Cultural Differences....Round 1

 Now that I've been here for almost 2 months, I can speak to some of the cultural difference I have discovered. I am sure there will be many installments of this post title :)

#1 - Free refills are a big deal. A really big deal. Free refills don't exist here...except at Ikea. Which makes Ikea a pretty popular place to eat.
#2 - Don't order tap water. The waiter/waitress will think you are weird and might get mad. My friend ordered tap water in Budapest last weekend and the waiter was clearly irritated and pretty much refused to serve us. Water comes in little bottles of still or sparkling and if you want more, you have to pay for it (see #1).
#3 - People are crazy drivers. I'm not sure what the passing laws are, but I am sure people don't follow them. I have seem more almost-head-on-collisions since I have been here then in the last 30 years of my life. After being in Europe, driving in Chicago will be a cake-walk.
#4 - Time is a relative concept. If someone says "be there at 4" you can usually count on a 4:30 or later arrival. And people are not concerned with lateness - I don't think I have been to anything that has started close to on time. My very prompt "if you are early you are on time, if you are on time you are late" American side is struggling with this concept, but I am trying to embrace it. Now you know in advance why I will always be late when I come back to the USA next summer.
#5 - Milk is not necessarily refrigerated. Yep...you read that right. Apparently there are two kinds of milk - the kind that needs to be refrigerated and the kind that doesn't. And it comes in boxes just for extra weirdness.
#6 - Eggs aren't refrigerated either. I have picked up a carton of eggs off the shelf next to the bread.
#7 - Palinka cures everything. If you drink a shot or two of Palinka, whatever is ailing you will apparently magically disappear and you will feel better. I don't know if this works the same way for foreigners. Palinka usually makes me feel sick, even if I was feeling good to begin with.
#8 - European women wear heels - all the time. I do not. I am going to accept the fact right now that I will never be as fashionable as European women.
#9 - Weather under 75 degrees requires a jacket and scarf. In Michigan we call that summer weather still, so I'm the weirdo still wearing short sleeves.
#10 - Mozzarella cheese sticks can be ordered as an entire dinner. Of course it isn't called mozzarella cheese sticks and isn't really in stick form, but it is the same concept.  Breaded and fried cheese for dinner. As you can imagine it is delicious.

What I've Been Doing When I'm Not Doing School Work

While school has dominated my weekdays lately, I have still been doing things on my weekends, so I thought I would get you caught up on some of those trips. Some weekends, we stay around Békés, but we are busy! One weekend we went to a wedding and another we had a birthday party to go to. The wedding was OK - it was neat to see the things that were the same and the things that were different between American weddings and Hungarian weddings, but it was really strange being at a wedding where I didn't really know anyone. It was very, very nice of the bride and groom to allow me to come however.  The Hungarian wedding had a live band during the wedding ceremony which played and sang several songs. And during the reception the wedding guests played games between courses. Although we didn't eat dinner until 10:30 at night, the games were an interesting diversion from how hungry we all were.

Two weeks ago I went to Subotica, Serbia with my landlord, his son and daughter (who is in my class!), and Nora. That is one of the bonuses to living in a small town - people invite you to lots of things! There is a huge market in Subotica where you can buy pretty much anything you want - as long as you don't care if it doesn't last you a long time! There were clothes (mainly Jersey Shore style so needless to say I didn't purchase any), shoes, accessories, purses, coats, perfume, and food. We ate lunch at a little stand in the market that gave you kind of like a big, thick tortilla and then you choose what meat and vegetables to put in it. You didn't roll it like a burrito though, you kind of folded it in half and then half again and then ate it. It was awkward as you can imagine. And it was the first time I was really conscious of the lack of an FDA because I am positive this place would not have passed a health inspection. But as they say, when in Serbia....

