3 girls in Hungary

Jó napot kívánok!

We arrived the 18th of January in Vác. For us it's a small town but for the Hungarians it's pretty big. When we arrived the Christmass spirit was still present, for example there was an ice-skating rink (until late February!) We had a warm welcome in this town, one of the first days we had dinner at our teacher's home, that was lovely!

We like Vác a lot because it has a certain charm. In the winter there were not a lot of people here but when Spring arrived, the town was blooming. There were tourists everywhere and everybody was enjoying the sun. The Danube runs through this little town, you can walk along this big river and enjoy the pretty view. What's so spectacular about Vác is the architecture, the squares are very nice and there are a lot of beautiful churches.

A prominent thing in Vác are the confectionery shops, there are many delicious cakes you can try. When the weather gets better the shops transform into ice-cream shops!

After a few days we decided to go to Budapest, the capital of Hungary. This city is not comparable to Vác, both cities have their charm. In Budapest we went to 5 different schools and later in the Erasmus program we taught there. There are a lot of similarities and differences with the education system in Belgium. The lessons in Hungary are shorter than in Belgium, they last 45 minutes, in some schools they can eat breakfast because school starts very early, they have 15 minute breaks after every lesson. We observed multiple English lessons, the quality of these lessons are questionable. We were a bit shocked the first time we saw an English lesson, especially when we compare it to the French courses in Belgium. On the other hand we liked the teaching very much and we learned a lot of new things: like using a lot of games and they give a lot of positive feedback.

What we miss the most is the Belgium food. The food in Hungary is quite different from the food in Belgium, although we tried different Hungarian meals, we still miss our Belgium kitchen. Typical Hungarian meals are the chimney (that you can easily find in the streets of Budapest), Goulash soup, lángos, paprika chicken, Túro Rudi... They also have certain drinks that are remarkable like Palinka, Unicum, Fröccs,.. Some of them we like, others we dislike.

When you're in Hungary you have to adjust to certain things. For us the biggest problem was money, we use Euro but in Hungary they use Forint. The prices of the food are cheap but the prices of the clothes are similar. Daily life in Hungary is cheap for Western-Europeans. We have to take the train to Budapest very often, a train ticket for students is about €1, it's about 30 minutes on the train. In Belgium the trains are much more expensive, for the same route it's at least €5.

Another thing is that here, they are very Catholic or Protestant. In front of the building there is a big dome, on Sunday there are 3 services. They also asked us if we want to do Bible study, for us it was a weird question. In Belgium religion is less important (for us).

In Hungary we visited Szentendre, it's a very small town near Budapest. We went during Carnaval, a traditional feast in Hungary. The town is known for the artwork of many different people. A lot of artists go there to find an inspiration, we understand why.

We learned a lot about this new country, very interesting things. Our experience was very educational and we really loved it here!

In our first lesson (Hungarian Culture and Education) we learned about the Hungarian history. What kept us most in mind is Hungary during and after World War One and Two. During the wars, Hungary lost a lot of territory, in 1920 the EU draw new borders and that's why a lot of Hungarians now live in neighboring countries. Today we notice that the Hungarians are not that open, we think it's because of their history. An example of this is in the shops in Vác they frequently refuse to speak English.

We went to a national museum and saw a lot of the Hungarian history. We noticed a lot about World War Two and Communism. There we saw another side of WWII, because during the war, Belgium and Hungary were enemies. In the museum we were a bit shocked because we saw a lot of the daily life of the people who lived in a communistic country. We also noticed swastikas everywhere. We thought that the communism was much worse in Hungary, than it actually was (although it was a rough time). If the Hungarians shut their mouth, they had a (relatively) good life but if they stood up against the regime, they would notice the consequences very quickly. This lifestyle is called: 'the happiest barrack'. In the present day we still see some leftovers of the communistic time for example some buildings in Hungary. They have a lot of windows in them and they are not decorated, the apartments seem really small. Sometimes we see some typical East-German cars, they are called a 'Trabant', they appear in different colors but green was the most frequent one.

