Barbara describes her experience participating in a Comenius exchange program in Szombathely, Hungary in November 2010. She and her fellow teacher Rosalba were nervous but excited for their journey. Upon arrival, they were greeted kindly by their hosts Anita and Gerti. At the school, they observed Hungarian folk dances and food and met teachers from Hungary, Spain, Poland, and Italy. The following days included visiting classrooms, a football match, making traditional art, learning about the history of St. Martin, playing with toys at a parish visit, tasting wine and cookies, touring an abbey and wine cellar, and dressing up in armor at a Roman museum. Barbara felt the experience allowed them to learn about Hungarian

1. My Comenius experience Szombathely November 2010

2. In November 2010, when Comenius meetings started, truly Rosalba and me (hello, I’m Barbara) were a bit worried about our journey to Hungary but even very happy and excited to begin this new experience. When we and our pupils arrived,unfortunately late, we found at the station Anita and Gerti. They were very kind and took us to the school. At school there was a great show; folk dances, hungarian music, very tasty food.

3. At school we met other hungarian teachers and their headmistress Kinga, catalan friends Maria Josè, Laura and Mari and polish friend “Giorgio”

4. The next morning we went to school.We visited classrooms, library, sport hall where the boys played football, a real match Hungary-Italy. Rosalba, me and all pupils amused ourselves during art lesson: we snipped and coloured traditional St.Martin goose

5. Szombathely, ancient Savaria, was birthplace town of St.Martin; we visited St.Martin church and many places devoted to him and like pilgrims we followed “Via Sancti Martini”.

6. We went to Vamoscsalad and visited the parish;we played with different toys regarding St. Martin. We drank hot spice wine and ate some traditional cookie, sign of friendship because they have to be divided by 2 people.

7. We visited Pannonhalma Abbey, one of the oldest historical monuments in Hungary This magnificent benedectine monastery is placed on the top of a hill and is very rich of artworks but the most interesting, in my opinion, was the library.

8. Another appealing place of the Abbey was the great wine cellar we visited in late afternoon. All of us Comenius partners really developed a taste and enjoyed delicious wines made by monks.

9. Another interesting place was the “Roman Museum”. Here are collected copies of items of ancient Rome. Teachers and pupils wore armours,shields,helmets as ancient roman soldiers. We had a lovely time.

11. Hungarian meeting was a great experience indeed. We had fun, learned a lot about history, hungarian traditions, food, way of life. We started this adventure as strangers but when we went away we left friends. Of course even polish stay was wonderful and I hope we could share friendship and well being all together very soon in Barcelona. Kisses, Barbara.