Hey Warsaw 306 kids,

I hope you’ve all been getting on well these past couple of weeks. It’s now only a month until Christmas. I expect you’re all very excited about that - I am too! I personally can’t wait to experience a traditional Polish Christmas. I don’t know much about what that might be, but I’ve been told that there’s definitely lots of delicious food. I also hope that it will snow soon. I know that snow is very normal (and sometimes annoying) for Polish people, but for me it’s pretty special. I’ve never had a white Christmas before and I’ve only seen snow 3 times in my entire life! Fingers crossed!

So, what have I been up to? Well, a couple of weeks ago I visited Budapest in Hungary. I spent three days visiting different attractions. I also ate lots of Goulash, a typical Hungarian soup made from capsicums and sausages. It is completely delicious!

As soon as I arrived, I noticed how different the Hungarian language is to Polish and lots of other European languages. It didn’t sound like anything I had heard before. Apparently Hungarian is the hardest language for English speakers to learn. Now I understand why!

I visited the National Museum and saw a very interesting exhibit. It was about how Hungarian culture has changed over the past 2000 years. There were some very pretty clothes that Kings and Queens used to wear, as well as some very old weapons from 400 years ago.

My friend and I also visited on of the famous bath houses in Budapest. They are beautiful, warm, outdoor pools. Even though it was freezing and raining outside we were nice and warm in the baths. It was a very nice way to relax on a Saturday afternoon.

We also visited a flea market just next to the bath houses. It was very interesting as they sold things from WWII and Communist times, as well as lots of other curious junk. I bought a thick leather belt, so now I have a souvenir from Hungary and my pants don’t fall down!

Oki doke*, well that’s all from me for now. I’ll see you in classes!

Sarah

*This is a very Australian way of saying “okay”

Captions for photos:

A dress that a Queen once wore

The beautiful Margaret Bridge at night time

Howdy students!

Well here’s a crazy fact for you, I am officially half way through my time here at Warsaw 306. I have sadly had my last classes with some of you, but I’m also very excited to meet the other half of the school starting Monday. I never knew that two months could pass so quickly! There’s a very popular english phrase “time flies when you’re having fun.” This definitely sums up my time in Poland!

I hope you’ve all had a lovely long weekend and enjoyed the All Saints holiday. I went for a walk on Friday (All Saints) and was amazed to see the huge amount of people out visiting their loved-ones’ graves. I thought that the ceremony of the day looked very beautiful - all the flowers, candles and decorations. It was quite special for me to see this day because we don’t have anything like this in Australia. My family visits my grandparents’ graves on their birthdays, but their isn’t any national holiday to pay respect to the dead.

Another recent holiday was Halloween on Thursday. While I didn’t go trick-or-treating, I did experience some spooky Polish celebrations at my host sister Nina’s birthday/Halloween party. All of class 4d came to my host family’s house on a Friday evening dressed in lots of scary costumes. There were witches, skeletons, mad scientists, wizards and more! Earlier in the day I helped Magda (my host mum) to prepare some creepy treats for the party. These included jelly worms, witch finger biscuits and some (very Australian) fairy bread.

The kids played lots of party games including Singstar, apple-bobbing and freeze dance. The food was also very popular. I was very pleased to see that Polish kids also like Australian fairy bread, as most of it was gone by the end of the night Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves greatly and it was a pretty creepy and fun night!

Now I better head off to bed to get up early for school tomorrow. I look forward to meeting all my new classes!

See you all around school (feel free to come and say hello ).

Sarah

Captions to accompany photos:

Some very Australian fairy bread
Delicious witch finger biscuits

Class 4d looking spooky and scary for Halloween

Me giving my best scary look

Sarah