I’m aliiiive

Hey everyone!

I’m still alive! Sorry for not posting for a long while, but the thing is that I didn’t like Ostrava at all (I liked the university but the city was horrible). I wasn’t alone with such feelings however, and I got as depressed from the place as hype I was before going there.

I’m already home (been for a month now) and I’m fine, already dealt with paperwork, still having a few exams though. And even if I said I didn’t like Ostrava at all I would totally go on Erasmus again, somewhere else, far-far away from Ostrava and the Czech Republic, because that place gave me an irrationally high rate of disappointments, those I don’t intend to make public here, if you’re curious then I can tell you everything in a personal message.

If you accept an advice or two: first of all you should definitely check the universities’, and even more the cities where you’re going, because if you go to a city you don’t find big enough (Pécs for many incoming students for example is too small) or clean enough or nice enough (Ostrava for me), you will hate it. And it’s not a bad thing to get information what rate of the people there speak English: Czechs in Ostrava mostly didn’t and as I didn’t want to learn Czech at all I had to use google translate (unreliable shit, but better than nothing), or ask for a Czech friend’s help.

Second advice would be that you may either register to sufficient amount of lessons at home (or just a little more), and you should definitely start studying as soon as you can, I started everything very late and I have less than 3 weeks for altogether 9 unfinished lessons to finish.

Advice three: don’t start any of your studies (let that be your major or second major or minor or anything) with Erasmus, when you go home you may realise that everyone has friends already and you’re all on your own (but lucky me still finds people to help her); not to mention that you won’t have any idea about the requirements of the teachers whose lessons you registered to.

Thank you for reading my blog, and sorry for leaving without any sign, it wasn’t intentional.

No fancy picture or similar this time just a crazy snapchat-filtered thingy and the conclusion once more:

Even though I did not like the place I would totally go on Erasmus again.

I’m out.

Snows and Shows

I haven’t written in a long while, eh? I know, I know…

The first remarkable thing that happened in the last 4 weeks was the country presentation I held about Hungary for fellow Erasmus-students on the 22^nd November. As an Erasmus-student, I’m all alone here as Hungarian, but it turned out on last Monday that there is a whole Association for Hungarians in Ostrava in the city centre; that is a great piece of news for me but even better for my friend, Misi, who is a Slovakian-born Hungarian and studies here as a regular student since September. There are a few more Hungarian students here that they know about (for example a girl at the Medical University) so I believe it’ll be useful for him to meet them (I’ll go home for Christmas and only come back for my exams so not a big issue for me). Once again, I had a country presentation about Hungary, which was simply my regular style but people said it was very funny (that was my final aim) yet they could (hopefully) learn something about my beautiful, small country.

The second remarkable thing was the figure skating show Kings On Ice on the 30^th November we went to see with Dasha. Klaudia (my roommate) originally wanted to come with us but it cost 699 CZK (~26€) and she just came home from Budapest, then travels somewhere almost every weekend from now on (yeaah, this is how some live their Erasmus here, there’s not really much to see around Ostrava so they travel around Europe), so she decided not to join us this time. Us three have a movie-watching group either way so we spend enough time together.

The show was at the total other end of the city, and it started snowing around the time we left the dormitory. Fun fact: it always snows here when something interesting/important happens, and melts by the end of the next day. But back to the topic: we arrived safe and sound, found out places, and even if our videos are horrible quality (when you buy the cheapest ticket don’t expect better) we could at least see everything perfectly and enjoy the 2-hours-long show of figure skaters from all around Europe (but of course most of them were Russians, how surprising), the main attraction being Evgeni Plushenko with Edvin Marton’s live violin music (who happens to be a Ukrainian-born Hungarian by the way); and our second favourite show was (of course Plushenko was the best of the bests in our hearts too) Chris (ok, I can’t remember the dude’s name, but he totally looked like our Chris) skating for Bruno Mars’ song Uptown Funk (that is a double love for me, that was the freshmen’s song at the freshmen’s camp at my home university). By the time we went home the snow was big enough to make a snowman, so welcome Bill:

The third remarkable event happened yesterday. With 2 other English-major Erasmus-students (Magda and Jola, both from Poland) we tried to get to the English Language Theatre of the university but we were a little late to join, but yesterday we could see the final version of the musical they were working at: a part from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Compared to the fact that they were not professionals, the show was great, and just as hilarious as it’s supposed to be. It was snowing again so I went for a walk in the evening before it melted again, leaving this place just as depressing as it is.

