around the house

this is what the outside of my accommodation looks like, just fyi

gábor, the handyman
it's a fun word in hungarian "ezermester" (ezz-eR-mesh-teR) roll the R

when i moved into this house/flat/place i was given a brand new washing machine. that, in itself, is pretty fancy and i was very excited about it. i ran the washing machine as needed but never more than that and never at night. that was because it shook and screeched and walked across the room! i told the handyman about it, mostly about the shaking, so he came over and put a folded up piece of paper under one of the corners. that did nothing for the beast, of course, as it was violently shaking not just wobbling. this week i went to a friend of a friend's house and saw that he had the exact same washing machine. i told him the issue with mine and to my utter amazement he told me i needed to remove three long screws from the back of the machine. he even showed me the screws he had removed from his own machine. i explained to the handyman what was needed and he was as skeptical as i was about it. he always wants to help though, so he begrudgingly removed the screws. i thanked him and told him i'm sure it would be ok now, but he instructed me to wash a load and tell him if it all fell apart.

it didn't.

now it works like a champ,
is quiet as a mouse,
and stays as still as a
... washing machine

here are the mangy screws responsible for disturbing me and my pup
all is well in my humble, and i really mean humble, abode :)

family day (at kossuth)

the other day i was walking through the school yard (where i live) and saw people setting up a lot of tents. i asked the priest lady who lives next to me what's going on and she said the next day would be "family day" and students will come with their families and have a cook-off at the school. she said i should come (or at least make an appearance, as i have been sick the past week or so) and enjoy the food. i dropped by for about an hour, taking pictures at will.

the sweetest table

fried apples... though after they're finished they salt them (i would have guessed sugar)

"grilled" chicken - um, delicious!

a typical table with goulash, noodles/dumplings, pickles, kids

and anotherthe food was then judged by 5 or 6 very lucky people

the winning class gets custody of this wooden spoon trophy? for a whole year

after i left there was some traditional hungarian folk dancing (of which i've seen more than my share)

here is a look around at family day (i was talking to some hungarian and had to speak slowly and clearly, just ignore, please)


some boy band was there and the girls were going a little nuts. i didn't recognize them, of course, but they may have been a big deal since news cameras were there. or maybe the news people just came because there was nothing else going on that day. i never know, plus, i don't have a t.v. and wouldn't watch the news if i did! :)


i went back home (on the other side of the school yard) and listened to the music and slept a while. the flu -weather swine or otherwise- has been limiting my activities and interest. hopefully i'll be back to normal this week. sorry about the long break from posting... did you even notice?

the start of school

yesterday i taught in the catholic school, szent imre. the students were well-behaved, helpful, good english speakers, and seemed interested in class for the most part. the teachers helped me find the right classrooms, gave me materials, asked if they could help me, and even told me which bus to take home, when it left, and where the stop was. nothing was really unexpected except that i'll usually have 6 classes on tuesdays but yesterday i only had 3.

today i taught in the evangelical school, kossuth. there were several unexpected things: the concert that took up almost two classes, the time i was teaching a class of 31 students though it should have been 15 or 16 and two other teachers came in to figure out what went wrong, the two classes i taught where no one spoke ANY english at all, and the classes where my hungarian is better than the students' english. most of the students were well-behaved, helpful if i asked anything, and ... kind of nervous/terrified. i don't understand the division of classes yet, but hopefully i'll get it soon. the schedules haven't been completed yet (it's the second day of school) so teachers and students alike are confused and wandering the halls. until 2pm all classes are mandatory, after that they are optional for students. you can imagine how many students will come to those classes. we'll see how that goes. i only have 2 such classes.:)

i met another lektor (native teacher)this afternoon. we were both sitting in empty classrooms waiting for our students. her name is amelie; she's the french native teacher. we're going out tonight as we are not hungarian and that's an instant bond. there is a big music festival in town this week (vidor fesztival! - joyous festival) where groups from all over come to play and sing. the city center is packed every night and the concerts go on until about 11. should be fun.

hortobágy - the hungarian plain

i was lucky enough to be invited to the hortobágy (whore-toe-bodge) by another CETP teacher last week. we were met by her contact teacher, kata, and kata's boyfriend, bill (a british guy who has somehow managed to live in hungary for 20 years) and we all went on an 'excursion' to the great plains national park.

the horse drawn wagon

the famous hungarian longhorn cattle

(pay no attention to the german woman talking throughout the video. she said some interesting stuff, i'm sure, but with her thick accent and my inability to focus through the wind and rain, i didn't catch much of it.)

