beginning to look a lot like christmas

i'm so thankful for xander. i really don't know what i'd do without him. it's a pain traveling with him and importing him to the countries i live in, but it's so so worth it. he is so snuggly, no matter what kind of day he's having. he's affectionate and loyal. he rarely barks (except when the doorbell rings or he hears something strange), he lets me move him around however i want, he always comes when i call him, he's very low maintenance, doesn't beg much, and is happy to sleep between my calves all night until i wake HIM up. he's just the best dog i could ever have asked for. he's my closest family/friend. my baby. *sigh*

xander asleep on my chest

in catalonia (the region of spain i live in), there is a christmas tradition involving this little log. it's called "caga tio" or "poo log" and it makes its appearance on december 8 every year. children put a hat on the one in their house and cover it with a blanket. they tend to it until christmas eve, making sure it's "fed" and happy. then on christmas eve they beat it with sticks and it poops out some little christmas presents. 

 

its back legs are usually shorter than its front legs so the presents can fall out easier. 

 there are huge ones (like this) or smaller ones that can fit on end tables.

what a strange and fun tradition!

i'm not usually one to decorate much for christmas, especially since i've been living alone for a few years, but this year i decided to deck the halls a bit. i got some little christmas trees and decorations to spruce up the living room and kitchen. with  an apple cinnamon candle burning, cookies out, and christmas music playing i can almost convince myself i'm at home here. :)

 i could only find a sign in spanish but my neighbors have a "merry christmas" sign on their door... 

they'd be up for a trade, right?

liz is coming in three-ish days! i can't wait, i can't wait! it'll be nice to have someone to talk to who a) knows me! b) has english as their mother tongue c) doesn't want to take me to museums d) who brings me presents from america e) loves me and i love her! really, i'm very excited to chill out with her and explore the city (and maybe other cities) with my favorite, least annoying, most care-free travel partner, my been. <3 p="">

Xander's first day in Spain

liz (and some lady named sandy) did everything to get xander to follow me to spain and today was the day to get him! 'get xander from the airport' sounds easy enough, but as with the other countries i've lived in (USA excluded) the bureaucracy is enough to drive you to drink.

i got some nice taxi driver to take me to the airport (35 min drive) but it was at 8am rush hour, so it took more like 1hr20mins. awesome. i'd put in the only address i had for the pick-up place in my GPS but it wasn't recognized. so i called the two phone numbers i had (and had the taxi driver talk to the people in spanish), and they told us to go to the cargo park (which we already knew, we just didn't know where exactly to go in the huge cargo park surrounded by cargo company offices). so we just asked someone at one of the cargo companies where the office was for the company we wanted. though it was close by, they'd never heard of it and weren't interested in helping. (red)

so we went to terminal 1 to the information desk (orange). they didn't know anything. so we went to the united airlines office upstairs and the lady there called around and found the cargo office we needed. yes!! (this was already 3 hours into our trip)

so we went to the cargo office (yellow) and got some paper which would permit us to get a series of other papers. they made a copy of my driver's license and i had to pay 162 euros to get that paper.

then we took that paper to the vet (green) where we waited while she called some people. i emailed her my flight itinerary to prove i wasn't going to sell xander (idk how that proves that). she made a copy of my driver's license. when she was ready she took us to the agricultural cargo park (light blue) (a giant warehouse filled with farmy stuff and boxes) where we wandered through ceiling high shelves to a heavy refrigerator-looking metal door which she opened with a swipe of a card. inside was my precious baby!!! he was all alone in a locked and pull-tied cage. he wanted out so badly and i wanted to hold him so badly but we didn't have any scissors or knives to cut him free! :( the vet asked a warehouse man who came back with a knife and we finally cut the ties holding his door closed.

blessed reunion!!! :D :D :D we were so happy, even the taxi driver grinned from ear to ear.

the vet checked xander out to make sure he was ok after traveling and had no signs of disease, then we had to put him back in the box and leave him there. neither of us were happy about that, but she assured us we'd have him in 30 minutes (lol). she took his paperwork from the crate, glossed over it (GLOSSED!! after all that work!!!!), and gave us a magic paper.

we walked back to the office (idk why that vet made us walk but since she did we were without our car) where the vet told us we'd get xander (medium blue). wrong. we needed that magic paper stamped first... before they'd even move xander.

(dark blue) we went to the stamp holder's building where they copied our IDs to give us visitor's badges. then into the stamp people's office where they wrote down our DL numbers. the stamper was on a coffee/lunch break. i ran into a cafeteria and got a sandwich and drink since it was 1pm by then. stamp lady came back and stamped the magic paper, but not before making a copy of my DL.

we went back to the office, this time with the stamped magic paper (purple)! we waited like 45 minutes for them to bring xander to the office (we would have gotten him ourselves if we could have).

forever reunion!!! :)

i gave xander some of the meat from my sandwich in the car - he was famished!! we were anxious as we went home, though it was much faster at this point. we walked up the million stairs to the apartment and xandy checked the whole place out. i emptied his crate, cleaned it, him, and all of his things, then we had a little cuddle for a while before i decided to attend class at 5:30 since i'd already missed one (big mistake).

when i came home xander was just where i'd left him: snuggled up on the couch. we went on a walk around the block and settled in for the night. roommate isn't here so it's just us.

just like it was always meant to be.

xander

this little dog of mine...

