New year? Time for a blog post! I had a wonderful holiday
season in Hungary. The holidays are a little different, though, especially
Christmas. Santa Clause, called Mikulas (Mee-koo-losh)
in Hungarian, visits the children on December 6th. He leaves gifts
like chocolate in the shoes of the kids for them to find in the morning, kind
of like the stockings we have in America. On the 6th of December, I
was in Győr, in northern
Hungary with the other exchange students. We had a great time playing laser
tag, ice skating, and touring the Audi factory. Győr was a beautiful city and it became one
of my favorite cities in Hungary in only one weekend.
The town hall
I came home and felt that something was missing. In Hungary,
they usually don’t get a Christmas tree until Christmas Eve and it comes down
January first. When I told my family about how early we usually put up the
tree, they were surprised. One day, around the 15th, I came home
from school and there was a Christmas tree! I helped decorate it with my host
mom and the whole time, I was so grateful to have a host family that would get
a tree early for their exchange student.
Christmas lasts for three days here in Hungary. Usually, Christmas
Eve is for decorating the tree and preparing any cooking things for the next
day. Christmas day is when gifts are exchanged within the immediate family and
the day after Christmas is for visiting with relatives. Our Christmas wasn’t
the usual, however because there was a huge party on Christmas day. So, we just
did everything on Christmas Eve. We visited with family in the morning until
the late afternoon and came home to exchange gifts. I got a super cozy
sweatshirt.
It was snowing!
I didn’t want to hang around for the giant party, so I
visited an exchange student friend a few hours away. We made cookies and
pancakes together. It was so much fun to just hang out and make some American
food.
Thanks Cecilia!
Haha, we decided to make a waffle cookie with the last of the dough
For New Years, there was another big party, but this time, I
stuck around. There were fireworks and dancing and by then, I was super tired
so I went to bed.
This is the last day before we all go back to school, but it
was an amazing break, full of culture and learning. Happy Holidays everyone!
-Alina
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