Christmas

Christmas this year was spent with my host family in Nyíregyháza. While it was really strange to be away from my family for Christmas, almost all of the Baricskas live in Nyíregyháza, so family get-togethers are frequent, just like at home, and Christmas was no exception to this rule. On December 23rd, my host brother Norbi and his girlfriend Adri came from Budapest to stay with us for the holidays. In Hungary, presents are opened on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning, so on the 24th, we all ate Christmas dinner together (traditional Hungarian Fish Soup) and opened presents. Unfortunately, men are impossible to shop for, so I crawled into a corner and died of embarassment when my host father opened up his gift from me, which contained foot cream. (Nice foot cream, I might add, but still, foot cream.) Even though I gave him a terrible gift, Béla did not revoke my present, and I was given a bunch of new pairs of socks and a pair of pyjamas.

On Christmas day, we all went to Erika's parents' house for lunch. Erika's sister and her son were there, as well as Béla's father, an adopted aunt, and a great uncle. We ate lunch together (cabbage rolls), stuffed ourselves with Hungarian sweets and cakes, and then stuffed ourselves back into the car and went home to sleep off our calories.

The Christmas break here lasts until January 7th, so I am planning on going to visit one of my Hungarian friends who was on exchange in Calgary last year, and I am going to try to buff up on my Hungarian. Studying maybe a long shot though, as I have spent very few hours outside of my pyjamas so far this holiday, which is just the way I like it.

Boldog Karácsonyt! (Merry Christmas)

Vienna

Last weekend, Rotary Hungary took all of the exchange students on a trip to Vienna. I took the train to Budapest early Friday morning, boarded the bus with the rest of the kids, and we all drove to a Hungarian city called Győr which is only 2 hours away from Vienna. In Győr, we slept at a youth hostel, but, in truth, there was no sleeping involved. If you combined the number of hours all of the exchange students actually slept on Friday night, you might get enough hours to meet the reccommended amount of sleep in one night for ONE person. All of the exchange students get along really well and most of us spent the entire night hanging out and gabbing and laughing about how stupid Hungary is sometimes.

The next morning, bright and early, we drove to Vienna. We had free time all day and I spent the day exploring the city centre, taking pictures of beautiful old bulidings and perusing the numerous Christmas stalls set up in the main square. Budapest and Vienna are very similar cities in that they are dominated by big, old, beautiful buildings of the same era. Unfortunately, because Vienna is a big city, it is very difficult to find your way around the city. My one day in Vienna gave me a very shallow glimpse into the city's character, so I would love to go back sometime soon to visit all the museums and walk around the town pretending like I know where I am going.

Mikulás

Santa Claus, or Mikulás came to Hungary today and left a bag full of chocolate in my boot. In Hungary, St. Nicholas' Day is celebrated on December 6th, and it is Jesus who leaves the presents under the tree on the 25th.

The Disznótor

As I promised, I am here to report all of the gory details of the traditional Hungarian pig killing, or disznótor, that I attended on Saturday. Wanting to be the "good little Rotary girl who tries everything once," I woke up bright and early at 5am on Saturday so that I would be at the farm in time to witness the full meal deal (pun intended) of the disznótor. When we arrived at the farm where the day's activities would take place, we traipsed up to the barn and waited for the butcher to arrive. I expected that the barn would be full of little pink pigs, but instead I was greeted by 4 or 5 huge, hairy things that looked like a cross between a black lab and a rhinocerous. Once the butcher had chosen his pig, I watched, trying to stifle giggles, as he chased the pig around the pen trying to corner it. (Once you see the picture of the butcher below you will realise why this was so funny.) As the butcher dragged the poor pig out of the barn and I thought that my ear drums were going to explode from the wretched squeals the pig was making, I realised that I didn't really want to witness the actual death of the poor pig, so my friend Franziska and I busied ourselves with nervous giggling at the butcher who had a very big bum and the cook who was trying to wrestle with one of the pig's legs whilst still wearing his red tartan plastic apron.

