Easter in Hungary

Spring break has just ended and it was a lot of fun. Our break was Thursday the 24^th to Tuesday the 29^th, making sure that I didn’t miss a single choir practice.

My exchange student friend came over for the first few days of break and we had a great time making apple empanadas with my little host brother. He left Saturday morning so we could have Easter Sunday for the family.

On Easter, we visited the grandparents’ house and met up with the rest of the family for lunch. In Hungary, the tradition is for the women to color the eggs and the men to spray the women with small bottles of perfume. This tradition used to be much more extreme. Boys would dump buckets of water on girls because they needed water to grow up beautiful, just like a flower. This tradition has calmed down over time. I was only sprayed with perfume, thank goodness.

Easter is a very family oriented holiday and I loved sitting around the table with my Hungarian family. It was a lot like what we do back home, but without the commercialism. There are no Easter baskets delivered by the Easter bunny. There are no egg hunts or parades. This is a day to be with your family and eat lunch together while enjoying the company. It was simple, but it was so fulfilling to sit around the table with my family.

My spring break was great, but I have even better things to look forward to. My next blog post will be about Euro Tour! I leave April 5^th and I’ll return the 15^th. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Happy Easter

Boldog Húsvéti

-Alina

Language Camp: Adding to the Family

What an amazing week! I hadn’t seen the exchange students since early December so it was great to see everyone and meet all the newbies. Most exchanges go from late summer to early summer of the next year, but some go from January to January to match up with their school year. These are the crossbounds. Our oldies left in January and we just all the newbies for the first time.

There are 2 South Africans,

3 Argentinians,

And 2 Australians

It was so great to meet everyone for the first time and spend a whole week together. We spent most of our time in a hotel in Szolnok trying to learn more Hungarian. They let us out a few times to go bowling and to go to a Rotary event. The bowling was fun, but more importantly, we got to buy food. Most of us just stood around the chocolate and tried to decide which one to pick.

The Rotary event was a costume party where we introduced ourselves and danced late into the night.

We were important enough for the mayor of Szolnok to show up and wish us good luck in learning Hungarian.

The best part was just hanging out with everyone. It didn’t matter if we were dancing or playing games. I love out group so much because anyone can hang out with anyone and different nationalities intermingle easily. I know how to say phrases in five different languages. I have friends that don’t speak English. This is what being an exchange student is all about. Now, world events have more meaning to me. I care more about a terrorist attack in France because I know people there. A hurricane is Mexico affects me because my friends live there.

I hope we did a good job of welcoming the newbies into the exchange student family and that they will do the same for the next group.

-Alina Mendoza