Greet and Meet - teenagers

My name is Marija, but you can call me Maja. I’ll try to tell you something about me, my school and country.

SCHOOLS

We go to school in two shifts. One week, we are the first shift and we go to school from 8.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. and the second week we’re the second shift and we go to school from 2.00.p.m to 7.30 p.m.
When I go to school in the morning shift (the first shift) I come home after 2.00 p.m. and I’m free after that. When I get home, after lunch, I usually watch TV for a while and then I start learning. After 6.00 p.m. I’m usually free, so I go out with my friends or stay at home, listen to some music or watch TV (but that’s when the weather’s badJ)
I’m 18 years old and I’m in the final year of the Secondary Economic School. There are about 1000-1100 students and about 40 teachers in my school. Some of the subjects we study include: economy, law, finances, Serbian, maths, English, P.E…Our grades are from 1 to 5 and 5 is the best. We learn between 13 and 15 subjects, depending on the year you’re in. There are 30 classrooms, seven computers rooms and a gym in my school. It isn’t a big school. Our classes are 45 minutes long. After the second class we have 20 minutes break and after the fourth – 10 minutes. We have 5, 6 or 7 classes a day. Since we’re usually home for lunch, we don’t have any meals provided in school. If we’re the second shift, we buy something to eat during the big break.

RESTAURANTS

There are Mc Donald’s restaurants in many towns in Serbia but not in Kragujevac. There was one, for some time, but it was closed. It was interesting for a year or two, but the meals are too small for us! And we usually prefer our, domestic food. There are some fast food restaurants here, but hamburgers are bigger and of different taste.

FASHION

Jeans is always popular. We wear sports clothes and the trendy brands are Nike, Roma or Adidas, but we also wear some fancy clothes, depending on the occasion. Now, everything is popular. Everything that you can see on FTV or in fashion magazines! Everyone’s got his or her own style. And popular designers are: Moschino, Lacosta, Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, Armani, H&M, Max Mara, Benetton, and Prada.
And as for make up: natural look is in.

Greetings from Serbia :)!

I’m Jelena and I’m 18 years old. Let me tell you something I think you should know.

My native language is the Serbian language. We don’t have to use any other foreign languages actively, but we must learn foreign languages. In our primary schools children begin to learn English as a foreign language at the age of seven (first grade) and at the age of 12 they learn second foreign language. They can choose among German, French, Spanish or Italian. Russian is taught in few schools. In my school (I attend the Language Secondary School), beside English and German, I also learn Spanish (compulsory).
Since my school is pretty far from my home, I usually go by bus or sometimes my father drives me to school. And to my private classes of English (where I am now and writing you this letter) I go by MY motorbike.
On a daily basis, every human being uses a mobile phone, and the young, beside that, use mp3 and mp4. I also use a mobile phone, but I don’t like using the MP3 while I’m on the street.
Bye,
Jelena

I’m Maja. I want to tell you something more about my country. First, about music. Here, in Serbia, people listen to all kinds of music. I and all my friends listen to the rock, American usually. I listen to the 80s and 90s rock. My favourite bands are Jon Bon Jovi and red Hot Chili Peppers. Our domestic, very popular rock group was Bijelo Dugme. They don’t play any longer. But another very popular group is Van Gogh.
Ax for the religion, we, Serbs, are mostly Orthodox Christians, but there are also, Catholics, Jews and Muslims (the last ones especially in the South Serbia).
Our most important holidays are Christmas and Easter. Our Christmas is on the 7th January. At Christmas Eve we go to the church, where a Yule Log is burnt. The next very important holiday is Easter. On Good Friday we colour eggs. There must be some red eggs and the others can be of any colour. We keep one red eggs as a house keeper until the next Easter. On Easter day, we bump eggs. We usually give an egg to anyone who enters our house on that day. And a very special holiday in our country is SLAVA. It’s a specific, Serbian holiday. We celebrate a patron saint. Every house has its own. The most popular is Saint Nicholas. In Serbia we say that the whole Serbia celebrates it, ones as hosts and the others as guests. In the morning the priest comes into house, he and all the members of the family cut the special cake made for that occasion. After that, in the afternoon, every family has a lot of guests. They usually come for lunch and stay late at night. There’s a lot to eat and drink then, and we usually bring a gift to the host family. It’s a very solemn and important day for each family in Serbia. We don’t have to go to school that day and people who celebrate can have a day off. Another important day is Saint Sava’s Day, on the 27th January. All schools in Serbia celebrate that day.

Serbia doesn’t have a sea. The nearest country where lots of people go to the seaside is Montenegro. But people also go to other countries like Greece, Turkey, Spain, Bulgaria… Serbia has some beautiful mountains and spas. Many people spend their vacations there, because you can really relax, have some fresh air and temperatures aren’t as high as in the rest of the country. I spend my vacations on some of the mountains.

In Serbia, there are a lot of outdoor activities. In my school very popular one is singing in the school choir. It’s very interesting, not hard and you can get some new friends. Almost every child practices something. Tennis is very popular nowadays, but there are also some “traditional” sports like football, basketball and volleyball. If you like nature you can go with mountain climbers or brownies, and if you like water you can go swimming or play water polo. In winter you can skate or ski on some of the mountains.