Oh, you know, just traveling Europe.

It has been to the day, three months since I last posted. For my fellow readers, do not fear! This is good news. It means I've been really busy and really happy. Now with good news, comes some bad. Since I have to catch you up on three months of my exchange, it means this post is going to be a longggg one. Actually, I'm going to make two posts instead, but they are still both going to be very long. This one, will be about the traveling I've done.

I spent the majority of the months of April and May traveling around Europe. I went on a southwestern Eurotour (April 23rd to May 13th) and on a Northwest Eurotour (May 13th to May 23rd). In between those 2, I went on a trip with my class from the high school that lasted three days to Slovakia. And finally the weekend after the second Eurotour, I went to Vienna on my own for a 4 day long weekend.

These are the cities we visited on the Southern Eurotour:
Venice, Italy
Florence, Italy
Rome, Italy
Pisa, Italy
Monaco
Nice, France
Luzern, Switzerland
Innsbruck, Austria

We had about 32 Rotary students (all from Hungary except 2) on this trip and 3 tour leaders. All of the travels were done by bus. Venice was absolutely beautiful. It was exactly what you would expect. The weather was wonderful when were there, and everything from the food down to our gondola ride was incredibly picturesque. Something not so picturesque was when a pigeon pooped right on my noggin. Some would call it karma, as the tour guide was warning us about pigeon poop and I thought 'HA that only happens in movies'. WELL. I was proved wrong by the Venetian pigeons. Thankfully my friends had my back and we got it sorted quite quickly. But be careful when in Venice, ladies and gents. Never doubt the power of the pigeon. We also met some German exchange students with Rotary on their Eurotour. Small world. Florence and Rome were absolutely beautiful as well. we stayed in cool hostels where the rooms were little bungalows. We ate ice cream everyday. We got cheaped out on ice cream at Vatican City. We ended up paying close to 12 dollars for 2 scoops. It was good ice cream, but not thaaat good. I also learned that the beauty of Pisa is well kept hidden. Everyone talks about Venice and Rome...not so much Pisa. But it ended up being my favourite Italian city that we visited. And get this....the tower REALLY leans! We had a really fun night in Pisa even partying with our bus drivers! Now if there's one city on this tour that beat Pisa it was definitely Nice. Nice was like a dream. It was the first time I had gone to the beach in a very long time and I didn't even realize how much I had missed it. We got lost a bunch of times but we ended up discovering a gem of a restaurant right on the beach! The last couple of days involved a lot of time on the bus but we ended up getting really close as a group under those circumstances so it was certainly worth it.

Fast forward a couple of days and I'm in Slovakia with my class. Now, being on a trip with Hungarian teenagers is very different from being on a trip with exchange students. I don't think there's a better immersion into the culture of kids your age in another country than going on an overnight trip with them. I shocked them a little with my love for hockey (one I didn't know I had) and how I couldn't take my eyes off the screen when a game was on and the girls couldn't fathom the fact that I wash my hair everyday. Definitely proved how different our cultures are, but we all embraced our differences. My classmates love asking questions about where I come form and getting to know me and my country that way.We did a lot of historical sightseeing and I really did feel myself getting closer to some of my classmates. People who had never talked to me before, did. The language barrier was ever apparent though as I struggled to understand what was going on a lot of the time and I realized one of the most difficult things to convey is humour. I am definitely notttt funny when I speak in Hungarian. (I like to think I'm funny in English :D) That's one of the obstacles to overcome though, when you're on exchange and I'm proud to say that I can have whole conversations with my classmates (albeit, slowly but surely) in Hungarian. I was skeptical about going on my class trip since I didn't think I was close enough to them to really enjoy it, but I'm really glad I went.

Andddd one more week and we're on Eurotour numero dos.
Prague, Czech Republic
Cologne, Germany
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
London, England
Brussels, Belgium
Paris, France
Strasbourg, France
Munich, Germany

This Eurotour was very different in many ways. We had around 15 more students on this one, making everything pretty hectic. We had 6 or 7 students from Italy joining us too! They were a great addition to our group and I'm really glad they came along with us. It was rainy for the majority of this tour which was too bad and we spent a lot of time on the bus, even during tours. I still wouldn't change it for anything, I had a wonderful time and I will always remember and cherish it. London and Amsterdam (...) were breathtaking and I've sworn to myself I'll be back there someday.