Changes

So it turned out sometime in the middle of October that the Vítkovice dormitory, where I was living would cease to exist by the end of the year due to the lack of students. However, this end of the year was NOT the school year but the calendar year, and it pissed all of us off very much. Luckily, not many people came from further places to study at Ostrava so the other two dormitories (Poruba, Hladnov) weren’t full either so we could move away. All the three people I knew from Vítkovice (okay, I knew a lot more but two of them were Erasmus students and the third girl was in the other room of our block) moved to Hladnov and I didn’t want to live 30 minutes away from the school (+walking), where there were parties every day (and loud Spanish people everywhere; no offense but they really are very loud) so I decided to move there as well.

I got two new roommates, Klaudia from Poland and Helena from Germany, both of them are really nice and they can stand me so I think I won’t have to move out again.

Also, my aunt’s family and my grandmother visited me in Ostrava last week and we went to the zoo and to Opava; not much to say about them, the Moravian part of the Czech Republic isn’t known for its beauty but for its heavy industrialisation after all. Opava is a lot nicer than Ostrava but I still don’t feel like home in the Czech Republic, even if my aunt says she feels more like home here than in Croatia (or Krakow, Poland).

Last Friday we had a Polish moving-in-party because it wasn’t us the only one who moved in nowadays. It was really nice and it turned out that I wouldn’t be kicked out from a Polish house party (or any party) because their party music is a little like our gypsy wedding-music, and I can dance for it. Sadly, I was the last one to go to bed, at half past one, and I didn’t feel like going out to Stodolní street.

This week on Thursday we went to the theatre with some girls to watch an opera. What was interesting about it was that the actors and actresses were singing in Italian and there were subtitles for it! Of course I understood almost nothing from it (4 years Italian at school? NON PARLO ITALIANO FRATELLI E SORELE!), but the singing and the acting was so good that it was worth watching it (and it was also free so why not). The story was rather banal, a group of men had Friday nights out with each other at one of them and enjoyed themselves, watching sports and playing chess, drinking champagne, and their girlfriends, wives, or I-don’t-know-what-s wanted to know what they did there so they tried to steal their keys and sneak into their “parties”.

On Saturday we went walking dogs to a dog shelter at one of the nearby villages with some other Erasmus students, and some of us fell in love with their pooches (especially Dasha, a Russian girl). My doggie was more excited about running wild than about playing with me so I ended up running after her shouting “FREEDOOOM” and “TO VALLHALLAAA”. My little furry friend wasn’t really photogenic (but I could make her climb an A-shaped dog ladder! and when her collar fell off she patiently waited until I put it back) so I couldn’t make any good pictures of her but a Spanish guy’s, Dani’s doggo helped us having hilarious memes:

Basically that’s all what’s worth mentioning about the last some weeks; it started snowing on Saturday anyways so soon this place won’t be that depressing with all the dark big buildings.

Orange, And Its Components

Or Halloween, and basically autumn after all.

I have to admit that for a long while I didn’t really like autumn, and that Ostrava wasn’t a place interesting enough for me, for some reason I couldn’t find the beauty in the city. The people here are awesome, and all the Erasmus related people are far beyond awesome, but still, thanks to the heavy industrialisation, especially in Vítkovice, where I  live, all I could see were the ugly factories and mines. Having translated the word “důl”, which occurs in many tram and bus stops’ names, and means “pit/mine” didn’t help my bad feelings towards the city at all, for it always reminded me that beauty has a price. Not like I didn’t know it anyway, but being reminded of this on a daily basis (at least twice, for I go back and forth between the same stops usually) is a little too much for my fragile soul I believe.

