Bike riding over Europe...well not exactly...but we have been enjoying riding our new bikes all over Pápa! Riding bikes through town has provided us with a new perspective of the town and has lead us to different parts of town that we actually had not yet been to!
We have discovered the train station, numerous factories, and what seems to be the high school (which up to this point we thought was a different building). We had read that the high school was in the old, large, yellow college. There is an old yellow building near Vickis, which we had assumed was the high school, but after riding near the train station and seeing a different large old, yellow building, we now think we have found the high school. It is amazing that we have been here for 7 months and are still discovering new things in town.
This is an appropriate time to discuss what we have learned about the school system in Hungary. Students go to school, Mon through Fri, only for as long as it takes them to finish their work for that day. Once their daily work has been completed, they are free to go home. They are not allowed to return to school that day. Most children, from what we have heard, go home before lunch. Some children go to school for specific subjects such as English, math, etc. and are done for the day. This cleared up a lot of confusion on our part. At all times of the day, we see children walking the streets all through town. We did not understand why they were not in school, we now do.