Lastly and most recently, I traveled to Vienna for 4 days to visit Hannah, the Austrian inbound to my Rotary club in Calgary next year. She and her family could not have treated me with more kindness. We went to see musicals and we ate out at delicious places and we sightsaw despite the rain and we went to little cafes and I know I'm rambling but a summary of all we did can never explain how much fun I had there. I felt like I had known Hannah forever and my urge to visit Vienna was finally calmed. I am so satisfied with all the traveling I've done and I am so so lucky to have had the opportunity.

It's funny because before exchange I thought that's what it was all about: exchange in my mind was one long trip with a bunch f traveling sandwiched inbetween. Coming close to the end  of my exchange I can say that's definitely not it. Exchange is about learning and growing and living so many different experiences than you would at home. All the traveling I got done lately...that's just been a bonus!

Március tizen kilenc.

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Hello everyone it is I, the most undedicated exchange blogger in the whole wide world. In my defense, I made a video blog post when I was skiing in Austria in January, but despite my biggest efforts the video would not upload to my blogspot page. So, alas. It is now the middle of March and I'll catch you up a little bit on what I've been up to....
The month of February wasn't all that exciting. The new exchange students from Australia and Argentina arrived to Hungary and in the second week of February we had a fancy ball where we got to meet them. They're all incredibly nice and I'm actually kind of sad that I won't be able to spend that much time with them, seeing as we won’t have more district conferences or anything. But I am really grateful that I got the opportunity to meet them.
I went skiing for a week at the end of February with some fellow Rotarians and exchange students and it was one of the best weeks of my exchange thus far. I had an amazing time and got closer with the people there.
I have decided that I never really got culture shock when I first got here, other than the whole everyone is speaking in a language you don’t understand. However, 7 months later I can safely say that the Hungarian culture is completely different from anything else out there. It’s all in the little things. If you were to visit Hungary for a week or two, you might not notice all that much, especially if you’re in tourist mode. But when you’ve been here as long as I have, you start to notice all the things that make this country so unique. Maybe I blog too much about my feelings in regards to exchange and not enough of the physical aspects of exchange. So, I wanted to make a little list of the things that stand out to me here on a daily basis and maybe give you a bit of a feel of what quotidian life here is like.

1)    Elbows on the table is a-okay here! (Take that, mom.)

2)    In school, when a class starts everyone stands up while the teacher is entering; it is a sign of respect.

3)    Eye contact towards strangers is not okay. I’ve asked Hungarians about this and most of them say it is considered either threatening or, someone told me that if a foreign man makes eye contact with a Hungarian woman he doesn’t know, it is considered inappropriate kind of in a sexual way. Anyway, no one is comfortable with it. My second host father told me this kind of behavior could also be due to an inferiority complex leftover from being under Soviet occupation for so long. In that time, you could trust no one and I feel like Hungarians are just starting to get over this. You can imagine how strange it was for me to come from Canada where you smile at every stranger you see and realize that it’s frowned upon here. It does make me happy that Hungarians realize this is not ideal and are trying really hard to fix it.

4)    Everyone blows their noses loudly, all the time. You know how at home we’d run to the bathroom or wait till we got off the bus to blow our noses discreetly? It’s not an issue here! I’m going to try to implement this back home.

5)    Soup, soup, more soup, and bread. And more bread. (Gyümölcsleves, zöldségleves, frankfurti leves, húsleves, gulyásleves, halászlé, kifli, kalács, pogácsa, vekni….….I could go on and on)

6)    Most families, regardless of wealth, do not have a clothes dryer in their house. Everyone hangs their clothing to dry.

7)    When you greet someone you’ve met before, girls with girls and boys with girls greet with 2 cheek kisses.

8)    High school classes are organized into different “specializations”. So you may enroll into a math/physics or an English/German course and your classmates will be your classmates for the next 4 years, they don’t get to pick and choose lessons like we do back home.

9)    If it’s over 0 degrees and there isn’t a lot of snow, everyone is riding their bikes everywhere.

10) In both high school and university, the students call their teacher “tanár”which means teacher), and not Mr. or Mrs. so and so, as we would.