Once the deed was done, the pig was tied to the bumper of a truck and dragged to the concrete pad where the rest of the action would take place. The pig was set on the ground and the butcher lit a blow torch and started to burn of all of the hair on the pig's skin. Once this task was completed, the pig was hosed down and hung by his feet on the butchering hooks. The next hour was like all of Biology 20 summed up. The butcher cut open the pig's stomach and gutted him, and then proceeded to chop him into the various cuts of meat. From there, we proceeded to prepare lunch and dinner for the Rotary guests. Pork was added to a big pot of kaposta (cabbage) to make something similar to a stirfry, most of the innards were thrown into a big pot of boiling water and later made into sausages, soup was made, and in the other pot there was a stew that the Hungarians called "blood stew".

My contribution to the meal was that I helped to make sausages. The butcher had brought a bunch of cleaned pig intestine with him which was to be used for the sausages. The intestines were soaked in hot water and then fit over the end of the valve of the sausage maker. I cranked the handle that fed the meat into the valve, and voila, we had a sausage.

The food that we made was delicious and I was exhausted by the end of the day, but my tummy was very full and very happy. I am also happy to report that I have not, nor will I ever stop eating pork. It's just too darn tastey.

November Update

For the past few weeks I have been continuing to take guitar lessons, play basketball, and to travel to see my friends. My basketball team has had two matches so far. We lost our first match, but last Monday when we played our second match we creamed the other team, which was highly satisfying. In order for me to be able to play basketball competitively in Hungary, I was required to have my basketball coach in Canada confirm that I had not played professional basketball. If the head of Hungarian basketball had just watched me play then he would have known from my lack of skill that there was no way I had ever played professionally, but all the paperwork sorted itself out and I get to play in all the matches.

I am starting to enjoy my guitar lessons more and more. I don't make my poor teacher's ears bleed when I play anymore, so I think I am headed in the right direction.

Last weekend I went to Budapest to visit my friend Irene who is an exchange student from the U.S. When I arrived in Budapest I found out that Irene had newly developed the flu, so we took the weekend pretty slowly. On Saturday we went to Irene's host brother's graduation ceremony which was deathly boring. In Hungary, when someone graduates from High School, they don't get a diploma, they get a school pin which they wear on their jackets. The pin says the name of the school and the graduation year. At the ceremony, everyone gets all dressed up and is presented to the audience, pinned, and then they all rush backstage to change into their white poofy dresses and tuxedos for the traditional partner dance. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the dancing part of the evening, everything else was very highly unorganized. All in all, the ceremony lasted 5 hours.
While it was painful to have to sit through the graduation ceremony, I was happy to see Irene and was ecstatic to be able to talk to Irene at a normal pace in "real" English instead of Hungarian English. My host dad's English is better than my Hungarian, so when something really important needs to be discussed we always end up speaking English. Because of this, I have had to change the way I speak in order for Béla to understand me. I now say things like "I very like that" or "I come home 9:30". My goal for the end of the year is to be able to put together perfect Hungarian sentences and perfectly terrible English sentences. Maybe I won't even be able to speak English by the time I come home. That would be kind of cool...

Today I have a meeting with a zookeeper at the Nyíregyháza Zoo to see if there is any volunteer work I can do. I told my Rotary Club that I was bored and asked if they could please come up with some volunteer opportunites for me, and working at the Zoo was one of their suggestions. There were many other volunteer opportunities, such as working at the animal shelter or in the hospital, but I have yet to look into these options. I am also looking into taking traditional Hungarian dance lessons, piano lessons or a drawing class. I recently took up Karate, but I am not completely sold on the class, so I am trying to find other things to do with my time.

This weekend, my friend Alexandra, who is another Rotary exchange student from Canada, is coming to visit me. Alex lives in Debrecen, which is a big city not far from me. I have been to visit Alex numerous times, but she hasn't been to Nyíregyháza yet, so she is finally going to come this weekend. On Friday I am going to the theatre, then Saturday morning Alex will arrive and we are going to a Rotary event. The event was described to me as a pig killing, but I don't really know what that means. I have been assured, though, that I will not have to witness the killing of the pig, I just get to eat it. I'm sure I will have lots of interesting photos to share on Monday.

You likey my moustache?