[this is just a part of the industrial area I pass by if I go to the city centre]

Autumn is a little similar for me, it is the annual process of the death of the nature. And even if I know that after a long, cold and white sleep, it will be reborn, it’s a little hard for me to let summer and the green leaves go, and watch as they turn first yellow, then orange and red and brown, and then leave the boughs of the tree, as old people’s hair leave their heads. There are no more flowers, only the colourful leaves paint the ground as they make a protecting carpet for the soil as to help it survive winter. And I think this is partly why I love Scandinavia and all the pines, you can’t see the dying of the evergreens, for they are forever green.

But these feelings changed when I took a walk the other day at the Komenského sady, a beautiful and huge park on the bank of the river Ostravice. That place is wonderful, the grass is green, the trees are enormous, the leaves beautifully paint the ground, and there are many people walking their dogs there, so guess what, it’s a real heaven for me. There I didn’t feel being in the city centre, but being in the nature, surrounded by what I am, living flesh and blood, nature that breathes and what’s heart beats every time I take a step; and not dead brick, metal and plastic.

The other interesting and orange-related thing that happened was the Halloween-party we had at the Marley club yet on the 25^th of October. Even before I came to Ostrava I was super hype, I loved dressing up but for some unknown reason I always caught some cold or other illness that prevented me from going to a Halloween-party, so now I was really careful to stay healthy until the party started. I brought myself costume from home (that I had to fix the sewing of at three different places), and finally we could find a party for ourselves. Two Czech Erasmus-people were waiting for us at the tram stop, however, I was the only one who met them there, the others came later to the place where the party exactly took place. It wasn’t cheap, it cost us 70 CZK, and I have to admit that even though I planned to stay until 3, when the party was planned to end, the music was so horrible that I left at 1:30. Sure, I know, not music but people make the party, but when around 20 people (and like 30-40 more we didn’t know) agree that the party is shit, the chances are that the party is shit. We tried our best to enjoy ourselves, really, and I loved spending my time with those people, who all made real efforts to dress up as Little Red Riding Hoods, Zombies, Vampires, etc… and until the moment we were able to dance for the music, we did so, but now I don’t know what is worse, a Czech DJ or a Latino party… ^^” But even the Czechs disliked it so perhaps it was just that particular DJ who sucked (a lot. really.). But it was funny, Denisa said she really wanted me to live in Poruba (their dormitory) and have a party with them every day.

But Chris, a really adorable Polish guy I’ve already mentioned, asked me to write about this party as well, and I promised him, so here you go man! Next time we should find a better party for ourselves somewhere!

Rock’n’Roll Angel

Yes, that would be me.

When I saw the poster of Lordi coming to Ostrava my first idea was that I should go to the concert and make my groupmate, David jealous of me, because he loves them a lot more than I do (I know like 10 songs’ refrains and that’s all?), but for some (mostly financial) reason I didn’t really do anything to achieve this goal. Then yesterday someone wrote into our Erasmus-facebook group that they had a free VIP-ticket (sitting ticket, actually) and would sell it for a cheaper price (originally 890 CZK, I got it for 500) because the one who it was originally meant for couldn’t attend the concert because of health issues. We agreed on meeting in front of my dorms and he gave me the ticket.

Finally, I had to run to the tram and I almost couldn’t eat anything and finish my make up properly (I also had to wash my hair in 10 minutes and dry it in 5) so I left the dorms without lipstick on, with half wet hair and a pack of Manner neapolitaner so I could eat on the tram and do my lipstick there (you’d be amazed how true it is that practice makes perfect [lips]), but finally, when I arrived to the Garage Club of Ostrava everything was perfect, I was in time, and I could even order a beer before the concert started (but they didn’t have bottled beer… it hurt).

There were two bands before Lordi, whom I have never before heard of (shame. shame. shame. ding-ding-ding) and I basically listened to them and for real they were both good but as I didn’t know any of their songs I couldn’t enjoy them enough to go into the middle of the party (anyways, I don’t know what was wrong with the people but I could almost see no one jumping or headbanging, not even talking about pogo, that is the very base of a good concert. people of Ostrava, what’s wrong with you?!) buut when I could finally hear a song I knew (kind of; Blood Red Sandman) I decided that dammit, I want to party! And I went to the like 5^th line and started jumping and headbanging. Do you know the feeling when Mr Lordi points at you at least 5 times during the concert and looks into your eyes like 10 times? I was dead.

