Report about the meeting in Hungary: Drops of Love

Overcoming boundaries – Hungary 18-24/05/2014

 

In the night of the 17th May four students and two teachers from Agrupamento de Escolas Miguel Torga, Portugal went on a trip to Hungary integrated in the Comenius project DROPS with the theme "Drops of Love".

After the long and sleepless trip we were received by the host families what, in fact was very scary for us because it was the very first time that we spent so much time far away from home.

Our host families lived in Bicske a city not far away from Budapest, so after the arrival at the airport we were taken to our destiny by the teacher coordinator Éva Pató and a students’ mother!

On the first day, most of the groups from other countries hadn't arrived yet, so we and our teachers decided to travel to the capital city Budapest to have a first impression of it.

Although we haven’t visited the monumental part of the city, we were mesmerised by the elegance and beauty of both parts of this city Buda and Pest. We knew that this wasn't our last time in Budapest so we took the chance and started by buying some souvenirs to our families at home.

Monday was spent at Bicske's school doing some activities with the other students to get along and to know a bit of the Hungarian school system. We visited the school, were welcomed by the school headmaster, attended lessons, presented our work on Portugal Romantic and Historical sites and watched all the other countries work, and wrote about love in a common blanket. That was quite an interesting activity, we could write our ideas on love and also draw something concerning it. By the end of the day everyone returned to the host families.

It was Tuesday when we visited Budapest more thoroughly. We went to the Parliament and the Opera House, we couldn't believe in such beauty, so we took a lot of pictures with a huge variety of landscapes never to forget this great adventure. When the day ended, we were pretty tired, our feet hurt a lot due to the long walk that we had but we still had enough strength for the last dinner in Bicske and of course to the party that was meant for us.

Very early the next day we left this small town and unfortunately we said goodbye to our first and lovely hosts families! In this trip we went to Debrecen the second biggest city in Hungary for more adventures! On the way we stopped in Eger a very special city known by its museums for example the Marzipan Museum whose masterpieces were made mainly of sugar and almond! We were so amazed by that!

Later on we arrived to our destiny (Debrecen), and our host families were already waiting for us.

On Thursday we visited the school, ours and the other countries products on how to show love were already displayed there, so we could visit the exhibition, we also attended some classes and watched the welcoming ceremony.

During the afternoon we visited the town centre. There we visited a Déry Museum and could come across some Hungarian traditions and even dress up some Hungarian costumes.

On our last day in Debrecen, Friday, we learnt how to make some handcrafts such as bracelets and amulets. These amulets are made of a piece copper and then painted using some patterns related to nature. During the afternoon we had dance classes where we learnt traditional folk Hungarian dances.

In the evening there was a farewell dinner with every body of the Comenius project and after our meal we had a party where we could dance and spend some more time with our guests.

With this journey we also had the chance to taste Hungarian food, which was mainly fried and with spices, like paprika. The strangest for us was a soup made of cherries and Lángos one of the most traditional Hungarian dishes.

On Saturday we travelled back to Budapest to head home but first we could again stroll around the city - we visited the Market, where a promotional fair about Portugal was taking place and we could even taste some of our specialities, like Pastéis de Nata – and go on a boat ride in the Danube.

To conclude, we can all agree that this was one of the best experiences of our lives as we had the opportunity to know amazing people from several different countries like Poland, Hungary, Austria, Turkey, Czech Republic and our neighbour Spain, put our English into practice and learn how to survive in a foreign country.

If could we would repeat this experience with no objections!

 

The students:

Carolina Pires

Diogo Cadavez

João Alberto Alves

Sara Morais

 

 

Information on school website. Click here!

Portugal

Agrupamento de Escolas Miguel Torga is an institution which comprises children from kindergaden to secondary school (3-18). It is composed by different school buildings for the kindergadens and primary schools, whilst there's only a building for the secondary school. Besides regular students, we have students with special needs, learning difficulties, economical and social problems, some living in charities, and a class composed by students in risk of exclusion, such as gypsies.
The school is situated in the northeast part of the country near the border with Spain, Salamanca a much known Spanish city distances 180 kms from here. Our city is situated in a disadvantaged area, there is no industry and people mainly work in commerce, agriculture or are civil servants. This small city is far away from every big city and students miss the accessibility to the facilities of big and modern cities. Porto, the second biggest city in the country, is 200 kms away and Lisbon, the capital, is 500 kms from Bragança.
There are many poor people living in the city and many of our students hardly ever have the possibility of travelling to other parts of the country and contact with different people and realities.
This project will bring our students the possibility of expanding their horizons by contacting with / learning from other teenagers from various cultures in Europe. We think that the best way to motivate students is by putting them in contact with distinct realities and by using diversified strategies. Presenting the students new ways of learning will entitle them to acquire not only what is provided by the curriculum, but also by the different experiences lived outside and extra the traditional classroom. To achieve this, we think that IT, together with the mingling of students and cultures, can promote well succeeded, motivating and non-traditional lessons.
Our role in the project will be to work with the other partners in order to achieve the goals of the partnership, always bearing in mind the national curriculum and the development of students’ skills. Thus, involving our students in this project, it is our intention to:
- build on students a European Identity;
- prepare students to work and study abroad;
- stimulate students communicative competence of English;
- make students aware of the differences / similarities between the different European countries;
- project our school outside the country;
- work on cross curricular competences.