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Balázs

2011-12 Inbound from Hungary

Sponsor: Rotary Club of Miskolc, District 1911, Hungary

Host: Rotary Club of Coastal St. Johns County, District 6970, Florida

Balázs's Bio

I’m Balázs from Hungary. I’m 17 and I live in the fourth biggest city in Hungary, Miskolc. I live in the suburb of Miskolc with my mom, dad and twin sister Dóri. We’ve got a Hungarian vizsla called Zénó and a cat, Cicó.

My exchange program started with a canoe trip where I met a young couple who were Rotary exchange students and they’ve recommended me this program. Then I started my application. I remember that it was so hard to wait for all those emails and sometimes I just felt myself the happiest person of the world when I got some important information. And now I’m here. I remember the day as yesterday when I gave my pre-application form to my Rotary Club but now I’m filling out forms for my American high school.

This year I will live in St Augustine, the oldest and I think most beautiful city of North America. I like swimming, photography and everything which is relevant with visual arts. I swim here too at the swimming team of my school. I love life here. My fabulous host family, my great school where I can choose the classes I want to take, the nice American people and everything and everybody what or who I met here. People in my Rotary club are also really nice, friendly and helpful.

I'm aure this year will be really wonderful and rewarding and I hope I can give my best to succeed. I would really love to say thank you to both American and Hungarian Rotary, my family and friends for supporting me and to help making my dreams come true.

Journals

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Hey y'all!

I think I waited quite lot for my first journal, so I have a lot to say now. It's really hard to remember my first experiences, but the time is really just flying away. When I first read journals before I came to the USA and read all people saying time is flying away, I thought it must be some kind of necessary part of your journal which you have to say. But it's the truth. I've been here for 3 months, but it feels like 3 weeks. But when I start thinking about my experiences it's like 6 months

Anyway, I will start writing, because that's why I'm on this website now I will start from the very beginning of my adventure even though it's hard. So I remember clearly my terrible flight and the feeling on the airplane when they first closed the door. No way back home. I was nervous to be honest. But when I arrived to the JAX airport after almost one day on plane and I saw my first and second host family, their friends, Rotarians and other exchange students in the waiting room screaming my name, I knew I would have a great time here. And I was true.

My host family is wonderful. I love all of them. My mom, Beth is a great mother; she's funny, caring and loving. She's an actress by the way. Mark, my host dad is and actor too, and he always makes sure that I feel like in the theater at home. They are both sarcastic and I just love it :D I'm really lucky about my host brother, Butler, because we're friends and I've heard from some other exchange students that they don't have really good relationships with their host siblings. I have a host sister as well, but she's in college so I don't see her very often.

I'm having a really good time with my host family, in the first few weeks they showed me entire Saint Augustine and now I'm really familiar with the city. As I told you they are all theater people so I've seen a bunch of shows since I'm here and I really enjoyed all of them. I think it's a really nice way to learn about American culture. By the way, now that I'm talking about American culture I have to tell you that I love American football. I've never been interested in it since it's not really popular in Hungary and now I love it. I love the game itself and the atmosphere with the crazy fans, cheerleaders and marching band too. Thanks to Rotary I could have gone to my first college football game and it was awesome. We saw a Gators game in the Swamp with all the exchange students in St Augustine and Martin. It was a lifetime experience, I'll never forget it.

Rotary is really enthusiastic and dedicated here so we have a lot of programs with the exchange students organized by the Rotary. We had a Lake Yale orientation at the beginning of the year, and then we went with Daphne and Dee to a bunch of high school presentations. A few weeks ago we had a Rotary Fall Weekend here in St Augustine where I had the opportunity to see my town as a tourist again. It was awesome to see the other exchange students and I think that now we're like a big family.

To tell you about American culture and my experiences I have to mention that I don't think that I've ever had problems with English. But when I first got here sometimes I didn't understand what people said or they didn't understand what I said. And that's because of accents. I had to get used to American accent and what people talk about. Like places. I've never heard about Chick-Fil-A before. If people had asked me anything about it I would have been really confused. But now it's my favorite fast food restaurant. Anyway about accents. I think it's almost impossible to get rid of your accent. I'm trying really hard, but I still have it. But people here don't really care about it or they like it so it's not bad at all. Oh yes, and my mom taught me Southern "accents" like "I ain't gonna wanna have no jello" (I really don't like jello), y'all and fixin'. I really like southern accent, but I could never speak that way, it seems really hard.

I think I didn't tell you anything about school. I like it. Honestly I liked it better before the swimming season was over. I was on the swim team and I really enjoyed that. We had a lot of meets and practices, it kept me busy. Now the school swim season is over, but I would like to start swimming again at another team which practices all year. Anyway I really like school, I take Marine Science, PreCalculus, English 3, Yearbook (double period), American History and Spanish 1. My favorite is yearbook, I love designing pages, taking photos, writing articles and designing ads for the seniors. Honestly school is easier here, but that's why it's so comfortable

I have to tell you that I usually face really weird questions. The most shocking for me was when a guy asked me if Hungary was somewhere in South Africa. I know that Hungary is a small country and I don't expect people to know exactly where it is, but it shocked me The most common questions are:
Do you have Mc Donald's in Hungary?
Do you speak German in Hungary?
Do you have drinking age there?
Do you like it here?
Ok so, we have Mc Donald's, we speak Hungarian, the drinking age is 18 and I LOVE it here. When I tell people that I love it here usually the next question is: do you like it better than in Hungary? This question is killing me. It's impossible to answer this. It's just different. I couldn't decide which country I like better.

And another thing I wanted to share with you are the differences. For me first the biggest difference was people. Here everyone is really friendly. I don't say that Hungarians are mean, but for example in the grocery store they are formal. They will never ask you how you are. It was really weird first, but now I got used to it and I love it. Something else different is that everything is bigger and buildings are really far away from each other. Saint Augustine's population is fraction of my hometown's, but it's so much more spread out that first I didn't want to believe it. I also love that in school I can choose what kind of classes I want to take. In Hungary I have to take what I'm given.

And some other big experience: homecoming. I could never imagine having a party in my Hungarian school where most of the students are there. Here it's really popular and it was fun.

Summarized I'm having a great time and I did so many stuff that I can't really remember them all. Thank you Rotary!

When I saw my first and second host family, their friends, Rotarians and other exchange students in the waiting room screaming my name, I knew I would have a great time here. And I was true.