#Englishchatclub internationalfriends

[mystudentstarfish-blog]

I am not alone!

September brought life to the city. Now you can see groups of kids walking back home from school with big bags on their backs; students coming back from their vacation, getting back to their daily routine; different theaters and museums opening the season and welcoming people. Youth cultural center also opened its doors, and for me that was the most long-awaited moment.

I was told that Kecskemet is quite an international city, but to be very honest, I didn’t believe that. I lived in different cities, and I know how the international ones look like. Here, in Kecskemet, whenever I was walking on the streets I felt like I am the only foreigner (even though that might not have been the truth). But my perception of this city totally changed with this Youth cultural center, because it has an English chat club, which is now led by one French girl, who is doing her EVS (European Voluntary Service) in Kecskemet. The English chat club is held every Wednesday from 6 to 8pm. The main goal of the club is to involve international students in the daily life of the city, make new friends, learn new cultures, and let Hungarians practice their English. When I came for the first welcoming event, I was very surprised to see so many people (around twenty five young people). The moment I saw that crowd, I felt such a relief and excitement. I was happy to realize that I am not alone in this city, that now I can talk to people and have long conversations (since in the village nobody really speaks English). There were people coming from Slovakia, Germany, France, Spain, the USA, New Zealand (I was very surprised to hear that), and of course Hungarians with a very good knowledge of English. All these people have different reasons of staying here in Kecskemet, some were on their Erasmus exchange, others were teaching French in local school, and there were also people from Kodaly Institute. To my big surprise, I came to know that Kodaly Institute, which is the best musical institute in Hungary, has over 60 students. But the main point is that all of these 60 are international students coming from eighteen different countries. I can’t describe how amazed I was to hear that. The guys from the chat club told me that they are trying to involve all students from Kodaly institute as well, but it might be hard for the latter ones to attend every meeting since their program is quite intensive.

Coming back to the chat club, the first meeting was just a welcoming one. We were introducing ourselves and played different games in order to get to know each other better. After the event was over we all went to the nearest bar to continue our conversations over a drink. It was quite late when we decided to go back home, but I didn’t notice the time, because I truly enjoyed the evening and I already couldn’t wait for another Wednesday ;)