The communism ended in 1989 and that's when the Iron Curtain fell. The people destroyed the statues of Stalin, we saw some leftovers of that in the museum. We saw the hand of a very big statue of Stalin, we saw wires from the Iron Curtain, we saw posters that hung in the street. They also cut out the hammer and sickle, the symbol of communism, out of the Hungarian flags. After the fall of the communism there was a lot of unemployment and because of that there was poverty, that's the reason why they voted again on the communism. Now they identify themselves as a western country and in 2004 they became part of the European Union. The leader of the country is Viktor Orbán (since 2010), here he did some good things for the people. In Belgium we here a lot of bad things about him but the media seem to trick us because here, they talk positive about him. He, for example, made a law for the Hungarians living beyond the borders, they can receive an Hungarian passport because of him, he reformed the tax system and he tries to increase the birthrate because there are some profiting side effects.

Also in this class we saw a Hungarian folktale 'King Matyas and the Mayor of Gyevi'. The folktales are something very common here, in Belgium we don't know many. Here, in the primary schools the folktales are taught to the children and they need to know it by heart. We think it's a sign of Hungarian nationality. We also notice the nationality in different ways for example on the national holiday we saw a lot of flags. In the streets and in the classrooms we see the coat-of-arms. When they talk about their country, we notice that they are really proud of it. Hungarian people ask us a lot why we chose Hungary, we don't really have an answer on that question, but they always seem to expect a huge answer. Belgium is more divided and that's why it's remarkable.

Next, we learned that Hungarian is one of the hardest languages to learn. The alphabet has way more letters than ours. We learned some words, like: asztal (table), baba (baby), cica (cat), doboz (doos), fa (boom), kutya (dog), lámpa (lamp), mama, óra (uur), zokni (sok), zsák (zak)... We also learned a short sentence: én Belga diák vagyok (I am a Belgium student). We also tried to learn the numbers, but they were too difficult.

We had the luck to experience the national holiday (15th of March). Something new was celebrating the name days. They celebrate Catholic holidays in a very traditional way. For example on Easter Monday the boys sprinkle the girls with perfume or cold water, in return they get a beautiful painted egg. They eat traditional dishes on the holidays. Hungary has a similar version of Sinterklaas, here he's called Mikulás.

Something we found remarkable in Hungary are the typical dogs. They have very long hair and they look a bit funny. When we went to the zoo, we also saw a pig with sheep wool, that was very strange.

We went to a national museum with paintings. There we saw a lot of beautiful paintings by famous Hungarian painters. In the museum there were a lot of dark paintings, but we learned that they were painted with tar and that's why they get darker over the years. What we remember the most is the painting by Anna Margit (Fisherman) because we had to make our own version of the painting.

Some typical Hungarian stuff are Halas lace and Herend porcelain. We noticed a porcelain shop in Buda near the castle. We find the porcelain very beautiful, but very expensive. You can recognize the Halas lace by its trademark of the three fishes.  

We had a very interesting lesson about Hungarian literature. We saw some nice books and poems. A poem we were very keen about was 'Mama' from József Atilla. This poem was about his mother who had to wash the clothes of the rich people. We felt that the writer had a hard time growing up because his mother worked a lot and she did not have much time for the children. There is also a double meaning in the poem because his mother died and went to heaven. We learned about children literature for example the books of Éva Janikovsky, Csukás István, Lázár Ewin, Veronika Marék... We liked Janikovsky the most because she writes from the point of view of the child and the stories are about the parents-child relationship and the problems that come along with it.

In a nutshell, we learned a lot about the Hungarian culture, but in that way, also a lot about our own culture. It was worth the effort to follow these lessons, because they helped us to understand the daily Hungarian life more.

Viszlát!

Alyssa, Janne and Petra