1) Why Bratislava?

First, let's start with the basic information:
Bratislava is the capital and the biggest city of Slovakia, a European Union country which is also part of the Schegen Area and Eurozone, meaning free borders and Euro as currency.
The city has around 500.000 inhabitants and according to certain polls, the average age of the city is 36, making it one of the youngest capitals in Europe. The country population is 5.5 million.
The city makes direct border with Austria and Hungarian border is just 7 km away.
The national language is Slovak, but there is a wide knowledge of Czech and German, as well as English. You can also find Russian speakers among the older population.
If you want more basic information, click here.

A lot of people, both locals and friends of mine back in Spain ask me this question and many other statements as "OMG is so far away" "You should have chosen France or Italy" "It is an ex-comunist country" "They will beat you" and so on. So... why I chose it? The easier way is to write down the advantages and drawbacks of it:

1. It's in the middle of Europe, reachable by many ways
   
2. It's cheap compared to western Europe (0,5l Beer for 1€, affordable traveling prices to other nearby cities)
   
3. Very cheap living costs (80€/month for Dormitory, 10€/month transport, 2.20€ menu...)
   
4. The country is beautiful and trains are for FREE
   
5. Bratislava is also known as Partyslava
   
6. There are thousands of students
   
7. The Universities are international focused
   
8. Is not as cold as you may imagine

And many more! You will discover them as you read

But it also has some drawbacks

1. The weather, most days are cloudy, and it rains once per week (typical European, not as bad as UK or Poland) There is just few days of snow (It's not Russia either)
   
2. Local food is nothing special (unless you are a potato lover), at least is cheap
   
3. Daylight  in winter is very short compared to Spain (It gets dark at 15.30 in December)
   
   

But apart from weather and the food (some dishes are awesome, don't get me wrong) the rest is fantastic!

So imagine the big ammount of things you can do if your compulsory monthly spent money is 250€ (including food, dorm and transport), just compare it to France or Italy where dormitory alone can be up to 500€. This is the second best starting point for traveling in Europe after Budapest!

If you worry about the lenguage, simply don't, I don't know more than 10 basic words and the numbers and didn't had any problem so far, many young people speaks English.