We are two french students (Erwan & Mathieu) in an engineering school which is called ESAIP in France.
We will study at the Faculty of Sciences in Sibiu during four months at Lucian Blaga University from end of february to end of june. You can follow our adventures on the blog, it will also give you informations about Romania.
Enjoy !
To conclude about our Erasmus in Romania we want to say it was a really great and amazing experience. In my opinion it was the best part in my life, I met with lots of people and I will keep in touch with some of them. I highly recommend to do this type of stay in Romania or in another country. Now we don’t have any stereotypes about Romania and balkans countries.
La revedere și vă mulțumesc !!!
If you are walking into the street in Sibiu or in another city like Bucarest, Brasov for example, we were suprised because all traffic lights have timer. It’s not the only country with this but in Romania drivers are respecting this rule and for walkers it’s the same. If the light is red they are stopping to walk, but if we compare with French or Macedonian it’s totally different because walker aren’t stopping they way.
I was really surprised the first day when I saw all walkers stopping they way because of the light, we can say it’s normal but it’s not the same in all countries. Almost all the population (because there is some exception) are respecting this.
Another thing which I was surprised, it was when I was driving and one ambulance was coming and all the drivers put the car on the road’s down side evenif it’s in a main road. This is normal you will say, but we visited lots of countries and it was just this in Romania.
Hi guys! I just went to Bucharest, and I wanted to share you some nice places to visit. First, I suggest you to go to the National History Museum, which is pretty big, and very interesting.
Then, for lunch, you must go to Saray, which is a turkish restaurant in the historical part of the city. They have a very attractive menu for 20 lei (5€) with traditionnal turkish food such as kebap. Unfortunately, this menu is only awailable for lunch during the week. They offer you turkish tea during the meal.
And then, in order to relax, you can go to the thermal station, which is outside of the city so you will need a Uber( they are cheaper than the taxi) to go there. You will feel rich because the place is sumptuous for an affordable price. There is a bar in every single pool, so you can enjoy a good cocktail in the water. You can also have some massages, but you will need to pay an extra 100lei for them ( 20€). The temperature of the pools are around 30 degrees, and there are inside and outside pools, lithium and magnesium baths among others. Also, the restaurants you find inside are pretty good, with a wide choice of dishes.
Living in Romania is more cheap than France but the minimum salary is less important, it’s around 411€ (1829 lei). Food, flat, drinks, transportation are really cheaper, dont worry, after we’ll discuss about all these categories.
Transportation
Here, it’s usual to take a taxi to come back to the dorm because the price is really not expensive. For 1 km it’s 2,49 lei (0,5 €), to illustrate this we can take a journey Caminul 3 – Shopping city and the distance is 4,5 km. By walk it’s 40 minutes, by car it’s 15 minutes and the price by taxi is less 10 lei so 2 €. If you wanna take the bus ticket is 2 lei (0.45 €) but they are lots of stop so you need to be calm and do not be pressed for the time ; so for me taxi is a really good option.
If we have to speak about train, it’s free for students so we were abale to travel for free in all this beautiful country. Sibiu – Bucarest by train is minimum 6 h 30 for 73 lei (15.5 €) for just 280 km and trains are really old, we have to close by ourself train’s doors.
Food
We can by bread for 2 lei and if we compare this with our country it’s just amazing, we can buy 2 breads for the same value. After for fruits it’s really cheap in supermaket or there is one place and farmers sell there products and we can buy for less than 2 lei for half water melon, 5 lei for 500 g of strawberries (17 lei in France for 500 g). Otherwise beef meat is rare, we have to go in beef market to try to find what we want ; pork’s price is almost the same but chicken is cheaper and in my opinion it’s better than chicken I ate before.
After winter time, there are lots of icecream man in the city and you can eat for 4 lei one icecream, for the same thing you have to pay 3 € (14.7 lei) in France, so we can see the difference between Romania and France but it’s normal, economy is not the same so prices are different too.