Inside one of the buildings of the market

The entrance to the market

This past weekend I got to go on another trip, this time with Fulbright Hungary. Fulbright organizes monthly get-togethers for us and this one happened to be a two day trip to Košice, Slovakia as well as Sárospatak, Hungary and the Tokaji wine region of Hungary. Most of our trips will be just one day and will involve something in Budapest, but this one was special.  Košice is one of the Cultural Capitals of Europe this year and was really beautiful. It is the 2nd largest city in Slovakia, but at 250,000 people it really isn't huge. It is located in the middle of a valley in an area that used to be Hungary, but isn't anymore. There is a big cathedral in the city dedicated to St. Elizabeth who was a princess and after her husband's death, started a hospital and began serving the poor. Also in the town is the Golden Treasure of  Košice. The treasure was found in 1935 by a construction worker who was renovating a building in the town. It consists of 2920 gold coins, three medals and a long gold chain. It is thought the treasure was buried sometime between 1679-1681 because the newest coin is from around that time. Some other coins date back to 1402 and 1404.

Košice

Some of the coins in The Golden Treasure

St. Elizabeth Cathedral in Košice

We then travelled back to Hungary to a town named Sárospatak. This town is known for the Castle of Sárospatak. Several famous and very rich people lived there and one of Hungary's many unsuccessful rebellion plots was hatched under its roof.  The Castle is now on the back of the 500 forint bill. From Sárospatak, we went to a winery in the Tokaji region of Hungary which is famous for its delicious wines. This winery didn't let us down and we got to taste several different types of wine. Wine tasting worked a little different here than at home; instead of the miserly drink of wine you get at home, wine tasting here involved full glasses of each different kind! It was a really wonderful way to spend the afternoon - a beautiful fall day, friends, and good wine. Overall it was a fantastic weekend.

The crypt underneath the church in Sárospatak was raided

and now the tops of the coffins are hung on the walls

Statue of St. Elizabeth and her husband who died

The Castle of Sárospatak and the view on the back of the 500 Forint bill

The First Month of School

Well, I’m starting week 5 of teaching and just now finding time to update my blog so that tells you something about how busy these last several weeks have been!  The first several weeks of school were pretty exhausting. I went home at the end of the day and pretty much just wanted to sleep.  I guess being in a new country, at a new school, with new co-workers and students who don’t speak my language very well (if at all!!), teaching all new material and new age groups, learning a new schedule,  living in a new apartment, and finding my way around a new town will make a girl more tired than normal. Finally at the beginning of week 5, I feel more comfortable with what I am doing and I think things will start to flow a bit more smoothly now.

Let’s start with my schedule so you can get a picture of my daily work-life.  You can see I am the lucky person who gets 4 Zero Hours and 4 8^th hours. Zero hour starts at 7:10 and 8th hour finishes at 3:45. Everyone has said my schedule is terrible, but to me, being to school at 7 and leaving at 4 is nothing new! And I have those big breaks in between classes where I can stay at school and get stuff done or run home or go to the grocery store.  The main difference, other than the sheer number of different classes, is that I share classes with another teacher. Most of the kids have 5 English lessons a week, but they only see me once or twice and have the other English lessons with someone else. That makes planning interesting because I am not solely in control of what the kids are learning.  I do teach at two different schools which are about a 10 minute walk apart. Most of my classes are in the high school building, but my 6^th and 8^th grade classes are all at the other school. You can see I go to the other school 3 days a week and twice on Thursday. Right now the walk between schools hasn’t been bad, and it is nice to get outside during the day, but I don’t think I will be saying the same thing come January and February. It has been an adjustment to teaching the younger kids, but they are so cute that I have enjoyed it so far. When I go to the other building all of the kids shout and wave and try to talk to me. Most of them are pretty limited to “Hello”, “Hi”, “Good Morning” (even in the afternoon), and “Good-bye” so our conversations are pretty short.