Of course I ended up having almost no voice from shouting for them. Anyways, have you ever been to a Lordi concert? They make real show, after every song there is either a scene or Mr Lordi himself talks to the audience, asking them if they want more and showing his language knowledge of that country’s language (of course I understood nothing from Czech apart from when he said “thanks” and “bitch”, hehe). BUT we couldn’t talk with them or get autographs or anything so I “got stuck” with the other two bands, as I didn’t really want to go home yet, I had a lot of time until the next tram left, and also I liked the first two bands enough to hang out around them.

First one of the members of the first, more gothic band, Silver Dust asked me if I wanted a picture with them (of course! I paid for the concert after all so why leave without anything personal? I couldn’t catch any drumstick or plectrum, but I was really close to catch Mr Lordi’s used towel) so we asked a Czech lady to make a picture of us (presented above); then after talking a little with them (they are really nice, for real, and their music is good, go check them out: http://www.silver-dust.net/ there is an English version as well) I headed to the other band, Shiraz Lane (facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShirazLane/) which group’s members seemed to be closer to me in age… and I was right, they’re 22-23, and I’m 20. And I met 5 sweet Finnish marshmallows, who are as crazy as I am (presented below on the picture), and I had a nice chat with them; it turned out than not only my family members are so creative that they ask me if my parents didn’t have enough money to buy me proper pair of pants when I wear torn jeans… and that also they say all the time that they are broke (I feel ya boyz, broke students feel broke musicians, especially when we are fam, since the Finnish and the Hungarians are family, and also they personally say it). And as their style was totally different from those people’s who came for the concert, I told them that even though the audience didn’t have a huge party at their concert they were really good and hopefully the audience’s musical taste will expand after hearing them. Aand at this point, when I said that “for example I listen to all these kinds of music and Korean pop music as well” it turned out that the singer, Hannes (the blondie on the first picture) likes it as well SOOO we hugged each other and it seems I have a new, Finnish oppa, who is famous and screams fucking crazily, I love him :D But the very best part of the night was the group hug the guys gave me as a farewell (and it was their idea) .___.

The only downside of the night was that I didn’t spend enough time finding a tram home and I had to walk an hour from the central bus station.

Get To Know Each Other Weekend: Sleep Even Less Than Usually

So last weekend we had the GTKEO Weekend, and within those approximately 2,5 days we surely got to know each other a little better. This weekend was the best and worst weekend of my life. Best, because I had awfully lots of fun and got to know many interesting and nice people, and worst, because during 2 night I slept 6 hours altogether, thanks to some (I must admit, mostly Mediterranean-born) people who decided to talk loudly in that area where people tried to sleep, and as they were quite illuminated they barely understood when I tried to explain them that I don’t mind them having fun as long as they let me sleep (this would have been really easy by the way). I also caught cold on Saturday – and it didn’t help my chance to fall asleep at all; and I could never ever use ear-plugs so I was doomed not to sleep. But since then two of them already apologised and I’m getting better day by day so it’s not such a big deal. Anyways, have you ever danced in slippers on a party? I tell you, you gotta try it out, it’s very weird but helps you relax more than high heels.

On Friday afternoon we left Ostrava with a charter bus and the party started almost immediately on the bus – we were talking about it with Maria that being a driver on such occasions must be a punishment. We went to Karolinka to a cottage, around 1,5 hours away from Ostrava, near the Slovakian border (and of course Ntina and I had to pee almost as soon as we left Ostrava). Luckily the Indian Summer still lasted then and we took our really warm clothing in vain, instead we needed sneakers and t-shirts.

