well stocked

omg, i've been getting care packages left and right! thanks people! (specifically, i have received AMAZING packages from: katy (variety), liz (2!), dad and tara (huge!), bob and pam (yummy), marlena (healthy)

some favorite things in them: gum, markers, games, vocab books!, soups, cottonelle toilet paper, nail polish, jewelry (i can alllllllways use more jewelry since i didn't bring any!!!!), good soft tissues, a lint brush!, magazines, PEANUT BUTTER (impossible to find here so most hungarians have never tasted it), candy, sheets, hanging organizertoys for xander, and index cards

i usually can't wait to open a package all the way until i get home, so here's what happens. i open it at my desk at school and get all happy and stupid in front of a number of coworkers (or as they say, "colleagues"). if there is anything in the box which i will use in class or at school, i take it out and leave it there. for example, my desk drawers are FULL of index cards, candy candy candy, peanut butter, taboo, a pencil sharpener, dry erase markers, permanent markers (it's important not to mix the two kinds up, as some teacher did in room 25 and i was accused of writing on the board an english text in permanent marker - but i swear it wasn't me!), and snacks. i hardly ever have my camera at school but the next time i do i'll take a picture of the drawers again. full, full, full, i tell ya. full.

then i carry the parcel home on a bus, usually the number 10 which goes from my school to about a block away from my front door. if not, the number 8 or 8a bus will be along soon and it's kind of close. i have to walk about 5 blocks from that stop to my flat. i've done it a billion times though 'cause the 8 buses are much more common than the beloved number 10.

then i get home with the gift and xander sniffs the heck out of it and me. we unload it pretty soon after i get home and try to put things in their proper places. here are some pictures of my food supply.
haha, at this rate, i'll hardly ever taste hungarian foods!

drjuice

is your beloved drpepper as cool as this!?!?!

the other day as i said goodbye to my (favorite) coworker, agi, she asked about my weekend. i told her it was good despite the small problem i'm having with my tonsils. she put down her purse and came over to my desk quite seriously. she pulled out the chair in the desk next to mine and sat down. (i'm not gonna lie, i felt like i was in trouble.)
she asked with deep concern, "are they inflamed?"
"yeah, just a little, but it made for a pretty lame weeknd."
"you need to take medicine to remedy this."she reached in her bag and retrieved a box that said "drjuice" on it. i giggled a little both at the name of the medicine and the fact that she was carrying it around. she explained to me that i should take it two to three times a day, swishing it around in my mouth for one minute before swallowing.
"luckily, there is no taste to this medicine. it's like water."
i chased away the thought that it actually was water because agi's smarter than that.
we went into the teacher room kitchen and i watched her poor a teaspoon's amount into a tablespoon (to prevent overflowing). she delivered the spoon to me, reminding me a lot of mary poppins and her grool-ish meds. i swished. it tasted like nothing, well maybe a little metallic, but still pretty much like nothing. then she told me there is silver in this clear liquid and it will help maladies of the throat and mouth as well as anything else. she told me i will feel better in a matter of minutes, but that she can't stick around to watch. with that, she gave me the bottle of medicine, for a few days only, i'm pretty sure, and went on her way.
another teacher (aniko) came in and saw me. upon seeing the bottle she said, "oh. you too?"
"uh, agi gave it to me."
"do you believe in it?"

"i don't know yet; i just took some a minute ago."

she said, "you will" and walked away.
they're right! i haven't googled it yet or anything, but it seems to work pretty well. my tonsils, though still a tad inflamed and red, don't hurt. they actually stopped hurting before i got home that day - a fifteen minute walk.
i am now an advocate for the drjuice. i think someone may have squeezed a doctor and collect the drippings in a bottle or something. a good doctor, too. a really good one.
if you find out it's poison or something, don't tell me. if it is i'm lovin' this placebo effect.

home sweet home (in hungary)

i traveled this weekend, as you may recall. traveling has never been so hellish in all my life, let me assure you.

i purchased a ticket for me (and xander) for a train leaving at 4:00 from Nyiregyhaza to Budapest. i was not allowed to use it, however, because there are no dogs allowed on that (fast) train. the woman who sold me the ticket and the dog ticket seemed to think it would be allowed. so i left on a slower, dirtier train at about 4:45. i had to change trains in some city. when i did, the conductor guy said no dogs allowed. greaaaat. he said if i sat with him and talked to him all the way to budapest, he would allow me to ride the train...in first class with him. of course i did it! his name was tibor, he's 24, he was my first life-saver of the weekend. we arrived in budapest after 8pm.
(CLICK ON THE PICTURES FOR A BETTER, WIDER VIEW. SOME OF THEM ARE CUT OFF AND IT'S SAD THAT YOU CAN'T SEE THE WHOLE THING.)





