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
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