MORE MONEY! MORE MONEY!

there is something horrible happening in hungary. civil servants, including teachers, police, firemen, etc. will be bearing the brunt of the economic crisis alone as the prime minister and the other powers that be decided to freeze the current salaries and withhold the 13th month salary (which is what most of these people depend on to make ends meet). everyone is outraged. so, they staged a protest in budapest this weekend. and i was among the protesters!

a few teachers from my school and a bunch from my city met and boarded some buses for the 3 hour ride to the capital. we met at 6:30am... so, no pictures of that.

don't worry. teachers brought palinka (really strong hungarian liquor) for the bus

we stopped a couple times at gas stations for the facilities and to get hot coffee or whatever.
aniko' and i waited outside in the snow/rain for the ladies' room with a million other ladies.
ooooh, taking pictures in line. it was all we could to to keep from freezing.
we drove past parliament before the big demonstration. see how it's all empty? remember that.
aw, these are some coworkers of mine. margo' and miklos (no relation) were jolly protesters.
when we arrived at the starting point (oh, there was a short march which ended at parliament) they gave us little flags that said civil servants' union or something like that. our flags also said something about teachers. here we are not yet frozen. aren't we cute?

we were so cute, in fact, that some camera man was video taping what can only be described as ... well, me. so i took his picture, too... to return the love. too bad it's blury. he seemed annoyed.THEN they (the ministry of education people... i think) gave alllllllllll the teachers these precious little smocks! i wore it proudly because it said teachers' union or whatever on it... and plus... free smock! (someone may or may not have kept her smock and gave it to me as a keepsake.)
here is smock-ed up aniko' with her little flag and umbrella.
aniko' (2) and tama's (thomash), some engaged coworkers of mine. they are so fun!
some people brought their own signs. this one says something like what else can you take, or something. i forget. but there is a saying in hungarian about people's pay being so low the frog can crap it out, or something. so, haha. clever magyars.
teachers civil service, NYIREHYHA'ZA (my city) city and surrounding - i took these strangers' pictures, and look, some of them even smiled!!! look even more closely and you will see the guy in the middle is wearing a tamba bay lightning cap. WHOA. 2 florida things in one week.
so, we stood around listening to speeches for a while. aniko' 1 got bored and stuffed people's flags into aniko' 2's smock. she didn't know, and when we told her she was not amused. i was.... :)
ahhh, this is parliament when we were there! it was nowhere near empty now! there were probably 5,000 people there. ok, i have no idea how many, but it seemed like a million.










well, who WOULDN'T take a picture with hungarian firefighters, i ask you!?!?
more emergency people...
more... with their own little smocks... so organized.
and some more nice fellas posed with me... making an american girl's dreams come true.
there were buses and people from all over hungary! none of these are our buses. :(
while we waited tama's suggested he take my picture in front of the danube. so, sure. why not.

parliament, firemen, me, danube

heroes square - it's sort of a big deal tourist spot in budapest. statues of hungarian heroes. in fact, i can name like 10 hungarian heroes because EVERYthing is named after the same people.
aniko' refused to let me sleep on the bus home, so i made her take pictures. i think it's fair. i'm pretty sure she's not gonna like this one of her (she doesn't like any of her pics). oh well.
who knows what will come of this demonstration. we are supposed to hear the response tonight, if there is one. as of right now, though, there is a STRIKE scheduled for january 12th. woohoo, my first protest and my first strike! i love hungary!

you can read about it HERE

Let it SNOW!

when i woke up on tuesday it was unusually bright in my room. i went to the window to investigate and was met with this!
this is the tree directly behind my apartment (it was full of beautiful fall leaves a few weeks ago)
(if you want to recall what my backyard looked like, you may view the video here at 1:51)

a short video i made in the morning.

xander ended up going potty on the sidewalk because there was no way i could get him in the snow.


this is the park and statue i pass all the time when i walk around town

can you think of anything less likely for me to see in northeastern hungary on a snowy day?!?! (that is a FLORIDA license plate)

oh, i see this graffiti everyday. it makes me chuckle a little so i finally took a picture.

snowball fight at school between classes, how fun! i have never done that...

so i had a good "first snow" day. in texas, the few times it has snowed since i lived there, there was not a noteworthy amount of snow, only a light dusting of all surfaces. this was hardcore mushy, cold, wet, icy, pretty, fluffy, thrilling snow.

Szerencs - with Laura and Reagan ROUND 2

this weekend i went to szerencs again to see laura and reagan. this time i went for a weekday so i could see their school, too!

this is xander on the train on the way there.

getting tired...

what!?

after i arrived safely in their town, about an hour's train ride, we decided to go to lunch. unfortunately their town is pretty small and there isn't a huge variety of places to eat. i think i'm sick of pizza, so i asked about going to "Buffalo Bill's", a swanky little place they have in szerencs. we braved the cold and wind, walked a couple miles, and found ourselves in a cool little restaurant with a native american/cowboy theme.

soups came first. goulash for reagan...

