Visiting Budapest and Kosice Vet Schools

We've been saying for literally years that we need to visit the vet schools in Budapest and Slovakia but have never got round to arranging it 'cos people always had something in the way or couldn't do a certain date, so a couple months ago I looked at when the cheapest flights were and just booked it.

I put on Facebook that I was going with an open invite to come with and 3 other friends booked, so at least I wasn't going on my own.

We arrived in Budapest on Sunday evening and spent most of the week there - I love the city! It has a cool, trendy vibe was really clean and reminded me a lot of Berlin.

It's really easy to get around and nearly everything is in English which I didn't expect.

We went to have a look at the Uni and for a quick self-guided tour as there was noone from the uni to show us around. I didn't realise they didn't offer a shorter post-BSc course so minimum is 5.5 years and speaking to students, on average it takes 7.5 years!! The campus was great with pretty modern facilities but it was tiny (much smaller than my secondary school) and there were no animals on campus.
Apparently they have a really high fail rate so people end up doing retakes, taking inactive semesters to revise or retaking semesters if they failed it previously.
It was really good to speak to some 5th year Norwegian girls who were (a bit too) critical but told it how it is so we're prepared for what the course is like.

On Thursday we hired a car and drove 250km to Košice in Slovakia - I drove and we survived!

Kosice was completely different to Budapest; very little English in the town and much less touristy.

We met up with Louise, a friend from my undergrad BSc, who is now a 1st year in Kosice and went for dinner. We went to Piano bar and ordered pizzas in English and the waitress understoon us fine, even if we had to do a bit of pointing at the menu!
I guess if I move out there I'll pick up some of the language and will get to know the places to go, though that said, they have a McDonalds, two 24hr Tesco's and a Marks & Spencer!

The next morning we went to visit UVMP Kosice (University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy) which was a quick tram ride away and pretty easy to find.

The Uni seemed to have good facilities, we met Martin and Denisa from the Foreign Office who gave us a tour of campus and answered lots of questions for us.

Anatomy Museum & Library:

 Lots of the buildings are older but they're obviously spending a lot of money developing it and building new facilities all the time which I was really impressed with. I guess as more international students are going out there to study it is building up the reputation and facilities so things can only get better.

A new Equine clinic with stables was built last year with cameras for 24/7 observation: 

Every stable has a separate yard so the horses can go outside if they want to. There was even a lecture room which looked onto a horse operating theatre which was a neat idea!

The only thing that really put me off was the dorms accommodation, but in saying that, it's only €120 a month which is silly cheap compared to home! We had a look at adverts for private apartments which were about €420 a month for 2 people so still pretty cheap and about half of what I paid in Aberystwyth.

They're both completely different universities and vet schools and not at all what I expected so I'm really glad we came. I've made a list of Pro's and Con's... If I could put Kosice University in the city of Budapest that would be perfect!

I now have some thinking to do and life decisions to make!