Week 1 - "Welcome to Hell!"

1st picture: in the "Nagyerdö, a forest not far away from my flat.
2nd picture: Me and my italian flatmate Vincenzo drinking a "coffee" (It's under our pride to call this brown drinks with coffein that you can buy in Hungary a coffee)

Comment: This is the way I thought about things after my first week passed. Since then, my mind already has changed. Now, after 6 weeks being here, the thoughts of the last part of this entry are not important anymore. Because my blog hasn’t been unlocked by now, I had time to overwrite it. Though I don’t like this entry, I don’t want to delete it. First, writing this had taken 1hour of my lifetime. Second, I want to show you how I change, because actually, this is how a diary/blog works. It shows how it comes that people reconsider their way of thinking, how their feelings change. So I will just let you read this.

 “Welcome to Hell!”
That was the first thing Marina, one of my flatmates, said after saying hello. Entering the room, I was confused. I always thought that hell is a bad place. A place of suffering and punishment. Or did I mix something? So, my four flatmates (I will introduce them in my next entry) are very nice and helpful, they showed me the city and explain me how the organisation works.

I haven’t started to work in the first week. I guess my hosting organisation gave me space to orientate and to settle down in the city. I went in pubs in the city centre almost every night, having conversations with workers of the association and all kinds of volunteers in this surrounding. Compared to German conditions, going out here is really cheap. There’s almost no difference between the price of the drinks you buy in a shop, and those that you buy while going out. In Germany a good bottle of beer (what else?) costs around 80ct to 90ct in a shop. In a pub, you need to pay around 3€, more or less. What is good for the German consumer in Hungary is bad for the Hungarian workers, who get a smaller salary.

I also got to know the Debrecen, the second most populated and the third largest city in Hungary. I like the city really much, because there are so many cultural, free-time and night-life possibilities. Debrecen was in the past twice the capital city of Hungary, once during the revolution in 1848-1849 and once by the end of World War II. Debrecen is located in the north-east of Hungary, in Hajdú Bihar country, about 220km western from Budapest. It’s situated nearby is the Hortobágy National Park, maybe for foreigners better known as „Puszta“, that is also one of the world heritages of UNESCO. Wherever you go in the city, you see people from different countries, mostly communicating with each other in English. I also like the fact that there are so many university students here, that’s why there are many offers/possibilities for youngsters to spend their free time, develop and educate themselves. My favourite place here is Bakelit, a pub where there are many Erasmus+ students, so you can get to know people from all over the world, what is a very enriching and fun experience. Next to it, there is my second favourite place, a bakery with home-made bakery goods that is opened for 24h. This place safes my life for so many times.

So though my welcome was very warm and kind, I still have something bothering me. Being arrived 7 months later than my flatmates, I feel that they fell already in a routine. For me, everything is new and interesting, I want to try out and see new things. Sometimes when I ask someone of my flatmates, if we can go to a certain place, they reply that they have already been there. As Vincenzo, my Italian flatmate said that the summer was amazing (many events outside, shiny happy people, good weather). I also felt that just came too late, or for a too short amount of time. Was it the right choice to come in winter for just 5 months?