There seems to be a moustache theme going on with me lately. Not too sure what that's all about.... I love this picture, so I thought I would share it with you.

Budapest

Last week was Autumn school break in Hungary, and my host parents decided to take me to Budapest for the first time. I was unforgivable touristy all week and therefore have some cool pictures to show you all. As I'm sure you are aware, Budapest is the capital of Hungary and the city is home to close to 2 million people. The city of Budapest is split into two parts by the Danube river: Buda and Pest. On the Buda side of the Danube you will find the Buda castle where the Kings and Queens of Hungary used to live. The castle has now been turned into the Hungarian National Gallery. Buda also houses the famous Mátyás Church, where all royal ceremonies were held. Unfortunately, Mátyás Church was under renovation when I was visiting so I didn't get to see the apparently elaborate interior, but outside the church overlooking the Danube and the rest of the city is a big, beautiful wall that the King and Queen would walk along after their wedding ceremony so that all the people of the city could see them and cheer for them. I felt like Repunzel when I stood on the top of the wall.

Connecting Buda and Pest is the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, which was built in 1849 and was the first permanent bridge across the Danube. When it was first built, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge was one of the architectural wonders of the world, and represented the wealth of Budapest. The bridge was designed by Willian Tierney Clark, who also designed the Marlow Bridge which crosses the river Thames in England. The Széchenyi Chain Bridge is a larger but almost identical version of the Marlow Bridge.

The Pest half of the city houses Parliament, Heroes Square (a huge memorial to past kings and famous Hungarians), many museums, and the Opera House. When I visited the Opera House there was a movie being filmed outside the building and I got to see all the actors dressed in their renaissance garb. I was told that the movie wasn't a Hungarian one, so I will have to keep an eye open to see if perhaps it was and American film.

The city of Budapest is still full of beautiful old stone buildings. New buildings that are built these days are required to blend in with the old style of the rest of the buildings in the city, therefore Budapest hasn't lost any of it's charm as the years have gone on.

Budapest has metro, bus and c-train lines which make it very easy to get around the city, so I am excited to go back to the city to see just how lost I can get!

Halloween

Much to my dismay, Halloween is not celebrated in Hungary. However there is another, slightly less fun holiday that is celebrated on November 1st called All Hallows Day. On this day, families take flowers and candles to the graves of loved ones. Although Halloween is not celebrated, I somehow managed to get myself invited to probably the only Halloween costume party in Hungary. One of the girls at my school throws an annual Halloween party and decided to invite me this year. As you can see from the pictures, I used my few resources and turned myself into a French painter by wearing a baret, paint covered jeans, and painting a trashy black mustache on my face. The overall effect was fairly frightening--I looked like some of the boys at my high school!

I was highly impressed by most of the other girls' costumes and Andi, the hostess, had obvioulsy spent a long time preparing food and activities for the evening. We ate lots of junk food, played Twister and watched a scary movie. I was the oldest of all the girls at the party, but I was the first one to leave the living room where the scary movie was playing to go watch a Hungarian soap opera instead.

My Hungarian Family

I realized yesterday that I haven't posted any pictures of my host family yet. Well, that has to change, so here are some photos of the Baricskas:

Erika, my host mom, and me.

My first night in Hungary. Eating dinner with my host family as well as my friends Dóri and Lily.

Béla, my host dad, and Norbi, my host brother who lives in Budapest.

Oh Canada

I realized during my trip to Venice how lucky we are as Canadians. There are two other Rotary Exchange students living in Nyíregyháza with me: Hebe is 15 and she is from Taiwan. Nico, 18, is from Ecuador. Both Hebe and Nico had to get an Italian visa in order to visit Venice. I, on the other hand, did not. Hebe's visa was not passed until 1 hour before we boarded the bus to Venice, and Nico had to make 2 trips to Budapest in order to have his visa approved. When Nico went to pay for his visa, he had to pay in American dollars. The official currency of Ecuador is the American dollar, but the american money printed in Ecuador was not accepted be the Italian embassy in Budapest, so Nico was forced to find a bank that would exchange his money for him.