So, if I have to say something about food, I’ll say it was really good to eat this quality of fruit, meat… during this Erasmus. I’ll miss to try to cook new perfect meals with my Erasmus friend.
Drinks
Now we will speak about drinks prices, you can buy 2 liters of Coca for 6 lei (1,3 €), 5.5 lei (1,2 €) for one beer in a pub, and in market it’s of course more cheaper than France. After for alcohol like vodka and whisky… prices are cheap too.
In this country, there is lots of big company, we could wonder why ? Because in Romania working force is cheaper than countries at the west of Europe (like France, Germany…) and there are lots of people who search one job in company because in some regions of Romania agriculture take an important place, since the morphology of Romanian territory is suitable to grown and raise livestock.
Francophony in Romania was really famous some years ago, Bucarest was called “Littlle Paris” because of the architecture which was the same like Paris. In the same way Dacia (Car brand) has one factory in Romania, here half of the population learned French (during high school or more), that’s why it was easy to install some company because the language was the same.
One day, I went to one very small village at 25 kilometers to Sibiu, I parked the car (with French immatriculation) to discover the village by walk and one woman started to speak French and I was just suprised to speak French in the middle of Romanian countryside.
On the 9th of mai 2019, they were one European meeting in Sibiu. It was an occasion for them to talked about european strategy and they spoke about World challenges.
This current program is following by EU:
In Sibiu, during this time, we couldn’t access to the main square “Piata Mare”, evering things were blocked by security system like manhole cover for example. It was really nice experience to meet with some president and representant of European Union and at this time, there were everywere in sibiu Romanian & EU flag.
The Prime Minister governs Romania because this country is a multi-party democratic republic. Since 2014, the President is Klaus Iohannis, he has to save Romanian Constitution and Foreign Affairs and he is the leader for army. The Prime Minister is Viorica Dăncilă (since 2017).
Romania was communism country to 6 march 1945 from 22 december 1989. The communist regime of Romania was set up by one overthrow of the Romanian Communist Party supported by the Red Army on March 6th, 1945. But this political regime ended on december 1989 thanks to overthrow put and end to the communist dictatorship and Nicolae Ceaușescu’s function were ended to (president of Romania at this time).
During this time, Romania was a Totalitarian regime with lots of police man, they could arrest some people without reason and practice torture with them. Censorship was really present (phone-call, openning of letter…).
We saw during our trip, some old communists farms with collectivisation of food maybe 2 hours by car to Sibiu and in others cities in all Romania.
Romania is shared in 41 judets like departements for others countries, there is one prefect for all of them and he leads it to developpe economy and assure coordination with other judet to developpe general economy.
There is 4 “macro regions” in Romania but they exist just for regional and local coordination with all administratives structures.
Number 1: Transylvania ; Number 2: Danube ; Number 3: Muntenia ; Number 4: Severina
We had the opportunity to participate for one conference about migration for youth and for migrants during our Erasmus. We could spend a day in a village, and maybe this day is the best day in my Erasmus. I want to speak about the cultural shock ; the village was really beautiful with some cart, without running water, without road just dusty way.
After this, we went to one sheepfold by tractor and we could see, a beautiful landscape and breathe fresh air in the real nature. We could speak with local people and with Serman, Swedish, French and American people which are living in this village or in Romania and they shared their experiences. In Romania, on sunny days shepherd sleep inside their village in mountains like we can see the sofa, the bed and the campfire.
Hi guys, how are you? So, you probably noticed that not so long ago it was Easter, and like you, we celebrated in Romania too. So, I was thinking, why not write an article about it. We had the opportunity to make traditional Easter eggs with others Erasmus people and it was a great cultural experience.
First, we boiled the eggs, then rolled them up with leaves in stockings. Afterwards, we boiled them again in water with dye of various colors. And finally, we removed the stockings, the leaves, and then applied Slănină, which looks a bit like bacon, but much fattier, to make the eggs shine.
During the making of the eggs, a Romanian television crew, Kanal D, filmed us as part of a report on the Easter holidays.
Erasmus in Sibiu 