the CETP hungarian lady, hajni, was meeting me at the train station to give me a replacement phone (since i lost mine last week - which i have never before done in all my life). my "sure thing" place to stay was unavailable, unbeknownst to me until friday. she was concerned that i wouldn't find a place to stay, so she waited with me as i called the trusty CETP teachers living in budapest with plenty of hospitality and extra space. i didn't understand the severity of the situation at first because of course i would be able to at least stay in a hotel or something, right? no. not even close. after 31 calls to CETP teachers, hostels, motels, and hotels, i was still without a place to sleep. hajni would have let me stay with her but she has a big dog and i have a small dog and she feared for xander's life. she finally called a friend of hers who called a friend and got a "yes" for me to couch surf at his house. he's some american named ben. ok, fine, whatever, i was tired. hajni took me to meet annie (her friend) who took me to a bar to meet ben. a dog-friendly bar (siberian huskies and dachshunds, etc. were roaming about freely) where i met the slightly drunk ben and his company of merry brits. we had a good time for the first 2 or 3 hours, but soon it was just too much. xander was crying from all the smoke, i was almost asleep, and precious potentially life-saving ben was trashed. his birtish pals james, lucy, and richard (pictured below) lived close by and james noticed i was almost dead. he asked if i wanted to sleep on their couch (pictures below) because ben was probably going to stay at the bar until 3 or 4. i went home with james the brit and slept comfortable in the chic flat. xander made out pretty nicely, too.
this is ben, richard, and lucy. no pic of james. sad.










i took the train to vienna. no problems. whew!

when i arrived at the train station where my vienna-residing abdul was to meet me at 4:10pm (and we had confirmed that time on that very morning) i couldn't find him anywhere. i waited and practiced my very, very sucky german with an old man sitting on the bench next to me. soon it was 4:30, 4:45, and no abdul. i tried to call him but my cell phone can't call vienna. i tried a payphone, but no success. i was scared, sad, and frustrated. at about 5:10 i tried the payphone again, but asked for help. ahh! i had been calling the country code which wasn't needed and i should have been calling 0. whatever. adbul answered, CHRISTIE, WHERE ARE YOU? i cried... where are YOU!? we had both been waiting over an hour - me at the west train station, he at the south train station. grrrrr. so he came and met me and all was well. much fun ensued.

(back story: i met abdul in 2003 when i was on a mission trip to hungary to teach english in a refugee camp. he was interested in talking with us americans and his english was good enough to do so. he asked us a million questions about christianity and jesus, so we became pretty close with him. he got all of our phone numbers and stayed in touch with most of us over the past 5 years. he has called me about every month for 5 years. that's more contact than i've had with some of my blog readers! some of my family! so, we're buddies. he has been living in vienna since 2003, is now an austiran citizen with an austrian passport, and he's a welder. fyi - he makes about $7000 a MONTH being a welder, so the refugee has surmounted his life's trials nicely, i think. this was a long awaited reunion and we were both very happy to finally lay eyes on each other again.)



abdul was kind of sick, but he insisted i come this weekend anyway. the first night was cold and rainy so we stayed in and talked. we made some phone calls to my friends and family for our own entertainment, but also for theirs (or yours). oh, and he has been learning to play a sitar for the past few months. here's some proof:





most things in europe are closed on sunday. abdul had to buy bread from a turkish shop as it was the only thing open. he cooked me eggs. it was actually eggs, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and salt, but he just called it eggs. we ate it afghan style - with our hands, using the bread as a spoon or something. it was fun and delicious!







i snapped some shots around vienna. great city! much cleaner than budapest. the people are obviously richer in austria than hungary. the clothes, the prices of things, and the attitude of people there all betray their financial security secret. the fun pictures are in Stephensplatz - stephen's place - where apparently all the vienna people go on sundays since it's the only thing open. there are street performers, street artists, and vendors of every kind.











this guy was moon walking, doing the robot, doing some weird cool slow motion thing, anything and everything! he had great crowd control and an excellent sense of humor. plus, he spray painted himself silver. come on!


this would have been cute if i would have opened my eyes. nice people gawking on the left, eh?




all this guy uses to paint is spray paint, metal circles, magazine pages, and his hands. um, wow. he had a lot of amazing pictures. we watched him for about 10 minutes while he painted this brown picture. wow, wow, wow.
(REMEMBER TO CLICK THE PICS!)







it's hard to explain what this (british) guy was doing. see that string he has? and there is some weird, plastic, hourglass-like thing on the string, well those things come off, they aren't attached. he would get them spinning on the string really fast, kind of like a yoyo, then throw them up in the air and catch them on the string - still spinning. he was hilarious! anyway, he threw those things higher and higher until they were so high we could barely see them and then BAM, catch them when they came down. i've never seen anything like it.



more of vienna... (CLICK THE PICS!)



there is a starbucks in vienna - it's the envy of many hungarians. this pic, though i am disgusting and tired in it, is for my starbucks addicted marlena...

oooh, night!




xander is the same in every country


clothes in vienna


abdul on a tram


xander on the train home

the girl who fed him

reka not eating - she is hungarian, living in vienna, and speaks english just a little. we had fun talking on the 3 hour train home. she offered me some pot, which i refused politely, she's 25 like me, gave xander her chinese food - a LOT of it, and we exchanged email addresses. she sang some song to me in english and taught me the words. it's hilarious like this: i like my shoes and my freaky pants, my blue jeans jacket and my chevy vams(?), i like my style and you like it too, you like it too, i know you like it too.