last week xander had some back and hip problems. he couldn't jump up on the (low) bed, sit down anywhere, or let me pet his back without whimpering and yelping. it was so scary and sad for me. i was frustrated because i didn't know what the problem was and the silly dog can't tell me! i noticed it when i came home one evening and decided if he wasn't better by morning i would take him to the vet.
i was in the middle of a series of phone calls (trying to find an english-speaking vet) and getting fed up and scared when a former colleague (from the best school ever, zrinyi) called. she asked how i was and through tears i said ok. she said, ok, that means not ok. i told her the problem and she came over right then to escort us to the vet. we took a taxi (driven by my private student, taxi-driver gabor) to the animal hospital.
the vet who saw us was a nice lady, but didn't speak english. i couldn't understand all (or even half) of what she said, but i could figure out a lot from her gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and the words i knew. gabi, my colleague, translated periodically but not throughout.
it seems his hips were buckling or something under the pressure of his extra weight. the vet was sure to explain to me several times that xander is overweight. later she said he was old, too. (i, of course, googled it when i got home and my nearly 7 year old dog is about middle aged for his breed... so not old.)
we were given two medicines: a pain killer and a joint lubricant (or something). i understood the regimen and agreed to administer the meds to him accordingly. i am also supposed to watch his diet, give him more exercise, and keep him from walking up/down stairs and jumping on furniture until he's back to normal.

as of this week, i'm happy to report, he's back to his jumpy, stair-walking self. he has been spared a few scrapes of people food and doesn't like that, but otherwise he's happy. thankfully it wasn't anything more serious. i can't tell you how many times i've said out loud to him, "please don't die in hungary." i know i would be just devastated. anyway, all is well again.

i love me some xander-pants!

that little dog of mine

xander is my little baby. ok, he looks kinda fat laying down. omg, i love him so much!

villages

a colleague of mine, gabi, has taken me on a couple of day trips around the county we live in. she has shown me cool villages and random sights that i wouldn't have otherwise known about. plus, she borrowed her dad's car so we didn't have to take trains!

here's gabi (she was the main photographer, so we won't see much of her in this post)here i am with french teacher anikó - we ate lunch in an italian restaurant in debrecen. it's was the best italian food i've had in hungary, that's for sure. made fresh in front of our very eyes! pasta, pizza, salads (with lettuce!), soups, and desserts. yum, yum, yum!

there was an old wooden bell tower in one of the places we visited. here it is from the front...

there is this a [whatever instrument] player statue and a guy playing a guitar.

we were there for a little while and soon we happened upon this wedding

gabi and i climbed some VERY steep and rickety old stairs to the top of the belfry (does that mean bell tower?) because there was an amazing view (and a bell) up there. anikó declined as she is afraid of heights.

the bell

the view (well, one side)

another view with gabi


the church attached to the bell tower

us chatting in the church

prayer time

gitározunk :)
(we are playing guitar)

in one of the villages, máriapócs, there is a church which houses a "weeping mary." it's a painting that wept like 300 years ago, was sold to someone in vienna, but several copies were made of it first, and a copy was returned to máriapócs and later the copy wept too. anyway, it hasn't wept since 1906 so it's due for a cry-fest, no? but, we got there only to find that the church is under construction and the weeper has been temporarily moved. whatev... we took this picture by the gift shop - which was closed.

some church

ooh, this little fun place called "your bell" was interesting to me 'cause they have festivals and dancing and hungarian events there all the time, like the traditional stuff. nice. cool buildings, old-hungary feeling

this anikó and i don't really hang out much, but i do like her a lot. her english is better than my hungarian, but we still speak in both languages. she even taught me a few words in french!
it's humbling that everyone here knows at least two languages (gabi knows 4!). it motivates me to a) speak english well b) learn hungarian c) not complain about learning hungarian

this is a fake lake - haha, well, it's manmade

we met some horses there

and the horse guys who basically keep old hungary alive with their clothes

here i am with the... oh, what's he called... uh, the cowboy, for lack of a better word

she totally pushed me but i hammed it up a bit

in one of our stops there was an insane asylum. niiiiice. you know i learned that word in hungarian, i simply had to!
here is the crazy house (it's the yellow building)

a couple weeks ago we went with some spanish ladies gabi knows to see some other villages. that was especially fun because there were three different mother tongues in the car. we spoke in english with some random hungarian and spanish mixed in. being silly comes across well in any language, though. that's really cool.

here they are (sadly i can't remember their names, but they were good fun company)

even xander got to come on that excursionthis is the first stop we made. that church was built in the 13th century.

we went on a sunday and there was a service going on, so we waited outside until it finished. then we saw some sweet old ladies walking home together.
we went in the church. the ceiling was low but ornate. i wouldn't mind sitting in there listening to a sermon for an hour or so. cozy.
here is its bell tower. very old. very wooden. very hungarian.
we found some kids playing around outside and invited them to join in on our photo-op.

back in the car and on the way to... somwhere esle. haha. and there was, you guessed it, a church there!some tour guide lady came and told us about the church. in a nutshell i remember this: it was built in the 14th century, was run by one denomination who painted it all pretty with murals of people, then later it was taken over/bought? by another denomination who painted over the murals with silly flower patterns. later another denomination (or perhaps the original denomination) got the church and held services there. one day they washed the walls and the flower pattern came off, revealing the original murals. also, the first denomination kept its important papers concerning the church in a box on the ceiling for safekeeping.

see the flowers?
here is the pulpit. i liked it because i can understand everything it says:
"i am the way, the truth, and the life"

here you can see the flowers and the murals underneath
murals are busting through! it was really cool in real life.
ok, then we went to another place that had a unique cemetery. something like 150 years ago the first people to be buried there wanted their graves to be boats for some reason. it started a tradition/trend and now there is a whole big cemetery with boat headstones.
boats with wreaths
boats boats everywhere... hungary is landlocked.... so what...
a cute little yard/garden on the way back to the car
i like the wagon

we stopped near a watermill and had a picnic for lunch. it was a beautiful day with fun-loving company. no stress, just life. good stuff.

here's the mill
this is me