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!