Első héten Magyarországon!

Sziastok! Welcome to my blog about Erasmus Exchange in Budapest, Hungary! =D

My name is Marit de Looijer, 20 years old and a 4th year student of Business Studies. There were multiple reasons why I chose Budapest as the destination of my big adventure. First of all, I wanted to see more sides of Europe, since I have experienced only the western and southern part so far. Secondly, I wanted it to be a country which was in such a location that it could bring all nationalities together, so I could learn about a lot of different cultures at the same time. And thirdly, I have heard so many good stories about this upcoming city, that I just wanted to be a part of it!

Despite of my extensive enthusiasm, I was also expecting some difficulties of course. Hungarians are said to be rather xenophobic. Once they get to know you everything is alright, but you should probably not overwhelm them with personal questions and stories at first sight. Additionally, most Hungarian people do not speak English very well. There is some knowledge of German, but I have not been paying too much attention to that in high school.. 0=) Then again, I believe that when you put on your brightest smile everything will turn out just fine! Oh, and Hungarian food.. was not sure about that on beforehand either.. So, if you want to find out how I have experienced my first week, continue reading and enjoy!

Monday 15^th of August, 2011 - Pazmany University, Piliscsaba – 16.30 hr.

Sziasztok! Hogy vagy? Èn Marit vagyok. Èn holland diák vagyok. Beszél magyarul? I suppose you do not and you are probably as confused as I was during my first Hungarian class this afternoon. How do you pronounce this? What are you saying? How am I ever going to remember all this stuff? They promised us it will get easier in time.. let’s hope they are right!
Yesterday at 3 pm my mom and dad dropped me off at the campus of the Summer School. We have had a holiday of seven days in Vienna and at Lake Balaton together, but now it was time to say goodbye... After a small campus tour, finding my room and multiple tight hugs, my parents drove back to Lake Balaton and I went to find my ‘new friends’. I dropped several tears actually, just as when I left my brothers, but everyone could really relate to it and was very supportive! I had already met Emma, my roommate and she is really nice! She and some others were sitting in the sun outside at the pavilion, so I decided to join them =) As time passed more and more people were joining us. People from a lot of different countries in Europe: England, Germany, Estonia, Spain, Italy, Finland and many more. There are also three American students here. It is so nice to talk to all of them, hear their stories and discover different habits. Some consider putting ‘hagelslag’ on your bread to be really weird, while others cannot wait to taste the peanut butter- nutella sandwiches I used to get at my grandma’s. (You should try it as well, it tastes a bit like Snickers!) The Hungarian staff is actually extremely nice and not xenophobic at all. They love how enthusiastic we are!
Tonight there is going to be some Hungarian cooking by Karcsi from the International Office. I am really looking forward to that, since I tried goulash yesterday and it tasted pretty nice!
By the way, the se\ntences at the top mean: Hello! How are you? I am Marit. I am a Dutch student. Do you speak Hungarian?

Thursday 18^th of August, 2011 – Pazmany University, Piliscsaba – 23.50 hr.

Jó napot kívánok! Today was.. heavy. It is probably the combination of loads of information, the effort of speaking another language all the time and an enormous amount of new impressions and stories everyday. Well, and I also have to admit it’s beer 0=) Last night was ‘német este’; German night at the intercultural evening. It was a lot of fun!

The Germans did what they are famous for: organizing everything in time, in place and strictly in order. They cooked huge amounts of würst, kartoffelnsalat and apfelstrüdel. Then, after our stomach was filled with food, the entertainment part of the evening started: beer games. Throwing a ball, running and drinking.. that’s basically it. You can imagine Hungarian language class was really intensive this morning.
Language classes are actually proceeding really well. Keeping in mind that it is a language I have never heard before, I think I am doing a pretty good job! Until now, we did first conversations, grammar of the verbs, plural forms, numbers, days, months.. It is going so fast, but it is fun! Culture classes on the other hand are much worse. Finally, today we had a good one. It was about architectural history of mostly Budapest and a bit about the Pazmany University campus. The lecturer was really passionate about it and I felt like I could really use this information during my semester when walking trough the city. If you do not have an idea of how beautiful the architecture of this capital is, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOlCOIZmWkA
Also, I am really starting to get accustomed here. It feels like we have been here for two weeks, instead of four days and I believe that is a good thing. We are starting to get to know each other more and more and conversations are turning from standard polite discussions into natural, exciting ones. I already feel like some of the people here are good friends of mine, even tough we just met!
We are all going to bed now, a bit little earlier than the other nights , in order to be fit on Saturday. It is the birthday of Hungary! She is turning 1011 years and there is said to be major fireworks =D So, for those of you who have never seen me with fireworks: It’s probably going to be me smiling, jumping around, more smiling, dancing and then just complete happiness!