Having the priveleges that go along with being Canadian not only meant that I was saved the time of having to deal with all of the paper work that goes along with getting approved for a visa, but it also saved me a lot of money.

Venice

I took the 3 hour train ride to Budapest on Friday morning to meet up with all the exchange students who were going to Venice. At about 8am, we all boarded the bus and drove the 12 hours to Italy. On the way, we stopped at a view point that overlooked Lake Balaton, sometimes referred to as the "Hungarian Sea" or, by non hungarians, "Europe's biggest puddle". Lake Balaton is the largest lake in Central Europe, but it is very shallow with a mean depth of 3.2 m. After our brief visit to Lake Balaton, we boarded the bus again and slept, very uncomfortably, on the bus until we finally arrived in Venice around 8am.

Once in Venice we were left to our own devices. Unfortunately, I ended up with a group of girls who just wanted to shop while they were in Venice. After a while I got sick of waiting outside shop after shop that sold the same thing so I ditched my friends and explored the city on my own. I was disappointed with how tourist oriented Venice was, but once I finally escaped the line-up into Louis Vittons and the endless stores full of pointless crap, I was not suprised to find that Venice is indeed very beautiful. I spent my day walking through the winding streets taking pictures, stumbling into random museums and galleries, and people watching. There is a very interesting mix of people in Venice. The native Venetians were dressed to the nines and paid no attention to the tourists. Then there were, of course, loads of camera wielding tourists who were willing to pay way too much for things that they didn't need, and then there were the honeymooners and rich travelers who had come to Venice to shop and to indulge in luxurious things that apparently only Venice can offer. Because there is a constant supply of people willing to spend money, it was very difficult for those of us who didn't have endless amounts of money to find anything affordable to eat or buy. I was lucky enough to find a cool place that, for a reasonable price, sold bread slices with various cheeses and tapinades and I ate my lunch there. Unfortunately, I was not so lucky when I went in search of a cup of coffee. When I thought that I had finally found an affordable place to buy coffee, the waiter told me that there would be an extra 5 Euro added onto my bill to pay for the "music costs" (a.k.a. the lone violin player on the main floor of the restaurant).

While I thoroughly enjoyed taking in the sights of Venice, I cannot imagine spending more than one day there. Venice is insanely gorgeous, but I found the city to be somewhat unwelcoming and claustrophobic.

Some of my trip highlights include a visit to the Gallery of Modern Art, stumbling into an uknown museum and looking at some really cool "pushing the boundaries" kind of art, riding in a gondola with a bunch of my friends and hearing all about the city's history from the gondaleer, feeding the pigeons in Piazza San Marco, and getting lost and trying, unsuccessfully, to find where I was on a map.

Here are a few pictures from my trip:

Feeding the pigeons in Piazza San Marco, and gondolas on the Grande Canale.

Me and the gondaleer (and his hat).

Chocloate!

There is a chocolate bar called Túró Rudi which is made and sold in Hungary exclusively. Túró means cottage cheese, and rudi can be roughly translated into bar, so, as you have probably guess, a Túró Rudi is sweet cottage cheese covered in chocolate. I'm completely addicted to these little chocolate bars. They are sooooo good and I am desperately trying to figure out a way to smuggle some home in a cooler.

October Update

Well, I have a lot to tell you all! So far, October has been very busy for me. The month started off with a hiking trip to Slovakia with my Rotary Club. While Hungary is fairly flat, Slovakia has a few small mountains (small compared to the Rockies!) and, for whatever reason, people sometimes like to climb these moutains. Not wanting to be a party-pooper, I decided that I would go hiking with my Rotary Club. I figured that, since I am the youngest member of my Rotary Club I would be able to handle anything they decided to climb. As you can imagine, I was highly shocked and somewhat grumpy when I found out that we were going to be climbing for 12 hours straight and that we would be starting our hike at 5:30 in the morning. The hike that we went on was nothing like anything I have ever experienced. We basically followed the path of a stream all the way up the mountian--I spent half of my time on my hands and knees because the incline was so steep. While there were certainly moments that I wanted to throw myself over the side of the mountain because my legs were so tired, the higher we climbed the more beautiful the landscape became. Our 9 hours of climbing effort certainly paid off when we were rewarded with a beautiful 360 degree panorama from the peak.

