ABOUT US
Hi! We are four Spanish Erasmus students from the Complutense University of Madrid. We are currently studying at the Kirchliche Pädagogische Hochschule Wien/Krems for being Primary School teachers and we want to share our experiences in Austria with all of you. In this website you will find information about us, places to visit in this country, recommendations, and much more! We hope you enjoy our web!
WHO ARE WE?
I'M GUADA PETTI
Hi! I'm María Guadalupe, but everyone knows me as Guada. I am 21 years old. I was born in Argentina, but when I was three my family and I moved to Spain. I live in a town in Madrid with my four siblings, my parents and my dogs. I really like to live in a town next to nature spaces as everything is really calm and peaceful. Since I was a child I have loved nature and animals. My dream has always been to live surrounded by animals and green spaces.
Now I am studying to be a teacher, but when I finished high school I did not know what I liked to study. Graphic design was what I liked the most so I started a degree related to audiovisual communication, but even though I liked it a lot, in the first year I realized that it was not what I wanted to study. Now I am very happy with the change I made.
One thing that I really like since I was a child is to play sports, and the one that I enjoy the most is basketball, and I think that is the thing I am good at. In Madrid I still play Basketball, so now that I can’t play I miss it a lot. In Madrid I am also the coach of two children's basketball teams, and I have worked as a monitor in summer basketball camps. In the last camp I was with the youngest children, who were 6 years old and did not know anything about this sport, so it was a challenge.
I think I am a person who thinks a lot about what is good and what is not in everyday life, to try not to make wrong decisions, trying to be perfectionist in that way. For that reason, many times I think about things a lot before doing them, I think that is the reason why I am so shy. Being shy is something I have tried to change since I was a child.
For that reason, applying for the Erasmus was something I thought a lot about. At first, I was not sure where to go and to which university but some friends who did Erasmus in Vienna told me good experiences about living in this city. However, although my university offered to come to Krems, I believe it is also an incredible city in which I have met lots of amazing people.
I'M ANA BOCETA
Hi! I am Ana and I am 20 years old. I am from Madrid, Spain. I live with my parents and my brother and now I am studying a Double Degree in Early Childhood and Primary Education at the Complutense University of Madrid.
Since I was smaller, I have done different activities. All my family play tennis, so I have been playing it since I was 4 years old. Now in Austria I am not playing it, but when I am in Spain I go every Saturday and Sunday morning to play tennis, either with my family or with my friends. I really love to play it because for me it is a way to relax and have fun with my friends, while doing some sport. I also love doing water sports, such as paddle surfing. I don’t usually do these sports, but in summer I always do them and I have a really good time. Apart from sports, I also play the piano and the violin. I have been playing them since I was 6, but I stopped playing the violin 4 years ago. I really like music, and I really like to play instruments when I’m with my friends and sing songs.
Another thing I really like is travelling and learning new things about different countries. I love learning about their culture, their traditions and lifestyle and their language. I speak three languages: Spanish, English and German. I’m not very good at German, but now that I’m in Austria I’m trying to improve it. I used to have a B1 level when I was in high school, but now I don’t remember much. Here I have German classes. Apart from the ones I have at University, I also go to classes at VHS (Volkshochschule) in Krems. Here I attend classes at an A2 level. What I’m learning I used to know it, and the classes are helping me to remember everything, so when I go back to Spain, I can continue taking classes on a higher level.
I consider myself a very empathic person. I always try to understand people’s feelings and problems, and I try to help them. I love meeting new people and I am normally very open. I really like children and that’s why I decided to become a teacher. I didn’t decide it until the last minute, because I was really lost on what to study. I was in the scientific high school, so I was thinking about degrees related to this. But at the end, I realised that what I really wanted to be in the future was to be a teacher, and that’s why I am studying this. I didn’t know if I wanted to teach in kindergarten or in primary school (and I still don’t know), and that’s why I’m studying the double degree.
I have always wanted to go on an Erasmus exchange. When I was 14 years old, I went to Ireland to study for 5 months, and from that moment I knew that in university I wanted to go on an Erasmus. My university offered us a lot of different places, but I was sure I wanted to go to a country where German was the first language, so I could improve my German. I couldn’t apply to Germany because they asked for a B2/C1 level in German and I don’t have it, so my next option was Austria. They offered two places in Austria: Vienna and Linz. I prefered Vienna because it is the capital and a very big city, and I thought there I would know more people. Also, I had seen photos of it and I found it very beautiful and interesting, so I applied for it. I was given this destination, but after a few months they told me that it was an error and that Vienna wasn’t the destination, it was Krems. At first I was disappointed, but then I saw that it was near Vienna and that it was very beautiful and that it has a lot of universities, so there would be a lot of people my age. I don’t regret coming here, even with this corona situation, because I am having a really good time and meeting a lot of people. I know I am never going to forget this experience.