"meat soup"for me, though it had noodles and veggies, too

i ordered chicken wings and fries. it was delish!

they brought me a separate water bowl with a lemon floating in it so i could clean my fingers. i also had a bone plate. that's how Buffalo Bill's rolls.

laura had some breaded turkey strips, but they were a little bland for her taste. she asked for some kind of sauce and they brought tartar. it was a no go. then the waitress brought a basket with all the sauces they have. one of them was real life barbecue sauce. she was very happy!

this is me and Buffalo Bill... i thinkafter eating we shopped in a store for a little bit, caught a taxi home, and set to work to help/watch reagan with her powerpoint presentation on american christmas. she took this picture of me.

this is proof that the powerpoint presentation existed.

the next morning that very computer you just saw died a horrible death. some messages about "deleting physical memory" and "no rebootable material" and "your computer is dead forever, say goodbye to all your pictures from the last three months in europe" came up and it was game over. sometimes life sucks for no reason.

on monday i went to school with them! classes were fun because of the little cutie kids. i observed a 2nd grade, 5th grade, and 7th grade class.

some boys doing a skit (7th grade had skits due the day i was there!)
a sign in one of the classrooms: he that doesn't know is not stupid, it is he who doesn't want to know who is stupid (translation courtesy of a cute little 5th grader)



in between classes there are 10-15 minute breaks. here is what happens when the children are unsupervised (6 times a day!). omg.


before i left laura gave me a bunch of books, index cards, and supplies she's not using. on the trainride home i looked through them all. there were some hungarian/english dictionaries and flash cards, so i quizzed and taught myself because why not.

other than the computer crashing and the freezing weather, it was a good trip. i'm glad i got to see what it is like to teach in a hungarian elementary school. the other teachers there were nice and some reminded me of my very own colleagues. i hope i can visit that school again some time.

lately

this week i attended a party for a kid i don't know who passed an advanced english exam. he studied in a language school for several years with my little brigi and ma'lna. so they were going to the party, as well as agi (who was their language school english teacher). it had an "english" theme so it was at a teahouse. oh, i mean english, like british english, not just english the language. in theory we were all gonna speak english and have a lovely time. in reality, i'd say it was 95% hungarian. eh, no big deal. after all, it is hungary.

i ordered warm apple tea, or something like that. and this is how it came! that little bowl is sugar crystals, i think it was infused with some kind of other flavor. a few times i saw a certain hungarian eating her sugar right out of the bowl with her little spoon. she may even have taken a spoonfull of some other hungarian's sugar when he wasn't looking. just maybe.

here is the group. i talked with the crouching guy, zsolt, most out of all the kids. of course agi would translate important things for me. she really couldn't be any sweeter. it's impossible.

this was zsolt's tea. some argentinian "mate" tea. whatev, it was such a cool presentation.

agi brought along scotland yard (the boardgame) so the guys played it most of the time. i played a round too. i didn't find it interesting, but at least when i played they spoke a tad more english.


brigi and ma'lna and i still have lessons every tuesday. we have a book now, which means homework. sad. i don't have the teacher's edition (YET!) so it really makes me feel dumb when i don't know all the terms for english things (phrasal verbs, connectors, etc.). i'm looking into getting the book fast... so i can at least tell them if they did the assignments right.

uh, could we BE any cuter?

and why shouldn't we have a photoshoot in our private lesson!?
brigi, me, ma'lna

i went to dinner at a mexican restaurant with a private-student-turned-friend the other night. i've now been to this place three times. but when i asked a coworker for a suggestion of where to eat she told me some hungarian name. turns out it USED to be called that, but it was recently renovated and is now las palmas, the place i had already been. whatever, oh well. it's good food.

we shared some chicken tacos, salad, and rice. pretty mexican mexican food, for hungary.

(i look retarded, sorry)

i ordered some summery drink, which wasn't all that great, but we shared.

fondue! look how pretty! well, it was sooooo delish. chocolate can't miss.

in other news, the mex restaurant across the street from my house has been closed for like 3 weeks. someone mentioned to me that it closed down permanently; bankruptcy. well, i was so sad since it's good, inexpensive, and so close. then, out of the blue it opened this week! i heard the music and saw the lights from my window. the place has been packed all week. i went back too and got something to go, mostly because i want to patronize the place and keep it open. so did everyone else, i guess. i saw one of my students and her parents there. i introduced myself to them and told them their daughter is cool. well, she is. and so is "mexicana."