spring in nyiregyhaza

in the city center flowers are springing up everywhere!

here is something interesting in our city center. there is this weird jungle gym-like thing with a ton of padlocks on it. it seems that when people (many teenagers) begin a relationship they put a padlock on this. theoretically it might be meant to "lock" their love. some student said she and her boyfriend threw away the key to their lock. i suppose if you keep the key when the relationship ends you can go retrieve your lock. but i don't know anything, really.

here is the old train car that people sometimes reference as a landmark. in the background you can see the roman catholic church (... i think ...) which is uniquely Nyiregyhaza.

when the weather gets warmer the clothes come off. also, there is more PDA than there has been in recent months. spring is so cool.

there are a few other CETP teachers in my neck of the woods. these two, mike and judy, are married but judy lives and works in my town while mike lives and works in a nearby town and comes home on the weekends. whenever we can we get together and visit, swap stories, talk in american english, and practice hungarian (judy is fluent in it as her mother was hungarian). it's great! i'm glad to have them around when i need to hear someone say "pants" or "apartment" or "principal" or "elevator."

mike and judythe other day a recent addition to the CETP program came to our town to meet the three of us other americans. mostly she wanted to escape her tiny little village and have some company. the four of us (mike, judy, me, and penny) walked around the salt lake, ate at an adorable little restaurant, meandered all over the city by foot and by bus, even got some gelato from a real italian. it was a beautiful day and i enjoyed the company.

here i am with penny

tokaj

in hungary there is a famous wine region that produces famous wine. the city is tokaj, the wine is tokaji bor. i had heard about this wine and this place, but never visited.

until this weekend...

annamari, zoli, eszter, and dani were taking a day trip to the town because the weather was so lovely. i was invited to tag along and jumped at the chance. so we headed to the town about 20 minutes' drive from our city.

one of my fist glimpses of the mountain which would be our destination (see the tower on top?)through the town on the way to the mountain

vineyards

mountain

mountain and vineyards

the town, mountain, and vineyards

on the way up the mountainview from the top!

the tower up close... and zoli, of course

view from the top (on the other side)

we walked down the mountain a bit, just because

after the mountain we headed back into tokaj to see a wine cellar. there was a tiny hitch as it was a sunday and a lot of stuff was closed. luckily we found a cellar that was open. it looked like a regular little house on the outside, but inside there was a whole world under there! the one we went in has a restaurant in there.

here is a private room for a wine party. ooooh.

here is the most delicious wine i've ever tasted

the walls of the cellar are lined with centuries-old mold. it makes for a unique (not in a good way) smell, but it's also the reason the wine is so great. so, mold on! they keep the wine in huge barrels and when you want some, a guy, much like the one in this picture, syphons some out with that glass thing he's holding, and pours it into your glass.

see all the barrels and the mold??

zoli and annamari even bought me a bottle of the good stuff. :D


there are two rivers that meet in tokaj, so we walked along them and enjoyed the spring. i'm not gonna lie, we should have eaten before we tasted the wines because we ladies were feeling a bit dizzy/happy on the walk.

here's the bridge we hung out on after we got some ice cream

hungary family 3

(she's gonna hate this post)

here is anikó trying to pose like i do for photos:

one of my colleagues, Anikó, and i have become pretty good friends. maybe it's because we're single women, maybe it's because we're english teachers, or because we're so funny. i like to think it's because we're kindred spirits. either way, we spend some quality time together each week and i couldn't be more thankful for it, or for her.

when liz came here for christmas, we were invited to spend christmas day at anikó's house with her and her mom.

anikó's mom, marika

liz and anikó

marika took this picture, that would be her finger in the upper left

anikó and her pretty tree (they are customarily not as full as the trees we have in the US)

then for easter anikó invited me over again. not just anyone gets invited over to people's houses for holidays, do they? so she picked me up and took me to her house where we joined her mom, her sister, brother-in-law, and niece for a lovely easter lunch. the following day was her mom's birthday, so i even gave her some birthday kisses and wishes. after lunch i was happy to help clean up with marika (her mom). we tag-teamed the dishes and had them done in no time. (it's nice that the language barrier isn't a problem while during chores.) then anikó and i pumped up the tires in her bikes and went for a long bike ride through her village to a lake and back. it was a lovely spring day and i was happy to be out enjoying it. on the way home we stopped in at her sister's house and chatted with her for a bit. in true hungarian form she couldn't resist offering us food (though i was still stuffed from lunch, even after the bike ride). she also showed me her greenhouse and the billions of lovely flowers she and her husband grow. i was given a freshly picked bouquet of carnations and calla lillies. i asked anikó if her sister always gives her flowers, but she said no, in fact she doesn't, they're just for you!

about once a week anikó and i have coffee in the teachers' kitchen together. on tuesdays (not every tuesday, but most) we go to the YMCA-type place and swim laps together and steam ourselves in the sauna (which she enjoys much more than i do). we also take semi-regular shopping trips, gas runs, and she has driven me home more times than i can count. when i was homesick and really sad she postponed her plans for the evening to come have dinner and a talk with me. i was so touched.

the other day at a store we ran into our vice principal and his family. she introduced me to his wife as the english lecturer and her half sister. that made me smile for two reasons: one was because i could understand it, and the other because it's nice to know the feeling's mutual.

hungary family 2

in december i went to a teacher party to celebrate christmas and the end of the first semester. there i met an english teacher from my school who is on maternity leave (which can last a few years) and has two small children. her name is annamari and i found her fun, charming, and un-hungarianly friendly. we talked for a while and she invited me to come to her house and play with her 3 year old daughter, whom she is teaching english. i agreed to do it sometime, why not.

a while later she called to set up a meeting with her daughter. since then i have gone to their house almost every weekend to play with her kids, eszter (esther) and dani (donny). eszter has just turned 4 and dani is a cute little 1 year old. when i visit eszter and i read books, play outside, dance, watch movies, play silly games, make up stories, and just have a ton of fun.

one thing i like about going to their house is that it's like being part of the family. in the house there is annamari, her husband zoli, her mom (whom i just call grandma, i think), eszter, and dani. we all gather for a homecooked hungarian lunch each weekend. i like that i get to eat delicious traditional food without cooking or paying for it. :D i also like listening to the hungarian being spoken but having annamari there to translate if i need it.

silly

getting ready to go to the playground

readin'

the little cuties (this was my desktop for a while)

dani likes to read upside-down, i guess

eszter just likes to BE upside-down (i was wearing her hat)

slidin'

we went to "salt lake" together and saw some fish

and walked around

brother and sister - in a box

there's dad! zoli is so good with them

aw, eszter was helping grandma make some food

grandma joins in the fun some times too
box dani

eszter dressed up for farsang at school, little butterfly

there they are! isn't this a fun hungarian family?