The programme was surprisingly good and well-organized (and although I can’t remember everything I’ll try to write down everything interesting), almost as soon as we arrived our eyes were blindfolded by the organizers and The Game began. First we had to grab at a very long rope and walk up to the cottage door from the bus, all blindfolded. It took us more than 4 minutes to walk 50 meters. Then we went inside and finally got to know what on earth was going on, why was the whole cottage placated with our faces on “wanted” posters, why did all the ESN people wear elegant clothing and why were we blindfolded previously. The topic of the weekend was Mafia and we were the new candidates to join the family; but only one could join, so we had to “kill” each other. Each of us got a piece of paper with someone else’s name on it and with a task, such as “make her sit in your laps” or “make him drink beer as fast as he can”, etc; and if we accomplished the task the person was dead, we got his/her papers and our new victim was our last kill’s next victim. Some people took it bloodily seriously, some just shrugged when they were dead. Another, organized game we had was the well-known flag-game from our childhood camps, where each team has a flag and other teams have to steal it, and our lives are scarfs in our jeans as if we had tails. And despite being all grown up people attending universities we enjoyed it as not even 10-year-olds do. And the cherry on the top of the cake was when we had a night tour up to the hills, following glowing bracelets on the ground, then enjoyed the sight of the stars without any light-pollution, lying in the grass on a meadow, and then we had a campfire (after making sure the lampions we sent up to the sky didn’t burn the whole forest down, hehe).

We also had groups, or better said “families” (we were the Salieris) and we played lots of games those are for creating team-spirit, we laughed together, we tried together, we fought together, and we played against other teams sometimes (and again it turned out that I’m unbeatable by ordinary people when it comes to fast eating). Staying at topic, this weekend I could finally drink some beer, so I didn’t leave out this opportunity and drank the IQ gingko-beer I won at the Czech National Evening and the Polish cider Maria brought me from home. Both of them were good but I prefer other brands. Also, I’m not sure if I have already mentioned, but at the Czech national evening there was a fast beer drinking competition where Timo, a German guy won. He got to know that I can also drink beer really fast (one of the few talents of mine, haha) and long story short: we competed, and we finished at the same time (and my clothes were again drenched in beer, as usually when I compete in beer-drinking). He said he has almost never seen such a girl (and very few boys as well) so at the end of the semester we will have to compete again.

Additional info: this Wednesday we had a pub-crawl, again with funny tasks and small groups as teams, and it also helped us get to know each other. We had to, for example, make a group photo in the toilet mirror (unisex group – which toilet to choose? Finally we agreed that men wold freak out a little less on women being in their toilet than vice versa), or we had to make selfie with a tram driver, make strangers dance with us on the tram, etc. so we again had fun together, and now we could go home at any time we wanted from the Latino-party that our parties always end up in, since there are extremely many Spanish and Portuguese students here.

First-week Summary, or Byebye, 400 Euros!

Yes, exactly, I spent almost a month’s scholarship within a week. No regrets.

Last Sunday I went to Pepco and IKEA with my roommate (who calls herself Maria here) to get ourselves some stuff we needed for our dorms. Pro tip: write a list of what you need and stick to it or you’ll go home with 5 stuffed animals more than necessary (they’re really cute though so I don’t mind buying them at all). And I needed those clothing, and kitchen supplies, 5-months public transport ticket, the deposit at the dorms, and so one and so one, so it won’t continue this way, from now on I’ll almost only buy food to cook at home.

And everything really started on Monday… we had the first official drinking together (nicknamed “welcome drink”), and I was lucky enough to make some friends. Grab a notebook, I will write many new names from now and I will explain who they are only once. So, I went to the bar we were going to meet with each other, and I tell you I daren’t ask anyone if I could sit with them, all of the people at the tables seemed enjoying themselves, I didn’t want to bother them. And I also knew no one, how come that I just go there and ask “hey, well, I don’t know you, you don’t know me, we might not even get on well with each other, but can I sit with you please?” or any variant, so I just sat down to an empty table with my phone and talked with my friends on facebook desperately trying not to look desperate. I don’t seriously think it worked, to be honest… and then, all out of a sudden, a group of people arrived and I was sitting at the only free table so they just asked me if they could sit with me. Most of them were, surprise, surprise, Polish, and two of them were Lithuanians; and after they all introduced themselves I could remember like… two names, maybe? But we had a few beers together and I was accepted into the previously formed band easily (Polish people and Hungarians are like siblings after all), and after showing them my talent of drinking 0,5 liters of beer within ~12 seconds we were great friends. I also made friends with a French girl, Mazda, and a Czech guy, Peppa. He studies English as well and he’s gonna move to Sweden so it was our destiny to meet one another, or so I believe.