kata and carla

mangalica pigs - they have curly hair, they're raised for their meat, usually for sausages, which is very low in cholesterol and apparently pretty tasty. (german-hungarian lady pictured)

me and carla

we stopped in the hortobagy restaurant and had a traditional hungarian meal. of course i started it off with some gulyas, which was delish!

in some places we were allowed to get out of the wagons to look around and take pictures.

little did we know that it would be the coldest and rainiest day of the summer... there were some italian people in our wagon with us. they had some little kids who were miserable in the wind and rain but took it like champs and had a good time anyway.

after the hour-long ride we looked through the shops and stands of the semi-annual market they hold there. it was slim pickins since the weather was so bad. we also stopped in some little old lady kiosks along the way. here are some traditional handmade things...

hand carved longhorns (for over $500!)

doilies, table cloths, whathaveyou

pottery shop

a good day: a bit damp and a bit freezing, but good company and good attitudes made up for it tenfold. i was glad to spend time with an american, happy to meet a nice hungarian lady, and amused at the britsh guy's antics, opinions, words, and accent.

out with the old, in with the new - schools

today i went to my two new schools (szent imre and kossuth - you might as well learn the names because i'll have to differentiate between them all year).

magdi (who has been like a contact teacher for me so far, as she has taken me to the immigration office, helped me with paper work, come to my old school and translated for me at kossuth), an english teacher at kossuth, took me to szent imre today to meet with the principal/headmistress. when we arrived all the teachers were in a beginning-of-the-year meeting so we hung out in the hall for half an hour talking. when the meeting was over we went into the teachers' room for a party, as one of the english teachers is retiring and so threw a party - kind of a goodbye party for herself :) - for the teachers. gifts and kisses, food, cakes, drinks, the whole bit. i was also introduced to the staff at this party and given a plate (that had a deviled egg with sour cream sauce on it already). they seemed nice enough. several teachers came up and introduced themselves to me and some invited me to go get coffee/smoke with them. as i'm not a huge coffee drinker and i don't smoke... i went anyway. i had time to kill before meeting the boss lady. after "coffee" (and by that i mean ginger ale) a nice rita showed me around the school. we arranged for me to get reimbursed for a bus pass, to get lunch tickets, i saw the copy room, library, cafeteria, computer room, and language room. szent imre is a catholic school, recently partially renovated/updated, and clean. i noticed crucifixes in each room (not just class rooms, but every room) and there is a chapel on campus. it has three floors, one main building for classes and a really big dorm for students to live in (i was offered a room in the student hostel, but declined as it wouldn't have been good for xander... or me...). the headmistress was busy with meetings and couldn't meet with me, as it turned out, but that's ok. i'm used to this hungarian-ness by now. i was told i'll get my schedule on the first day of school, as will the other teachers. ON the first day. oy. i'll mostly be teaching 10th graders, with 3 classes of 9th, 2 or 3 11th grade classes, and one class of school leavers (seniors/12th graders). some of my classes will be "zero level" students who are learning english intensively (15 hours a week). this may the first time to study english for some of them! anyway, i'll be there on tuesdays and thursdays.

i took a bus back to kossuth (the school where i live) to find out what i could find out. the teachers in the staff room ignored me when i went in purposely looking confused and lost. i went to the assistant principals' office instead hoping one of them would speak english. one did! idk his name, but when he started speaking in english i seriously thought he was "doing" an accent because it was so thick and different from a typical hungarian accent. anyway, i said something like, "i have questions" and he jumped up to help. i asked and found out when the first day of school is (importnant, no!? and it's different than szent imre's first day... weird.), the opening ceremony, when we're leaving for prague on wednesday (4am, btw), and where my desk is in the teachers' room. that's about it, but that was the stuff i wanted to know, so, it's all good. kossuth is an evangelical school, also three stories, there's no chapel but we'll attend chapel services in the big yellow church.

i almost cried several times during the day. even though i'm in the same city i can already tell that life will be really different this year. that's not to say that it will be bad, just different. i had a really good introduction to hungary being at zrinyi last year and it's possible it will be hard to beat. i forgot how sucky it feels not to know anyone and not to have anyone know me. actually, i've moved once a year for the past 6 or 7 years, so i know how to start a new life, but this is the one time i haven't wanted to move and change, but i had to. i still have high hopes for the year and know it will be a good and unique experience. even for me, someone who likes, even craves change, change is still hard. the weird thing is that it all hit me today. not all the goodbyes from students, not the last day of school, not when i cleaned out my desk this summer, not when i signed the contracts at the new schools or when i signed a completion of contract paper at zrinyi, not even at my farewell party (another post), but today. the ushering in of new faces, new buildings, new everything, that's what made it real.