I'M LIDÓN HIGUERAS
I'M ROCÍO ALONSO
Hi! My name is Lidón but everyone knows me as Lledó, which is my name in Catalan.
I am 20 years old and I was born in Castellón (Spain) . I live in Madrid with my family which is composed of my mum, my dad, my three little brothers and me. Now I’m studying my third year of English Primary Teaching at the Complutense University.
Since I was little I was really interested in sports, especially in dancing. At the age of five I started to dance hip hop and commercial dance in an academy. But it was not until 2018 when I started to participate in championships. I have been in two different competition groups but unfortunately, I was not able to compete a lot with the second one due to the pandemic. I really love to dance as it is a way of expressing myself and enjoying it with my friends. I also like to play football and I used to play it when I was in primary school. Another activity I really like to do is learning languages. I can speak three languages: Spanish, Valencian and English. The first two are my mother tongues and the third one is my second language. However, I am not able to write Valencian because I have never studied it at school since in Madrid it is not spoken. I have always enjoyed talking in different languages and now I am studying German as well as I am living in Austria.
I consider myself a really emphatic and friendly person. I love to meet new people and learn from them. It is true that at first, when I meet someone, I am a bit shy and I seem a serious person. Nonetheless, when I get to know the person, I am truly outgoing. Also, I have always loved children and that is why since I was very little, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. When I was in my last years of high school, I decided that I would enter university to become an English teacher. Fortunately, this year I got the chance of being part of the Erasmus program.
My university offered lots of places to do the Erasmus. At first, I did not know where to go because I considered that all countries were so beautiful. After some weeks investigating the universities and what I could do in each country I decided to go to Austria. One of the main reasons was that a lot of people from my family told me it is a really nice country and it is in Central Europe, so it is easier to travel to other places. My university told us that we were going to go to Vienna but finally the only city which was offered was Krems. To be honest, my idea was to go to Vienna and when I realized this city was not available, I felt disappointed. However, it was not until I came here that I realized it is a wonderful city and with amazing views. I have come here with three more Spanish girls from my university. We did not know each other before but now we get along really well. The four of us are studying the same subjects and we are also learning German. I would really like to continue learning German when I come back to Spain and improve my speaking skills.
At the moment I have only been here for two months, but I can assure that it is an experience I would never forget.
Hello! I am Rocío Alonso Silva and I am 20 years old. I come from Spain and I live in the capital city, Madrid. I live with my parents and my sister in a flat, and I am studying the third year of the Double Degree in Early Childhood and Primary Education in the Complutense University of Madrid.
I consider myself a really emotional and empathic person, as well as responsible and diligent. I also think that I am really creative, that's why some of my hobbies involve drawing, crafting or coloring. I also attended painting classes when I was younger, and even if I am not the greatest at it, I find it really relaxing and entertaining. I also did theater and drama for nine years and portrayed characters such as Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, or Amelia in La casa de Bernarda Alba (a really famous play by a Spanish writer called Federíco García Lorca). I actually had a lot of fun attending these classes, but I had to stop attending them because of my studies. Another thing I really like is music. Although I don’t play any instruments, I am always listening to music in my spare time and I love going to concerts. I am a fan of a lot of singers and groups and I mostly enjoy rock, pop or indie music. I also think I am a very friendly person, but sometimes I can be a little bit shy if I don’t feel comfortable. I like meeting new people and spending time with my friends and family, as well as doing other activities like traveling, visiting different places or discovering new experiences and cultures.
I have always wanted to become a teacher, since I was really young, but I never figured out if I wanted to teach in kindergarten or in primary school. When I started to research about both degrees I found something that suited me perfectly. A double degree in both degrees, in which you attended university a year more and you could teach in both stages. I started studying so I could achieve my goal, and luckily I got in. Regarding languages, I started studying English and German when I was three years old, since my school offered both languages. I have always attended English academies, while in terms of German, I only studied it at school. That is why although a few years ago I had a very good level of German, once I entered university, I stopped studying it and I lost a lot of the language.
I wasn’t planning on going on an Erasmus at all, but my parents encouraged me to apply for it, and depending on the situation I could cancel it or keep the process. When choosing which country to go, my university offered multiple options, but I really wanted to go to a german-speaking country, so I could practice the language a bit. That’s why I chose Austria, Wien in concrete, and I was really excited when I got the place there. But once we started with the paperwork and the writing of documents, we got informed that we were not going to Wien, but to Krems an der Donau, another Austrian city. I was a bit upset because I was really looking forward to living in Wien, but once I arrived in Krems, I realized that it was a pretty city and with new things to offer that I hadn’t considered before.
With the Corona Situation, everything has been a little bit crazy, and much more different to how I picture my Erasmus experience, but even though I have only been here for two months, I am already sure that this experience will be life changing.