Traditional beginning of the semester for our fresh new Erasmus students is Welcome week, very important 7 days organised ESN Košice during which we prepared a lot of different activities.

Tuesday (22.9.2015) was the evening of the first Erasmus gathering. This gathering was prepared to meet all Erasmus students and ESN members in one place and get to know each other better. Almost 150 people in T club means a lot of fun for one night. To get to know 
each other, we prepared speed dating for our students. (Speed dating is a new way of dating about meeting a lot of people in a short period of time. So, each girl was speaking with each boy for one minute and then, they switched with another.) After that we had some table football games and conversation with new students during the whole evening. 

On Wednesday (23.9.2015) we organised very special Welcome Slovak dinner where all Erasmus people tasted Slovak traditional food for the first time. Event took place in splendid restaurant KOM ́IN. The atmosphere there was very pleasant and everybody was amazed by fabulous interior of the restaurant. At the beginning, ESN KE president Andrea Megy Hanaková welcomed everybody very warmly and gave a speech about what was going to happen that night. Later, ESN member, Viktória Pirochová hosted short ,,Pub Quiz,, about basic information about Slovakia and Košice. Questions were quite easy and sometimes very funny, too. Some of the Erasmus students were prepared very well and knew right answer to most of the questions. Subsequently, the meal was served. It was Slovak traditional meal ,,bryndzové halušky,, ( potato dumplings with bryndza sheep cheese and bacon) and as the dessert, ,,kysnuté pečené buchty,, were served. In few minutes, the plates were empty. Most of the Erasmus students loved the food.what makes us because it is very tough for international stomachs. All those factors such as good meal and beer, music and interesting decoration created comfort for more than 100 Erasmus students from Košice and also for the new Erasmus students from Prešov, who were invited for the dinner too with ther ESN UNIPO leaded by Vladimír Železňák. After it, we wend for some refreshment to local pub Collosseum for few a minutes. Our final destination was Retro club, where all the participants enjoyed the party and got rid of the gained calories from the dinner. Welcome dinnet is an event where Erasmus students can meet other Erasmus students and ESN members in quite noble way. Every time it ́s very popular. This year wasn ́t an exception.

On Thursday (24.9.2015) and also on Saturday (26.9.2015) we had Erasmus tour de Košice. We visited most beautiful monuments of Košice, situated mainly on Main street (State theatre, Singing fountain, Urban ́s tower, Lower gateway etc.), but also some monuments „hidden“ in side streets out of historical centre (Jewish synagogues, Jacob ́s palace, Museum of medieval torture). We saw also the most significant monument of our royal city – the St. Elisabeth cathedral, where we also took a group picture and saw pure Slovak wedding. (The weather was little bit windy but at least we had opportunity to experience „The f****** Košice ́s wind“ known as „V.K.V.“). We finished our tour at Hrnčiarska street where we saw that Košice was fairly granted the title of European capital of cutlure. The truth is that we learned a lot about this charming (now also ours).

Friday (25.9.2015) as a start for the weekend we went to the biggest Erasmus welcome party of the semester. To get closer and know each other even more, we met before in the dormitories. We started around 9 PM, every of us got a sticker with the name and the section we are in, because as a great co­operation we met later also the ESN Prešov members and their Erasmus students. The fun continued in the biggest club in Košice, Noise Arena. As a nice gesture of welcome they dish out small flashing pendants, to make the party even more coloured. Our ESN Košice President Andrea Hanáková made a nice speech to welcome all Erasmus students. The great music played till the morning and made an admirable atmosphere. We were dancing till the first sunshine was saying: it ́s time to go home.

The end of our welcome week was incredible. We decided to visit our most beautiful mountains in Slovakia­ High Tatras. We met at the train station on Sunday morning and the final number of coming Erasmus students was around 70 people with 5 ESN members. Our biggest hiking trip ever began. (Heading to Štrba, we took the train at about 8 a.m. in Košice and continued with Cog railway transport to Štrbské Pleso.) We didn ́t forget to take a picture at the platform and our hiking could begin! Our first part of hiking trip was going around Štrbske Pleso. (Precious glacial lake with the view of the peaks of High Tatras and of the country below the mountains.) Everyone was amazed. Even though some
peaks were still covered with clouds, people were so busy admiring the nature and taking pictures that we were worried if we would be able to make it to our next destination, which was Popradské Hiking with over 70 students is so much fun! We took a small path which led us into a forest. At the beginning some people were already exhausted, but it got better as we were on the hill. We were happy to see that the clouds were slowly moving away and they uncovered few peaks covered with snow. It wasn ́t very hot and so everybody was happy to see cottages at Popradské pleso, where we could eat and drink something to warm us up. Surprisingly there was still some energy left, and we wanted to continue on. We were at 1500 amsl and our plan was to reach the peak Ostrva (1984 amsl) in about one hour. After a break, almost everybody was waiting ready to get on the mountain. This was the most exhausting part, but the view on the top was priceless. As we got on the top, there were no more clouds in the blue sky, sun was shining and we were stunned with the beauty surrounding us. But we could ́t stay there for a long time as for the very strong wind, and the temperature was about 0­5°C. On our way back, the sun was warming our frozen ears, and we had to leave wonderful nature behind our backs. With amazing experience, minds full of precious memories we headed to the train station, to get back to Košice.

We spent really amazing time during this week, full of experiences. We enjoyed it and our Erasmus students had better opportunity to adapt to our amazing country.

Authors: Lea Karafová, Natália Uramová, Zuzana Gimerová, Aneta Počatková and Rachel Galvanková
Photos by ESN Kosice