the lock thing

in my town there is a ... structure (for lack of the actual word) with a lot of padlocks on it. the tradition surrounding it is that couples attach a lock when they're in love and seriously committed. it's quite a sight, actually, because people decorate their locks with their names, dates, pictures, or inside jokes.

i think it's a fun idea... uncharacteristically so for the hungarians ;)

went to tata

another teacher, carla, invited other CETP people to her town to exchange lesson plans and have a get-together. i was excited to go because a)i'd never been there, b)i like carla, and c)i need some lesson plans that will work with my *lovely* kids.

stan (some sweet CETP guy) and carla, the hostess
who even let xander come along AND sleep on her bed for a while
then she took us on a little sight-seeing tour
and we saw the sights: the lake, the castle, the stuff around the lake and the castle
after the tour and the lesson stuff we went to dinner at some pirate restaurant - yum!
thanks again for your hospitality and lessons, carla!

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!

apple pie

this little thing, a piece of hungarian apple pie, inspired me to bake (something i don't do too often, but when i do, i really enjoy it). this hungarian treat is good, believe me, i just had to have a slice of america.

i mentioned it to lisa (another american in this town) and soon we planned to bake the pie at her workplace because it has a good kitchen.

she made the dough

then we peeled and sliced some granny smiths

and added the good stuff
(some little kid was there and kept coming over
to ask if she could have one more piece of sugar apple)

it smelled so good even before it was cooked!

we had a weird idea to also make some kind of apple turnover... for no real reason, either. we whipped up some dough, eyeballed the amounts of sugar and spices, then wished it luck

um, yum

i made that lattice top! my first one ever :)

all in all, it was a good idea and a great dessert!

the real truth is i'm american, not hungarian... in fact, as american as apple pie :)

wine time

this weekend i went to tokaj (the white wine region of hungary) with 3 french girls, 3 american guys, and a canadian.

we went to a nice winery and sat outside for a while, sampling the edes szamorodni (mmm, mm, good sweet wine) with some bits of cheese and bread.

behold!

later we hiked up the 'mountain/hill' to see what we could see from the lookout. it's not really a mountain, but it passes for one around these parts. there are two paths up the mountain: the red (hard) one and the green (easy) one. we went up the hard one (fun, fun, fun) and down the easy one - maybe the reverse of the plan i would have suggested.

THE mountain/hill (see? it's not really either, but something in between)

i didn't take any real pictures of the hard path up the mountain (not something i'm dying to remember) but here is something kind of like it. imagine it being a bit darker, a bit steeper, no leaves - but just dirt, and ten billion more trees to the right.

tokaj is the most famous wine region in hungary. they make sweet, dry, and dessert wines there...all white or rose. here are some of the great grapes... which we may or may not have sampled illegally on the way down the mountain. :D

a vineyard on the way down the mountain (the easy path)

a view from the easy path

some frenchies in a vineyard
there are two main rivers in hungary (the danube in budapest and the tisza in the eastern part of the country... where i live). here is one of them - the mighty tisza (tee-suh)

we had some wine in a wine cellar or two - kind of like this one (those barrels are the signature look of hungarian cellars...red rimmed and full of delicious wine!)

there are also restaurants in many cellars there. so you and your party can have a hollowed out cave room all to yourselves for your own private wine tasting extravaganza. i'm game!

P.S. readers: this has been the 100th post! thank you for your continued readership and commentship. if it weren't for you, i wouldn't be blogging at all. thanks for giving me a reason!