Austria
participants
Our Welcome Dinner is the first event of the semester and the first event of the Welcome Week. The goal is that the exchange students get a taste of Austrian cuisine, get to know fellow international students and that they feel welcomed in Vienna.
We used to go to a traditional Viennese restaurant for this event, but since we always were unhappy with the food there, we accepted the challenge to prepare the whole Welcome Dinner ourselves. Cooking for about 130 people in a common room with just a small kitchen was definitely a challenge: we planned ahead, borrowed big kitchen gear from a restaurant, bought lots and lots of food in a supermarket and started to cook on a Sunday afternoon. After three hours of cooking and one power failure we could open the doors for the exchange students and present them the delicious food. So many came in the end that we ran out of chairs and had to improvise, but even that worked out somehow!
The dinner turned out great. It was a lot of time with planning and a lot of work on spot with cooking and cleaning but it was definitely worth it! The exchange students were very impressed and appreciated the food and they stayed a long time to eat and chat.
