From the first information event to our journey home, we were always able to rely on the support of the International Office. Especially in the planning phase, regular emails, information events and personal consultations helped us a lot so that we were well prepared for our trip to Riga.

We traveled with AirBaltic from Düsseldorf for around 150 euros per flight with an additional piece of luggage. A cab took us from the airport in Riga to our accommodation, the costs of which were covered by our partner university.

Riga has a very good bus and streetcar network. There is also a train to Turiba University, which takes just 7 minutes. As we lived a bit out of town, our daily bus ride to the university took about 50 minutes. With a student certificate that we received from Turiba, we were able to buy a discounted monthly ticket for 12 euros. The monthly ticket for the train costs 30 euros. Tickets can easily be purchased via the Mobilly app.

If you don’t want to use public transport, we recommend using Bolt, which is also a cheap way to get from A to B.

An early search pays off in any case. The student residences were inexpensive, but we wanted to live on the “other side of the river” so that we could go partying in the old town in the evenings. Via Airbnb, the two of us found an apartment for 750 euros per month, just a 20-minute walk from the city center. We were very happy with this choice. A little tip: For longer stays, it’s worth renegotiating with Airbnb, as many landlords have lowered the price.

The cost of living in Riga is slightly higher than in Germany – food and drugstore products were often more expensive. It is worth using the Rimi app or the Drogas Card to save some money.

The Erasmus Student Network (ESN) in Riga offers many activities such as bar crawls, games evenings, city tours and hiking trips. In the first few weeks in particular, we attended as many events as possible to quickly make friends. The trip to Lapland in particular was a great way to end our semester abroad and we would definitely recommend it.

There are numerous bars in Riga’s old town, where we sang karaoke into the night on one occasion or another.

In contrast to the FHDW, weekly tests, assignments and presentations were common. However, this meant that the final exams were correspondingly less weighted. Even if this sounds time-consuming at first, our free time did not suffer as a result. The professors were very open-minded and helpful towards us, especially as Erasmus students. The local International Office also supported us with all our questions. Only a few module overlaps meant that we had to change two modules at short notice – but this was dealt with quickly and easily after consultation with the FHDW.