 The other thing about the schedule is how the students are divided. Each grade is divided into groups A, B, C, etc. I am still a little unclear on exactly how that division happens but I know B groups tend to have more English lessons than others. From those divisions, they are divided again for language lessons into smaller groups. So I have Class 10B but I have Group 2 on Monday/Tuesday and Group 1 on Tuesday/Wednesday. Same with 11B and 12A. I see 11B Group 2 three times a week, but I only see 11B Group 1 twice a week. And 12A I see Group 2 on Thursday mornings and Group 1 on Friday afternoon. I also have grade 8C and 8D and then I have a class with 8C and D. At first I thought that meant I would have the kids from my 8C class and my 8D class together in a 2^nd class, but 8D/C is a whole different group of kids. However, that is not the case with 11 A and C. I see 11A and 11C separately on Tuesday and Wednesday and then have a lesson on Thursday with them where they are combined into one class. You can see why it is taking me a while to really get the hang of my schedule!

Classes are 45 minutes each and start on the hour, so there is a 15 minute break between each class. Kids use that time to hang out in the hallways and teachers use that time to go back to the staff room. I am still used to the 5 minute break between classes like we have at home, so 15 seems like a really long time to me! One of the main differences between teaching in Hungary and the US is that teachers don’t have their own classroom. The students have one main classroom where they have a lot of their classes, so they kind of have a “home-base,” but the teachers travel. I think I prefer the US method of the teachers having their own room. It would be nice to have somewhere that is “mine” other than a 3’ by 2’ desk that is right next to 3 others (2 on the side, 1 in front). But the plus side of having a staff room is that we have little mini “lunches” every hour (You know what I mean upstairs lunch group!!) It is really nice to have the time to chat with colleagues (or vent to them depending on the previous lesson!), sit down and have a drink or something to eat, and in my case make sure I am teaching the right thing!

 When the bell rings on the hour, that is the signal for teachers to go to their classes and usually no one is in that big of a hurry to get there. It isn’t uncommon to stay for another 1 or 2 (maybe 3 or 4 haha) minutes and then head to class. This took some getting used to for me and to be honest, it still freaks me out. Us American teachers are trained that we better be in class, ready to go, when that bell rings, so the first week or so I had little panic attacks every time the bell would ring and no one would move. My inner-American kept saying “Come on!! What are you doing?! The almighty BELL rang, you should be in class!! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” while my developing outer-Hungarian adopted a relaxed demeanor, finished up my drink and conversation, gathered my materials, and then strolled to class. At the end class it is the same. If the bell rings and we are still going the students don’t panic and act horrified, they wait until I say “OK, we’re done.” 

 Once I arrive to class and unlock the door for students to get in, they really do all stand until I ask them to sit. It wasn’t a myth! This is still weird for me too and sometimes I get busy getting all my materials organized and forget to tell them to sit, so I look up and they are all still standing, waiting, looking at me expectantly. Whoops.  Most of the kids also wait until I leave the classroom to leave. There is no lining up by the door and packing up 5 minutes early. This also surprised me the first couple days when I expected them to rush the door when the bell rang like my American kids do.  Another big difference is the noise level in the classroom when they are doing pair or group work. Instead of the explosion of noise that usually results in putting kids in pairs and groups in the US, Hungarian students are SO QUIET! They actually whisper to each other when they talk. It is unreal. I wish there was some way to bring that tendency back to Lakeshore! But other than those two things, they are normal students with all the good that entails and all the bad.

 My main job here is to get the students to talk more so they have to use their English. They have become pretty good at doing “classroom English” as I call it – filling in worksheets, reading pretend scenarios, identifying irregular verbs, etc. but actually using the English they learn in a conversational way is still something that many of them are uncomfortable with. During the first several weeks most of them were afraid to talk to me because they didn’t want to speak English, but since my Hungarian is much worse than their English, they didn’t have a choice! Now they are getting more comfortable and are starting to participate more. I have spent a lot of time so far just getting the kids comfortable with me so they are willing to try and speak, even if that means they make mistakes.