Herkas and Petra Lehner

“Why would Austrians want to spend a semester abroad in Hamburg?” – this is a question we were asked more than once! While the language might be the same, on paper at least, there were still a few things which we found new and exciting in Germany. And some things were as we expected. “It’s going well. The weather is great!” We sent many postcards with these words. The images were always of rain. Unfortunately we were not spared the ‘Shiet Wedder’ (awful weather) for which northern Germany is renowned.

We were able to confirm that the Germans are indeed punctual and well-organised during the first two weeks of our stay. The perfectly planned ‘welcome weeks’, bringing together exchange students from all over the world, made it virtually impossible to feel lonely. And events were offered all through the semester. Our buddies organised a potluck dinner with international dishes, a scavenger hunt for exploring the city and lots of other events. There’s no time for boredom in Hamburg. In addition to the notorious Reeperbahn in the St. Pauli entertainment and red light district and the alternative Sternschanze district, Hamburg also has plenty in the way of leisure offers such as the great value Sportspass association, the impressive sights of the Speicherstadt district, the Alstersee lake etc. and cultural offers such as the Lion King musical.

Despite its 1.7 million inhabitants, Hamburg does not feel like a metropolis. Indeed, it is quite rightly known as Germany’s greenest city thanks to its many parks. You can walk for hours through the huge Planten un Blomen park and still not have seen everything. On a sunny day, we would often head to the Stadtpark to play the guitar and sing together with our new friends from all over the world. We generally chatted in English or Spanish. We were able to improve our foreign language skills by talking with other exchange students and by attending various lectures in English at the university.

One of our favourite courses at the University of Applied Sciences was called ‘German Food And Culture’ where we had a chance to prepare various dishes from all regions of Germany. Cooking together once a week was not enough for us and so we held cooking sessions in the form of international dinners where we exchanged traditional recipes from various countries. We got to know lots of different cultures during our Erasmus semester – even though we spent it in neighbouring Germany! We would certainly choose Hamburg again if we had the chance!