On Sunday the 14th I celebrated my 18th birthday. My host mom Erika suprised me with a birthday lunch and then my friend Dóri and I, as well as my host mom and dad drove to a near-by city called Tokaj. Tokaj is an old and very beautiful city famous for the wine it produces. I explored the city, took lots of pictures, drank some wine, and then travelled home. I then spent the evening with my friends playing pool and drinking beer just like an 18 year old should. The next day I went to a Rotary meeting and was once again suprised with a birthday cake. I was worried that I might be homesick on my birthday because I wouldn't be able to celebrate with my friends and family, but the people here made me feel very special and I was really grateful that they made my birthday so much fun.

On Friday I am travelling to Venice with my all of the other exchange students in Hungary and I am VERY excited! I will give you all the details of my trip when I get back.

Lots of love!
Emily

Football

Today I went to my very first professional soccer game. The Nyíregyháza Spartacus were playing against the team from Debrecen. Apparently this match was an important one and, although it has been explained to me many times, I have no idea why it was important. I was surprised to find out that the tickets were only 500 Forint, or just under 3 dollars Canadian.

The Debrecen fans had to sit in a different section from the Nyíregyháza fans because the two sides love to get into massive brawls. Within the first 10 minutes of the match, the Debrecen fans tried to break open the gate that separated the two sides. It was really funny to watch how involved a lot of the older guys got in in the game. Being at a football match seems to give you license to be as crude as you want and I think I learned about 37 new swear words.

My favorite moment of the match was when the rowdy section of the Nyíregyháza cheering squad lit the colored torches and smoke bombs they had brought with them and then proceeded to accidentally light their banners on fire. I also really loved hearing all of the different cheers being sung by all of the fans. It was really neat to actually partake in the chanting that I had only ever before seen on TV.

The match anti-climactically ended in a 1-1 tie.

Rotary Orientation Weekend

I spent this weekend in Debrecen at an orientation for all of the exchange students in Hungary. Debrecen is the second largest city in Hungary (after Budapest) and is located only 45 from Nyiregyháza. There are appoximately 34 students living all over Hungary this year. This weekend, we got to explore Debrecen, visit the Leonardo Divinci Exhibit, listen to a jazz concert, eat lunch at the most prestigious hotel in Debrecen, and we also had a disco at the camp we were staying at.

The camp we were staying at was called Víg-Kend Major and was apparently an old Communist camp. In the back field there was an old statue that had been torn down and a new statue stood next to the old one. Kinda cool...

First Day of School

September 1st was my first day of school. The school that I attend, Krúdy Gyula Gimnázium, knew that I would be coming this year and which class I would be in all the way back in June. My teacher showed the class my picture last year and explained all about me, so everyone already knew I was coming. One girl in my class, Lily, sent me an email at the beginning of the summer, and all summer I bombarded her with questions and we became fast friends. When I arrived at school, Lily was waiting for me and was quick to introduce me to all of her friends. Everyone in my class was so kind and welcoming that I didn't feel like the "new girl" at all.

School starts every morning at 7:30 am and runs until about 2:15 with 10 minute breaks in between each class. There are 8 classes a day, each lasting 45 minutes. In Hungary, you are put into a class and you take almost all courses with that one class. The courses offered at my school are as follows:
Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Hungarian Language Arts, Phys. Ed., Film/Society Studies, Technology, Art, English and German.

Because I am not a full time student I am not required to go to every class, which is a life saver because every class is taught in Hungarian. Also, because I can't understand Hungarian yet, it is really boring for me to sit in class all day and my brain tends to go into Hungarian overload after too many classes. I have been trying to find inobtrusive ways of occupying myself during and outside of class when I have a spare, but I have so far been unsuccessful. I went to the public library downtown to raid the English and Hungarian childrens' sections, so the books I found have been a saving grace, but the English section at the library is very limited.

Almost every kid at school speaks English, so most days at school I have a new person intoduce themselves to me and tell me that they have heard that I speak really good English. Then they ask if they can talk to me for awhile. It's really fun to teach my classmates new words and to meet new people every day.

