I was an exchange student
With the help of Csány Foundation I could spend 11 days in north Germany through a student exchange programme where I could practice the German language intensively.
We departed from Pécs to Damme early morning on 7 June 2013. The weather in Hungary was not pleasing but at the airport of Dortmund it become nice. From the airport a two-hour bus ride took us to the grammar high school of Damme where we were greeted with big smiles by our exchange students. I was hosted by a family in a small town called Steinfeld, near Damme. My host student is a football player and his team played a match that evening which I could watch. His parents are teachers and he has two sisters. On the next day, Saturday, the family organised programmes for us. This day we visited an adventure park where we had a beautiful day. In the evening we went to a fair, the Schützenfest, which is similar to a fair in Hungary. But as we were in Germany, there were many beer stalls and a stage where a local band played music all night. On Sunday morning, we went to go carting with other Hungarian students and with my host partner. I am proud to say that despite the advantage of home field, we could beat our host partners and we got out of our cars as winners of the race.
During the night we had a grill party with my host family, we had chance to chat and play football on the nearby football pitch. On Monday morning we went to school and we started our project work. The subject of the year was music. We had to elaborate on the sub-topic of comparison of higher music education. We had to examine in details the German and Hungarian systems. In the afternoon we went on a sightseeing tour in Damme where we visited the local historical museum, the church, the main squares and we were greeted by the mayor in the town hall as well. On Tuesday morning I visited some classes at school while the afternoon we discovered our host town and we visited the local gym. The next day we refined a bit more our project then we spent the afternoon in the swimming pool.
We were waiting Wednesday anxiously because it was the day when we went to Soltau and visited Heidepark, which is an extremely enormous funfair. The biggest wooden roller coaster is here in the world. It was amazing!!! I was totally speechless when I got back to my host family. Our Friday was also very good. We visited the nearby town, Osnabrück. Here, we visited the most famous points of the town and we spent the afternoon in a water amusement park. At the weekend, on Saturday we went to play bowling and billiard where we won again against our host team. We spent the evening in the town centre of Damme and enjoyed the concerts of Blue Night musical evening. The origin of the name comes from the blue colour lights of the shops in the town centre which is used only this day of the year. There were 7 bands playing various kinds of music. On Sunday we went to a cycling tour with my host family to the nearby forest. In the late afternoon we were grilling again and other family members and relatives joined us.
On Monday we finished our project because we had to present them on a parent night. During the show we were singing both in Hungarian and in German, there was a Hungary quiz for the parents, presentations and acknowledgement for the wonderful 11 days. After this programme all of us were very surprised as we got into the cars because the parents did not take us home but a nearby lake where we could spend the last evening, night with our host families and friends. This time was about saying farewell and sharing all the memories of the past few days. Next day we had to say good-bye to our families, some of us with teary eyes.
All in all, I can say that I could spend 11 wonderful days in Germany. Now I am richer with new memories, experiences and I have also learnt a lot concerning the language. I would like to say thank you to Csányi Foundation to make it possible that I could get there. I wish to other Csányi students, who are spending their times abroad in language camps that they enjoy their stay and get back home full with memories and experiences.
Szabó Gábor
Pécs1