abdul was talking to his brother in greece instead of getting ready to take me to the train station. i missed my train. i took a later one. i got to budapest too late to go to nyiregyhaza that night. UGH! i called CETP teachers again. someone let me stay with them. jake and ellen. they rule. i was crying, sad, and very tired so i didn't take any pics of their awesomely huge flat and comfy bed all made up for me. got up at 5:30 am to go to nyiregyhaza. i needed to take a metro to the train station - but all my money was in euros now. hungarians don't take euros. i couldn't by a metro ticket. i wasted 15 minuted trying to before the metro nazis let me get on for free. i got to the train station 3 minutes before my train was leaving. it was already gone. WHAT THE!?!?!? so xander and i ate breakfast in the train station and waited an hour for the next train to nyiregyhaza. i got here at 10:30 am on tuesday instead of 9pm on monday. i missed my first class on tuesday, was late to my second class, and was very irritable.

there was a train crash between nyiregyhaza and budapest on monday. my train line, but not my train. 4 people died and 26 were injured. 2 of the dead were from my town, college students. it's very sad and i think i'm lucky to be alive. my coworkers were concerned that i was dead when i was late on tuesday. haha, no. thankfully.
(no pics from the second time in budapest because i hated it that time.)

anyway, i'm home. though i had an excellent time once i got where i was going, i'm not traveling for a while, i think.

leaving this town

xander and i are outta here! we're on the way to vienna for the weekend to visit an old friend. don't worry, pictures to come.

we are taking a train to budapest, crashing there somewhere, then going to vienna in the morning. i don't know what i'll do there, but i'll have good company. the friend i'm going to visit is a guy from afghanistan i met in a refugee camp in hungary in 2003. while that sounds terrifying, it's actually not. abdul and i go way back because he calls me about once every month or two. he knows all about my life, sisters, dog, job, etc. he says we're brother and sister. that's why i'm certain he won't try to kill me... or marry me.

today on a break between classes i rushed to the train station and bought the ticket to budapest. in hungarian, thank you very much. i hope it's alright.

see you soon! i'm packing up xander and my passport right this minute, then it's auf weidersehen!

this week so far

a colleague told me about a different mexican restaurant in town and i decided to find it. it was supposedly cheaper than the one across the street from my house. so off i went - on a bus - to find some mexican grub. so far in nyiregyhaza i hadn't been asked to show my bus ticket by the bus ticket nazis. in budapest they are everywhere, buses, trams, the metro, but here i was kind of surprised not to have seen any. then i rode the bus in the evening. i got on at the stop i always get on the bus from and sat down. some grubby lookin' guy dressed in navy coveralls walked from the back of the bus straight to me, and i saw him coming. when he got to me, in the middle of the bus, he whipped out his arm badge which really looks like the badges nazis wore on their arms, and started insisting people show him their tickets or monthly passes. i showed him mine but he didn't seem satisfied and said some stuff to me. i handed him my badge because i didn't know what he wanted. he just turned it over to the other side then gave it back to me. whew. safe.

i got off at a stop near my school where my colleague said the mexican restaurant was. i didn't see it. i went into a pastry shop i frequent and there was a man working there. usually there is a woman and she knows me, so i was bummed to see the guy. i asked him where is the mexican restaurant. he said voshvaree ootsah (my street - where i live!). i said, noooo, not voshvaree ootsah, this street. somewhere near here. i live on voshvaree ootsah and i know that restaurant, but it's not that one. it's here. he said, no no no. another customer came in, overheard our conversation and agreed that there wasn't any on the street where we were. i think he offered to take me to the one on voshvari ootsah. no no no. fine, thanks a lot. bye.

i asked a stranger on the street where was the mexican restaurant. he spoke english to me (!) and told me turn right and it will be on the left. i did and it was. dumb pastry shop guy. i knew there was one! sheesh.

there was a menu with hungarian and spanish all over it. i pointed to a picture or two and asked what things were. the hungarian speaking hungarian told me everything was good (of course). i asked what the chili con carne looked like and he went to another table, asked them if he could borrow their chili con carne, and brought it over to show me. what the?!?! i thanked him and the table, but didn't want that. i ordered nachos and he left me alone. a few minutes later he brought me the chili con carne AND the nachos. grrrrreat. it was probably my fault so i just tasted them both, took them both home in a box, and paid for way too much food. it might have been cheaper than the one by my house, but not if you buy two meals.

on the way home i stopped at a bus stop. the bus wansn't coming for 15 minutes so i decided to walk. as i did i saw one of my students and his two friends also walking. i said hi to him and they all walked me home for about 15 minutes. we talked and talked in english and they tried to convince me to buy them "pink cigarettes" when i go to vienna this weekend. i told them how smoking will kill them and i can't be part of that. they laughed and one girl was persistent. "if you buy me just one pack of pink cigarettes in vienna, i promise it will be my last cigarettes in my life." hahahaha. no.

i lost my phone. sad, sad, sad. i am in the process of replacing it. it's terribly inconvenient to lose your phone and all your numbers any time. i think i'm finding it more inconvenient in hungary than ever in the US. *sigh* at least i'm still alive.

BYE!!