birthday weekend

on saturday, december 5th, i headed over to my favorite little family's house: annamari, eszter, dani, zoli, and mama. they prepared a lovely lunch of baked chicken, bacon-wrapped liver, fried potatoes, and a vegetable medley for us. then they surprised me with a great hungarian culinary book (with recipes, stories, legends, and insights), some candy, and then a sparkling cake.

see?

a friend of mine gave me a bunch of children's books in english so i could pass them on to this family. eszter and i read about half of them together. there were some really cute ones, some strange ones, and one that played the chorus of 'deck the halls'. i hate that book... eszter loved it (perhaps the two are connected).

afterward we decided to make some makeshift puppy chow. there is no chex mix in hungary, so we improvised and used something called millet balls. they're bland like checks, but round and not quite tasty enough (in my opinion). cereal would be better, but who cares.

we melted chocolate (bar, not chips) and peanut butter ($7 a jar!)

until it looked and smelled greaaaat

we put it in a ziploc bag (provided by liz) and shook and mushed it aroundwe laid it out to dry, powder sugared it, and nibbled on it for a bit as we played in the house.

later, the lektor from a nearby town, KIM, came to town to help me celebrate. i got a call to meet up with one of my former students, rudi, who was in town for the weekend. so the three of us went to the city center. first we walked around the christmas market (POST TO FOLLOW), then had dinner at a restaurant on the pedestrian street in the center. kim has only been here a month, so she's tasting hungarian food for the first time. how fun!

here she is with her first goulash ever

and rudi with his first peanut brittle ever (idk why it's twisted into a pretzel, but it tasted like what i'm used to in regards to peanut brittle)

here i am with my favorite soup! continued happy birthday to me!

later, after rudi went home, kim and i went to another place to have a drink and relax with some live music. the band was a couple, a man and woman, who sang well and spoke english. we made some requests, sang along loudly (as there was only one other occupied table in the big restaurant, and had a great time.

when the guy took his break we invited him over to our table. we chatted with him for a while and he was soooo sweet. isn't he cute?we went to mcd's for breakfast in the morning, since kim doesn't have one in her town. then we hit the shops, the streets, and even a pizza place in late afternoon. it was a great weekend.

thanks to all who made it all it was. life is gooooood.

birthday week

this week i was a bit under the weather, but once i got better the week really got going.

i spent the big day well, i think. in the morning i had a private lesson with olga (post to follow on private students). it was her birthday last week and her husband surprised her with a trip to the opera house in budapest. so we talked about birthdays past and other random things. it was enjoyable though we were both a bit distracted for some reason or another.

then i was whisked away to lily's parents' workplace to help her with the book (post to follow). we finished translating it today!! that's a huge accomplishment, as it has taken about three months of meeting twice a week for hours on end. lily's family and their coworkers gave me a nice welcome when i walked in today. first they all sang to me in english! that was truly unexpected as none of them speak english. then we celebrated with cherry palinka (fruit brandy). it's very strong and doesn't taste much like fruit to me (more like a cleaner of some kind) but i politely asked for half a glass and downed it in a few gulps. then there was a selection of cakes, cookies, and fruit. i partook in a little chocolate covered jam filled cookie pair. such as this:
there were also cream cakes... YUM! but i restrained myself.
lily gave me some fun presents too: a bath wash/lotion/soap pack, a marzipan hat cookie (?), some delicious smelling perfume and body splash (La Senza... love it!), and a pink stuffed bear with a hat, pearls, and a ribbon. when you squeeze its hand it sings - and i mean its lips move -L is for the way you look tonight...
after lily and i FINISHED THE BOOK, they took me home where not long after aniko came to pick me up. she treated me to a lovely dinner at a new restaurant in town. i ordered a bowl of broccoli cream soup.
i was glad i did, too... 'cause we had to wait a lonnnng time for the food.
here i am with my lasagne and green beans (my choice to put them together)
aniko, afraid of cameras, posed with her turkey and grilled veggies
(another view of my memorable lasagne)
we were so stuffed that we decided to walk around the city center for a while...

we even headed to tesco to do some grocery shopping. sadly, this is the best picture of her from the night...she gave me something i had been wanting for a long time for my birthday. a new clothes drying rack! the one i have is very lame, a bit broken, wooden and prone to giving my clothes splinters... and i hate it. this one will change my world; i'm sure of it!