The other day, out of the blue, my English teacher asked me if I was at all interested in Drama. I told her about my addiction and she told me that every year the school puts on a play in English in order for the students to practice their English. She said that she would love it if I was involved and even asked me to pick the play we would present! The play has to be less than 30 minutes and appropriate for High School. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

I also recently started taking Hungarian lessons twice a week, and they are really improving my Hungarian quickly. I am loving learning the language here because it is so different from any other language. I still only know words, but hopefully by the end of the month I will be speaking in sentences.

Hope everything is going well in the motherland. Love to all,

Emily

Culture Shock!

I was in the kitchen when my host mom, Erika showed me a bunch of bananas that had turned brown. She was going to throw them out when I told her that in Canada we make bread out of brown bananas. I offered to make banana bread for her and proceeded to print off a recipe and translate it into Hungarian. I took the recipe to her and soon found out that she didn't know what a cup measurement was when she asked me which size coffee cup I wanted to use. I then transfered all measurements into mL and started measuring out the ingredients. When I asked for a whisk, she said she didn't have one so instead she dusted off the old food processor that lives at the back of the pantry. Not having a bread pan, we improvized and popped the batter in the oven. When I went to turn on the oven, I noticed that it only went up to 250 degrees... so I cranked it to the maximum. I realized later when my host brother asked me what the F stood for that the oven temperature was set in degrees celcius, not ferenheit . My banana loaf, which was supposed to take over an hour to cook, was completely cooked in 20 minutes. I thought the banana bread was the worst I had ever tasted, but Erika said it was finóm, or delicious.

In Hungary Finally!

After almost 20 hours of travel, I am finally in Nyiregyhaza! My host family met me in the airport in Budapest and then we drove 3 hours to Nyiregyhaza. My host mom, Erika, is very kind and welcoming and is a great cook. She doesn't speak any english, but her sign language (as well as mine) is getting better by the day. My host dad, Bela, is very funny and kind also. He speaks a little enlgish, but is shy to use his english on a regular basis.

The house I am staying in is beautiful and has a large backyard. I have my own room and computer and I have unpacked already! My first day of school will be on Moday and hopefully being the "foreigner" will work in my favor.

If you need to reach me, I will check my email on a regular basis, or, for the next three months, you can send letters, postcards, ect. to the following address:

Emily Buck
4551 Nyiregyhaza-Oros
Cifra Fasor 21
Hungary

To call me from Canada you dial 003642 480754. If you are going to call the house, keep in mind that you are 8 hours behind me, and my host family doesn't speak English, so it might be best for you to schedule a time for me to be home to take your call before you actually call.

Hope everyone is doing well. Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts.

Emily

Departure

My flight leaves at 5:55 pm on August 29th.

Visa Approval

I found out today that my visa has finally been approved! I will know my departure date by Monday August 13th. I'll keep you posted!

Welcome

Hello All!

As you know, I am going to Hungary at the end of August on a Rotary International Youth Exchange. I will be living in Nyiregyhaza, the 7th largest city in Hungary, for one year. Nyiregyhaza is a city in North East Hungary with a population of approx. 117 000. While in Hungary, I will be living with three different Rotary families throughout the year and going to Gyula Krúdy High School.

Currently, I am in the process of getting my Student Visa approved. This has proven to be much more difficult than expected as I now have to travel back to Calgary (from my cabin in BC) to meet with an Honorary Hungarian Consular. Hopefully, shortly after my meeting with the Consular I will have my Visa approved and will be able to book my airplane tickets. Until my Visa is approved, I will not know my departure date.

I have set up this web page so that friends and family can easily see how I am doing while I am away. I will not be able to send emails to everyone I would like, so I will keep this page updated with pictures and notes for everyone to see. Accessing this page is easy. All you have to do is type http://www.emilyinhungary.blogspot.com/ into your address bar, and you will be taken right to my page. If you would like to send me an email, my email address is eevbuck@gmail.com

If you can think of anyone who would like to know about this page, please either send me an email with their email inside, or let them know yourself.

Hope you are all having a great summer!

Emily