Monday 20^th of August – Pazmany University, Piliscsaba – 13.00 hr.

You guys! So many great things happened over the weekend! First of all, me and Emma found out during lunch break on Friday that Rihanna is giving a concert here in Budapest during our exchange. We decided to book tickets immediately, together with Annie and Geran. Probably some of the other girls will join us as well in the Budapest Arena. It think it is going to be a night to remember forever! Unfortunately, we have to wait until the 8^th of December.. ;)
Then in the afternoon, we had a meeting about our intercultural evening. The thing that made me most excited was that we decided on playing Dutch music the whole night. We figured everyone knows American and English pop music.. So, I made a seven hour playlist with only Dutch pop-, rock-, soul-, house-, hiphop- and dance-music. It is going to be great!

Then again, we do have to step up our game, since the Latin night was just amazing. On Friday night the Italians made pasta, the Spanish made tortillas de patata and sangria, and the French made quiche lorraine, some kind of cake ánd crêpes with chocolate or special caramel sauce. I had to force myself to stop eating, it was so good! After dinner, they put the music on and ofcourse the official party starters were 'Macarena' and 'Dansa Kuduro'! We had so much fun dancing on tables, doing the jive.. Los estudiantes Erasmus son fantástico!

On saturday we took the 11.50 train to Budapest. After some chilling at Ania's and Sylvia's appartment, we decided to go for some sight seeing along the Danube. Wow! Amazing! Budapest is such a beautiful city. One mind blowing building after the other. Also, because of the festivities there was a great atmosphere in the city, which made it even more fun. We also decided to go and see both the palace and the castle. It was really nice! The view from the hill was so good and we had a lot of playing tourists, taking photo's of everything. Then, after finally finding food and drinks (some of us, I will not call names, were getting a bit grumpy =P) we gathered at the Chainbridge on Pest-side for the fireworks. The stories came true! Thirty minutes of the most amaz

ing firework I have ever seen. It was so beautiful and just perfect symbolism as well: we being all together, kicking off one of the best periods of our lives and then those fireworks.. I will admit: there were some tears again, but this time they were from joy!
After the fireworks finished Sylvia, Monica, Anía, Emma and me decided the night was not done yet. While looking for a nice bar, we accidentally ran into some girls giving us free tickets to Morrison's, the bar that we had been talking about in the afternoon. It was right next to the Opera House and we decided to go there. You can probably guess what I'm going to say: It was so much fun!! Dancing, cocktails, singing Pon de Replay during karaoke! (Lots of respect for Rihanna, that song is literally breath taking..) Tired but totally satisfied we eventually fell asleep at four in the morning.

Sunday we went to Esztergom, the old capital of Hungary at the border with Slovakia. We visited the 18th biggest basilica of the world. It was really beautiful and we even had the opportunity to go all the way up to the outside of the dome. After seeing all the fresco's, mosaics and jewelry in the church, we crossed the bridge and ended up in a Slovakian restaurant for lunch. Since the serving of the food was taking a bit long, the 'multicultural' table decided to challenge us with a shot of Palinka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1linka) Ofcourse, we accepted the challenge and won! We laughed our asses of about sarcasm signs, pears and another bunch of inside jokes I probably will not be able to explain to you! On our way home me and some others lost the group during the walk to the railwaystation. Luckily, we did remember the sentence 'Hol Piliscsaba?'. It means: Where is Piliscsaba? and we got on a bus that brought us all the way to the university campus. After some laying in the grass and watching the starry sky.... we did not go the bed. We first went to the pub and then to bed 0=)

Jó napot kívanók! Another blog next week!