Things I'll Miss About Hungary

i'm leaving hungary very soon. while there are a few things i certainly won't miss about hungary, there are many many things i will. for example....

*statues

*parks

*statue parks

*kávézók (cafes)

*flowers!!

*80s and 90s music being played more often than current music

*folk music :D

*thermal baths

*csúnya szavak (bad words)

*magyar nyelv tanulás (studying hungarian)

*izé (the word hungarians say when they can't think of what they want to say)

*nénik meg bácsik (old ladies and old men)

*parasztok!!! (country people/rednecks)

*hungarian accents (i vant to leeave in oosha.)

*old school/traditional mentality

*vanity/immodesty

*kid-centered families

*people being proud of their sneakiness

*namedays!

*women's day

*teacher's day

*patriotism

*farsang! (dress up in costumes to scare away winter in february)

*people asking me if i'm cold all the time

*overdressed children/star children (children so bundled they can't move, they look like stars)

*overt staring

*churches!!

*so many umbrellas

*everyone always having tissues and using them as loudly as possible

*fagyi!!! ohh, the ice cream.

*cute little villages

*outrageous clothes

*super high heels (even in SNOW!) she's fine as long as she has pantyhose

*emo kids

*festivals every other week

*funny looks for singing along to my iPod

*megasztar (hungarian american idol)

*puszi (cheek kisses)

*ballagás (hungarian graduation ceremony)

*szalagavató (hungarian prom)

*JEGESKÁVÉ!!!! (iced coffee with ice cream and whipped cream and chocolate sauce)

*szamorodni wine :) and tokaj and eger (wine and wine regions)

*fanny packs, lol

*nicknames for most nouns, not just people(uborka = ubi = cucumber, paradicsom = pari = tomato, iskola = suli = school, zsepi = zsebkendő = tissue, meki = McDonalds, stb.)

*sandwiches everyday, everyone, everywhere

*keys, keys, keys

*compliments on my language skills (i'm sure i'll miss hearing them when i'm in china stumbling through chinese)

****most of all: i will miss my beloved hungarian friends. so many people have made me feel loved and welcomed and special and important and valued and relevant. i've been invited to people's homes, to their celebrations, and into their lives. i've been hugged and kissed and given flowers on more occasions than i can count. i've cried on friends' shoulders, laughed with them, swum and danced, drunk and eaten, cooked bacon fat on an open flame, ridden buses to far away cities with colleagues, gotten naked with them at the baths, learned and taught, shared and absorbed culture, language, and the human spirit. i'll miss hungary a lot, and quite especially my

favorite city, Nyíregyháza.

the new place - video

vidor festival!

there is a festival in nyiregyhaza each year called VIDOR FESZTIVAL! it's about 'happy art' like theatre performances, street artists, bands, face painting, live statues, etc. and this year i'm both in town AND aware of it. so i went!

click the flower to watch a VIDEO of vidor festival - it's long but a good representation

there are mimes and actors in the streets for about a week!

they aren't camera shy at all! :)

the only band i know, have heard and liked their music, and is pretty popular around here (csik zenekar) was in town to perform this friday night... as a headliner. here they are, the little sweeties.

but there are also random unknown-looking bands in the city center as well

and people who seem to have just mpicked up instruments and started playing them for passersby

holding the progam, this little girl's dreams come true as she takes a picture with... some face painters?? haha.

i've always been intrigued by the living statues. they stand there for an hour without moving. i'd be fired at the first itch.

these entertainers are actually in town for theatre performances, but when they're not in plays they're out in the city luring in customers with all their charm (everything in the festival is free except the theatre stuff)

there are fire throwers, people balancing stuff, jugglers, the works.

and these type of people...

acrobats, bikers, stunt people...

of course, once in a while they get the crowds involved too

my favorite thing i saw was the caricaturist an his works of art

and he's pretty good (these portraits are free! but you have to wait in a long line full of teenagers to get yours)

scary

happy

tonight is the last night. the people are packing up and going home or to wherever they're going. and the city center is going back to normal, but it was a good happy-art week if you ask me. :)

in the city center this afternoon

today i was in the city (with three other americans!) enjoying the nice weather and the remains of vidor fesztival...

we bore witness to at least 3 wedding parties walking around the city center, which is typical of a nice saturday in summer.

but as we sat and drank beer and ate pizza, one such wedding procession turned a bit odd:

i haven't seen any of the 100 weddings in town stop and play in the fountain before.

but man, i love this town.

new flat! (that's right, i said "flat")

this summer i moved out of school-provided housing. i got my very own flat! gábor and i looked in the newspaper for furnished flats that would accept dogs, were in my price range, were on the ground floor, and were near the city center (and not nasty). we called around, xander being the biggest deal-breaker - can you imagine?! - and finally he ended up driving me around to see the flats and being there for negotiations' sake. the first flat was ok but was 30 years old and smelled like old sick people. the second was was fine but SO BIG that i couldn't really justify living there alone. then the third one... well, when i walked in the deal was done. third time's a charm. and it IS quite charming.

the building is on the corner of two residential streets

and my flat is right by the entrance (the pull-down shade is on my window and those are our mailboxes on the wall)

xander even feels at home here now.

ok, so that corner is full of teaching stuff piled on a a table, but that comes with the territory of being a teacher. there's a bit of a mess... but it's me we're talking about here.

the armchair and sofabed you're seeing are my first major purchases in hungary! i'm sitting on that couch right now :)

xander's space is in the corner and he seems happy with it. that tv works but is not plugged in (since it only speaks hungarian to me). aniko' insists that watching tv will improve my language skills, but i'm pretty sure it'll just give me a headache.

view from xander's corner. that's my closet, that big green wardrobe. it's in the living room because it didn't fit through the bedroom door and i didn't protest enough to get a new one.

my beautiful kitchen! it's called an "american style" kitchen, though it doesn't strike me as particularly american. it is a 10-fold improvement over my last kitchen. i regularly bake and cook and freeze things, just because i can. plus, there's even a bit of counter space! woe is me.

my bathroom junk on top of my classy washing machine

whoops, i better pick that stuff up.

my doored shower! no leaks, no mess, just showers.

everything has its place... everything just isn't IN its place.

a look into my bedroom... it really is just a room with a bed and some shelves

looking at the kitchen from my bedroom. cool accordion door, no?

outside there is a courtyard/parking lot as well as two other buildings of the 'flat complex'

it could be called a 'gated community' heheeehee

we dry our clothes outside. (my flat is on the far right in this one)

if xander's happy, i'm happy. and look at 'im....

anyway, my mailing address is on the top left of this blog in case you have a hankerin' to send me a housewarming postcard. :)