Hello there! Last time we proudly introduced to you a new matched member. Remember Bogdan Rusu?(yes, the handsome hunk from the picture above). Well he likes to keep us updated. And we are glad to present to you fragments from his amazing experience!

How would you like to be in his place now?

“So, let’s start in the beginning… I was born in a small city in the North-East of Romania… HAHA just joking

My NEW beginning… Let’s start with me stepping out from the airplane into the Vienna airport. Familiar path, after a previous trip here and two months spent in this dream city, so my one-night stop in Vienna, finding my way to Paul’s place and then wondering around on my own was a breeze. Nice places, cool people – I was sorry to only spend such a short time there (though it was time well-spent, I met the new Austrian MC ). But I’m going back there for a weekend at the end of July, to see some old friends, so I’ll catch up shortly.

Now, let’s go back to the true start of this message: the beautiful city of Linz, Austria. A small piece of Heaven here on the Danube river, a green oasis where everything (including the job) feels like a nice vacation. The same Austrian infrastructure, well-built and easy to use every step of the way, allowed me to march straight next to the dorm room where I would be staying. There, I was greeted by a very cool guy that came to greet me at the tram station and show me where I’d be living. His name is Vishant, he’s from India and, as I would find just moments later, he’s also my colleague in the office of the company that i’m working for right now.

Let me tell you a bit about the 3-star dorm that I’m staying in The rent here is more than one third of my salary, but to be honest it’s worth every single cent!! I have a room at the 4th floor (out of 12) in one of the newest buildings in Linz, at the edge of the city, with lots of green everywhere and the mountain less than 50 meters from my window (clean air, almost no cars in sight and trees everywhere, as you can see in the attached photos). The dorm actually functions like a 3-star hotel (including a reception desk at the entrance, very cool), we have cleaning staff that take care of the rooms, a neat basement with washing machines, dryers and ironing that we can use, table soccer games (which are especially popular now during the World Cup ) and so on. My room also has a kitchen (though not every room has one, I got lucky :D), and everywhere almost everything is ran on sensors and/or automated timers (lights in the kitchen and bathroom, the bathroom sink, the electric cooker etc) – so a small heaven for a techno-geek like me And now, I saved the best part for last: we have a huge pool and a gym which are accessible to guests of the hotel – so I’ll learn to swim in no time So, it’s just a very cool way of living, little things that make your life a lot less stressful.

Ok, so much for my new home for now. Going to work my the first week here was a breeze my two new friends – Vishant, that I already told you about, and Filip, this great guy from Croatia – are also AEISEC interns staying in the dorm, and are working with me at the same company, so I had someone to show me around since day 1. Really nice, considering that it’s a 50-minutes ride from there to work so you’d get bored to death without someone to talk to… We’re planning to find some shorter way soon, and are even considering buying a scooter to go to work… Work is fun – or, it will be, once I actually get started with doing something useful For the moment, my project is in the specifications stage, so there’s no actual work to be done for the now – they just gave me some documentation to study and showed me around the company. Even the work here seems like a vacation – the company is also at the edge of the city, so it’s light traffic and pretty green everywhere, plus that Fridays here are a half-day of work so that weekend starts earlier than I was used to I’ve met my colleagues here, I think all of them speak English – which is a really cool thing – and they’re all nice people and interested in the interns’ well-being. Surprisingly enough, there are a lot of girls here doing programming and development

Good, so that’s that… I didn’t yet get the chance to visit any major tourist spots – although Linz has a tone of those!! I’ve spent my first two weekends wondering around, buying some stuff for my new home, getting used to the layout of the tram and bus lines and catching up with some work. So, needless to say I have a lot of visiting to do – one of the first things on my agenda will be to go in a boat on the Danube Then of course, visiting the Ars Electronica center as well as other museums and places of interest. It’s gonna be a busy internship for sure, so expect more posts like this one in the following weeks and months! And of course, lots and lots of photos For the moment though, I’ll just let you admire the view that I wake up with every morning here

That’s all for now, folks! Best wishes from Linz, my new piece of Heaven!”