On Tuesday we had a “Welcome Ceremony” where we also played a game, between two (sometimes boring) presentations about Ostrava and the school itself (Did you know that those horribly looking ex-factories at Vítkovice are planned to be a part of the World Heritage? Or that they have an own beer with gingko-biloba in it?), where we had to figure out the performer of the song being played, and of course I would have failed the whole test if I couldn’t copy from my Portuguese neighbours. We could also get ourselves a few things for school (for example a plastic cup for beer, very useful, but at least very thoughtful, and it says “cheers” in 18 different languages!) and a Czech SIM-card (that I can’t use because my phone doesn’t support Vodafone) and a T-shirt as well. And, I will never forget this, all these things were in a textile bag like the one in which we usually kept our sports clothes at high school, and Karolis, the Lithuanian boy struggled with closing it properly, so I helped him, and then showed him how to fix it. Then I told him that it was sorcery and he was free to call me “the Hungarian witch” but I was so tired that I ended up saying “bitch” instead of “witch”.

On Wednesday we had a Czech National Evening with country presentations, games, where the French girl, Mazda danced with the Irish old man (what was his name?), and all games’ winners got gingko-beer; and we also learned some useful expressions in czech, such as “you have a nice butt” and “I am pregnant”. Then we went to Poruba dormitories to some party, because all of us wanted to dance already… and we ended up in the middle of a partner-finder party. WELL DONE, ERASMUS-PEOPLE! I had to nicely tell or show at least five guys to fuck off and I also had to save one of the two Lithuanian girls who are here, Aurelija, because when we told people we had a boyfriend (or, in my case, I said I had a boyfriend because it was easier than telling them that I didn’t like them because some just wouldn’t understand), they went like “Is he here? Because if not then he won’t know about it”. Pathetic. But while waiting for the tram after these fantastic encounters we were talking about similarities between Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Lithuanian languages (poor Mavi, Aurelija’s roommate couldn’t add anything, being Spanish), and I must say that you only realise how many Slavic words Hungarian has when you are encountered to those languages, either by starting to learn them or by living in a country where they are used and hearing it every day. And as I can see, there is a young, blooming bromance between Karolis and one of the Polish guys we went to the party with, Chris (who is Krzysztof, but we can’t possibly remember this name). You would never in your wildest dreams guess whom you will make friends with on Erasmus, and how deep those friendships may get.

But still I must say Karolina, a buddy is one of the best buddies ever existed (but I infinitely love my own buddy, Nela as well, who dad just called my “babysitter” some days ago!) because she took us all to the party, took care of us poor people who had no idea what was where (although she didn’t know it either) and took us home as well. Or, well, the other ones, because I, of course, didn’t get home easily, because the stop where I had to take off the tram didn’t simply exist and so I couldn’t change for the bus that was going to take me home. Hereby, I took off at the last stop after the bitch, who was driving, aggressively told me to get off (not speaking the language doesn’t instantly make me stupid, does it?) and I walked back to a stop I knew and I was sitting alone in the (I’m not kidding, kiddo) 6°C for 20 mins for my first tram back to the dorms, because best case I could have walked 2 stops of the 8 or 9 I had to take until I got home, finally, at 5. But I’m glad to report that I had a hot shower and didn’t catch cold! As I woke up at 1 p.m., Thursday didn’t really consist of anything other than finding food and cooking (I still take antibiotics so I can’t drink alcohol, no hangover, yaay), and the ratatouille I planned for lunch ended up being a dinner. BUT although I have small pots and the kitchen has only microwave, hot plates (no real oven) and a kettle, I could make lunch for 1 person for 4 days!

On Friday I was invited for lunch by the two Greek girls who are here, Denisa and Ntina. After trying Chinese (and struggling with it) they also tried sushi but I’m afraid they didn’t like it as much as I did… Then we spent the whole afternoon at the mall and went to play a laser tag game in the evening, with other Erasmus-students. Never before have I played anything similar, neither paintball nor CS on a computer but it was really awesome and I highly recommend everyone to try it if you have the time and money. We plan to go back once or twice. It turned out there that Aurelija (on the picture) and I both had 6 as our lucky number and so it was confirmed that we were sisters (and she’s only 4 days older than me). We were there until almost 11 p.m. and as I couldn’t drink any alcohol nowadays I decided not to go to the pub tour after this very tiring game.