Campus Europae, in Latvia

Why ever did you go to Latvia?

It's a question that accompanied me from Austria, before leaving, all through the stay in Latvia.

The answer was - and is - simple: I grew up close to the Iron Curtain, and although that fell during my childhood, there was still a barrier towards Eastern Europe.

With Campus Europae stipulating two year-long stays abroad, my decision was to let adventurousness be my guide for the first year, and practicality the guideline for the second year.

With relatively few universities participating in the teacher training part of the program (including that at University of Vienna, it's only teacher training students that can participate in Campus Europae - my luck, for once), the idea was to go the Northeast of Europe first (Latvia or Sweden), the Southeast (Spain or Portugal) later.