i have an online friend, michelle, who also helped me celebrate today by mailing me real english chocolate and a sweet card. it was such a welcome thing: mail and chocolate? can't beat that.

the festivities aren't over just yet, but even if they were i'd say i had a great 27th birthday.
my friends and family, even people i haven't heard from in ages, sent birthday wishes on facebook. the internet is cool for so many reasons... and that's certainly one of them.

and plus...(look what ashlee did.)

thanksgiving

joyce, my replacement at ZIG, invited me to go to debrecen (a bigger city a couple towns away) with her and her daughter for thanksgiving. the "american corner" was having a celebrations with none other than a bunch of americans! i was feeling particularly sick of the hungarian language, as i use it all the time, and was craving english fellowship. so, off we went on a train.
there were a bunch of strangers there, obvisouly, since i don't live there, but we had a fun time chatting and eating. it was potluck, so there was a wide variety of food.















here is my plate








then of course there were a ton of desserts. here were the most interesting ones. waffles with chocolate sauce to dip them in and a peachy cheese cake. nice!

at the end of the meal some scotish guy who had spent a lot of time in the US (i could tell from his accent) sang some typical american songs (or what he thought were typical american songs) and - no kidding - we had a sing along... with words on the screen overhead and everything. it was weird, but enjoyable. i've been asked by hungarians if there was dancing. no. no, there wasn't. that's not how americans celebrate stuff, silly hungary.

weekend shenanigans

this weekend i met up with some lektors in my town. tara came from her village a few towns over, kim - a new lektor fresh from teaching in hong kong and japan- came over from her slightly larger village, sean, a teacher in debrecen-a decent sized city about 45 minutes away made the train ride, and andrew, another lektor in nyiregyhaza, walked into town.

we stopped off at a brick oven pizzeria to get some delicious chow. while i didn't take pictures of our yummy broccoli, chicken, and corn pizza, i did snap a shot of the baggies our silverware came in. it says 'bon apetit' in hungarian, something you can never start a meal around here without saying. look how cute the little pizza man is.
we talked a bit, getting to know each other, ordered some diet cokes and ate. soon the boys left to go take their stuff home, so the girls headed to a cafe for dessert and more talking.
we had some cakes, sweets, and tara treated herself to some hot white chocolate. yum!


then sweet kim had to leave to go to her school's ball (mine is this weekend!), so tara, sean, andrew and i headed further into town to the ice skating rink. it's open from november to march, so we had to squeeze in at least one trip there.

after paying, renting skates, putting them on, and putting our stuff at the coat/purse check, we were ready. tara and me, that is. the boys couldn't be bothered to ice skate, though that had been the plan since before we met. oh well, we were off. after a lap or two i noticed my friends eszter and annamari making their way around the rink. soon i joined them, as it was eszter's first time (and annamari's second!). skating, like many other things, is more fun with kids.

tara, eszter, and me
boys who couldn't be bothered (andrew and sean) :)

me, eszter, and annamari- bundled up and having funwe went out for some drinks and more chatting. tara spent the night and left in the morning. sunday afternoon i went over to eszter and annamari's house to play in english. we read some books, played in her tent, watched some youtube cartoons, and had dinner. they're such fun.

eger - with lektors!

we didn't choose the best weekend to go to eger, as it was wet and cold, but we had some fun!

here are tara and kim getting some kürtőskalács. kim is new to hungary this year so this was her first taste of the doughy goodness!

the eger castle

tara and megan playing on the castle playground

some pathway around the castle

castle roofy room thing

the castle and the city

megan peeped through the binocular thign

kim and tara were a little loopy

the skyline - that pencil thing is called a minaret. a skinny little tower

church and such

aww, hungary

the minaret (from the castle)

walking up the minaret's stairs

at the top. tight fit!minaret on a clearer day

xander came along. carla liked him.... but he didn't really like herthe church at night

the first wine cellar we went to (mold on the walls, coins pressed into the mold)

second cellar

third cellar, gypsy music to set the mood

wine lady pouring into my mouth, dry white wine (not my thing)hot wine is all the rage in eger. here is a bird... dispensing it through with his beak

this was us for most of the weekend
i'm glad we went. there was a lot of climbing and walking in the rain, but there were good experiences, good food, and good company that more than made up for it.