What is a Family?

One of the major reasons I wanted to go on exchange was to be a part of a huge global family. I wanted to have friends from all over the world and be a part of something that spanned continents. Now I have that. I met so many people at language camp and they were from all over the world. The Brazilians and the Mexicans taught us how to dance, the Taiwanese taught us some great card games, and us Americans introduced everyone to the absolute perfection that is s’mores.

There were so many things that happened that I felt like I had been missing since I arrived. I missed laughing. I had chuckled and it’s not like I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t understand most of what was going on. Meeting with the other inbounds that were feeling the same things as me and laughing until my stomach hurt was so great. I love how musical our group is. There are at least three guitar players and they all play different styles and one violin player who plays fiddle style. When she first played fiddle with one of the guitar players, we all sat there in stunned silence as their styles melded together into the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.

We walked down to Lake Balaton almost every day and took part in the exchange students’ favorite pastime: taking pictures. There are beautiful sweeping landscape shots of the lake from the boat we rode, there are great group shots with all kind of flags, and then there are goofy selfies. My personal favorite is the goofy selfie that turns into a group shot when more people add themselves to the selfie.

It took less than 2 days for me to feel like I’d known these people for all my life and they were my family. We could sit in a circle and talk about serious and difficult things and then the next night, we could stay up until midnight dancing. I hit my one month mark while surrounded by these wonderful and loving people.  

The actual language classes were helpful and I got a workbook that I will have my classmates help me with, but I couldn’t wait for them to end just so I could hang out with my new friends. My new family. 

 

Lake Balaton

 

Me with Hayden from Cali

 

The best organ player I've ever seen

 

The best of the best from California, New York, North Carolina, Brazil, and Taiwan

 

Ana from Brazil, Bonnie from Taiwan, and Cecilia from New York

 

We are goofs, but we are a family now.

 

I've been having a great time with my new family!

-Alina

School Days

Yesterday was the second day of school. I was going to write on the first day of school, but I’m not sure if it counts. My host parents took me out at noon to go do the paperwork for my visa and residence card. Today, I stayed the whole day which felt like forever. There are a few girls who help me get from class to class and who will hang out with me at breaks. I have no idea what my schedule is, but they seem to know . . . so I’ll follow them until I figure it out.

It is so hot here, like 90 degrees F, way more than I’m used to. The first day, we had to wear this little sailor uniform which was insanely hot. Fortunately, we were allowed to change after the first hour and we didn’t have to wear the uniform today.

Yesterday was great because I had two English classes and choir. The first English teacher is so great. She is so excited to have a native speaker in her class and she had me read some riddles to the class and asked me every step of the way if I was comfortable speaking. My homeroom teacher had me sit in front of the class and asked his students to ask me questions while another student translated. A lot of the students speak English, which is really helpful.

One of the girls said that some people are afraid to talk to me because they’re worried that their English isn’t good enough. I tell them not to worry because their English is better than my Hungarian. Everyone I’ve met so far is really nice and willing to help me.

Choir was the last class of the day and I sat with two girls that spoke really good English and one said she went on exchange, but I didn’t get a good chance to speak with her. The choir teacher is strict, but you can tell she takes her job seriously and she loves the music. I jumped right in and sang some songs in Hungarian. It was helpful that there were only three words over and over. We even did rounds and everything. I loved it so much. Too bad it’s only once a week.

I keep waking up early. I’m always awake before my alarm, which is set to 6:15 and I find that the morning is a great time to write or relax a moment. That’s when I usually do these blog posts. I’ll get up, take a shower, get dressed, and by then it’s like 6:30, maybe.

I’ll sign off with a thank you to all my classmates who are being super nice and helpful and might just be reading this blog post.

-Alina

My view every morning