11)  Hungarians aren’t exactly racist, but I have noticed on several occasions that foreigners are not very well liked. In Szeged, since it’s a University city and there are a lot of foreigners, it’s not as visible but in other cities, definitely. When the exchangers are walking around in a big group we often get disapproving looks from people and the Asians in our groups get degrading comments quite often.

12) A lot of Hungarians are reserved, until you get to know them well. Then, it’s buli (party) time.

I have recently switched host families as well, just last week. It’s really strange being in a new house afyer having been in the same one for over 5 months, but I really like it here. The family is incredibly kind. They have a daughter going out to Australia next year and I hope her host families treat her with as much kindness as they have treated me with!

The next 2 months are going to be incredibly busy, traveling and such. What a life! I promise I’ll try to blog again soon(ish)!!

Daniela

Stories and thoughts and stories and thoughts.

Boldog Karácsonyt és Boldog Új Evet kívánok! Or as most of the people reading this would know it...Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I guess I'm a little late on that one, but it's the thought that counts, right? Anyhow, I'm coming up on having been here for five months and I actually cannot believe it. It's ridiculously difficult to comprehend how time goes by so quickly. This post will be about my Christmas season, among other things. If it sounds a little depressing, it's because it was. But it can't be perfect all the time, now, can it?

So, the Christmas season started off nicely with Christmas baking, Christmas markets and things like that as I mentioned in my last post. The Christmas spirit in this city was amazing. On Christmas eve, we stayed home and exchanged gifts. I felt quite bad because the presents I had sent from Canada way back in October still hadn't arrived by Christmas eve. My host family was super understanding though and when the package finally came on December 28th, they loved their presents nonetheless. On the 25th, we left bright and early to Gyula, the town where my host grandparents live. We stopped for lunch by my maternal host grandma's house. There, I met some of my host extended family that I hadn't met before. The food was delicious! After that, we went to my paternal host family. We exchanged some more gifts, watched home videos and just enjoyed each other's company for a while. We didn't really do much besides that for the next couple of days. My host parents have a lot of friends in Gyula so we did some visiting, everyone was very kind.

On our way back to Szeged, we stopped in a little town called Hódmezővásárhely (try sayin' that ten times fast). We were there to rent out some ski equipment for our ski week in Austria. We rented it all from a couple whom apparently are family friends. They invited us over to their apartment for a bite to eat after. They were some of the kindest people I have met while I've been here. They kept giving me food, convinced that I hadn't eaten enough even after a huge slice of pizza and a bunch of appetizers. They were genuinely curious about me and asked a lot of questions and were very patient when it came to my Hungarian. They also had 2 little kids. The ten year old boy was just starting to learn English and he proudly introduced himself in English to me. He showed me some of his school workbooks as well, and I have to say he was very smart! His younger sister, Greta, only spoke Hungarian, so we tried to communicate that way.....emphasis on tried. They also tried to teach me how to play a card game using Hungarian cards, which proved to be difficult and after a little while of miscommunication we gave up and played on the computer. At the end of our visit, the kids gave me the pack of cards as a keepsake and invited me to play another day. It was such a sweet gesture.

We got back to Szeged on the 28th of January and didn't really do much until school started on January 4th. My host parents work very hard and whenever it is possible for them to relax, they take the chance. So, they were tired from getting ready for the Christmas season and wanted to relax during the break. That was quite difficult for me because I wish I had been occupied, that would have definitely helped with the homesickness. I had a lot of time to think, and consequently came to a very sad time in my exchange where I seriously contemplated going home. I was being immature and looking at the bad and just wanting to throw in the towel. A call from my aunt made me wake up and realize that I was about to give up on one of the greatest things I've ever had.

I think the holidays mixed with a lot of emotions made me vulnerable to that, but I am very glad I've woken up a little bit and have been able to truly understand and see what a gift my exchange is, no matter what.

Since Christmas, I was really sick for the first two weeks of January so I had to stay home and recuperate. And then, on the 19th of August we went skiing for a week in Bad Kleinkirchheim, a ski village in the south of Austria. I went with my host family and it was absolutely wonderful. A week full of improving my skiing abilities, walking around the village, practicing Hungarian with the family, relaxing and overall having a great time. More to come...