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The little things...
It's the little differences that catch me by surprise. Last night Paul and Stave and I decided to go see a movie. We found a English version of Antitrust (with Hungarian subtitles). We went to the theater and we all bought tickets separately- no problem. What we forgot, is that movies over here have assigned seats, so since we all bought our tickets separately, we were scattered all over the theater. Ha! Now we know.
Posted by neal on Sep 23, 2001 at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)
Where has the week gone?
Where has the week gone? I feel like it's almost over already. It went by so fast. This is the first week that hasn't crawled slowly past.
Today was a triumphant day. Today I feel successful, adjusted, confident, and organized. It started off poorly though. I woke up around 6:30 and suddenly realized that the 3 hours I had spent last night planning for a lesson today was a wash. The class I had planned for isn't until Friday. Doh! So I found myself with no plan for a 2 hour class that started at 9:30. Luckily I am fast becoming a good bluffer. I am quickly learning the art of letting the students run the class - or rather letting them think they are running the class - so I don't have to do all the talking. I just need to steer them gently through areas that I know and let them do the work. The class actually went well. We might even have covered too much material. The upshot is that tomorrow night I won't have to do any planning for my Friday class. Then I spent an entire period with my 9D-1s doing a dialogue where they did all the talking. Good stuff. Then we had a school meeting. It was a 3 hour meeting. It was all in Hungarian. This might sound like a bad thing. It wasn't though - we all had to be there, so I took advantage of the sequestered free-time ( I couldn't leave, but I couldn't participate either) to catch up on paperwork. I filled out all the grades, attendance marks, lesson plan records, and stuff I was behind on. I graded 2 tests, and cleaned the old papers out of my binder . I was incredibly productive. I left there very grateful for the meeting. After the meeting, several of us went to a Hungarian coworkers house to hang out. We sat around, drank a few beers, and talked about Hungary's transition from Communism/Socialism to Democracy/Capitalism. It was cool. Then I went to the supermarket and did some shopping. I actually found ground beef too!!!!!!! Here's the scoop on that - beef is only ground on request. You can't find it prepackaged. You've got to go to the meat counter and ask for a cut of meat, then ask to have it ground. They may or may not grind it depending on the weather, mood of their mother, or amount of Cheerios they had for breakfast. I happened to get lucky and the butcher I talked to was willing to grind. So I got half a kilo. I came home and cooked up a big juicy hamburger and loaded it up with lots of Heinz (I had to pay extra for the imported ketchup but it was worth it) ketchup. Delich! Now I'm sitting on the couch drinking a delicious glass ( well it's not actually a glass - we don't have glasses, we have old 500g yogurt containers) of pear juice. I love all the delicious juices that are available here.
So it was a good day.
Since I'm telling happy stories, I have a few from last week that I never put in here.
Wednesday morning I was on the bus, on my way to work. I was mulling of the terrorist attack the previous day. I was feeling really down, isolated, angry, and sad. I was just staring at the floor in front of my seat thinking about this stuff. I am beginning to pick up the Hungarian trait of not looking at anyone. OK, I guess people look, but no one acknowledges strangers. If there are only two people in a hallway walking opposite directions, they won't even lift and eye, nod a head, or acknowledge each other. So I was trying to blend in by ignoring the people around me (this is very difficult for me) when the bus pulled up to a stop. I was sitting right across the aisle from the door. I glanced out the open door and noticed and old guy on the sidewalk. He was wearing a blue coat, a bright red shirt, and a pleasant smile. He looked up at me and smiled. Because he's Hungarian and I don't know him, I figured he was smiling at someone else, so I looked away. "Ahem", he coughed, so I looked back at him. He saw me and perked up a little bit. I gave him a halfhearted smile and looked away again. He "Ahem"ed me again. I looked back at him and he smiled and nodded at me as if to say, "yes, you." I finally gave him a real smile and his face exploded in a wonderful, toothy, ear-to-ear grin. He started waving madly too. I just couldn't stop myself from smiling and laughing. He was so cute and so sincere. Then the bus doors closed and the bus drove off leaving the friendly old guy standing on the sidewalk. It was exactly what I needed at that moment. I has a silly grin on my face all morning thinking about it. Later that morning, as the grin was fading, someone near the school began to play accordion. It sounded like he was playing traditional Hungarian drinking music. To hear this music drifting across the schoolyard was great too. Accordions make me smile.
Yesterday I had "The Perfect Commute." Each time I approached a street, the crosswalk lights changed in my favor. At every tram stop and metro stop, the metro or tram pulled into the station just as I was getting there, so I never had to wait or even change my stride. I just got on. The trip took almost 20 minutes less than expected. Awesome.
Posted by neal on Sep 19, 2001 at 06:58 AM | Comments (0)
Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad
First, anyone who sees my folks or wants to talk to them, please wish them a Happy Anniversary. They have reached 33 years of successful marriage. Congratulations. Thank you for the the love and support you have given Joel and me.
Next, thank you to everyone who wrote or sent notes to me this week in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the US. Thank you for your concern and support.
We are all safe over here. I feel very disconnected from the "real" reaction to this whole mess. I don't know what my country is feeling, thinking, or doing. I know what the press says it's doing, but that's usually a far cry from reality. The Hungarian people are so used to being beat-up that they have very little reaction to this whole thing. They are very compassionate, but that's about it. So I really don't know how to feel. I want to grieve, to be angry, to help, to pray, to do many things, but there just aren't many people over here that can understand.
In the same way that in the US we can watch a war on another continent, say, "that's awful." and then forget about it in 5 minutes. I feel like that's going to happen here. While my country is going to be consumed in recovering from this blow, The country I'm currently living in is ready to move on. So those of us over here are being rushed through the experience and will soon move on and forget about it.
I don't know. I'm still trying to make sense of the whole thing.
OK, happy things happened this week too.
The biggest thing was that Paul and I got a flat. We finally have a place to live. This is a huge relief. We were going to be evicted from the other place on the 21st. Big thanks to Lavonne, Jared, Aniko, and Debbie for all their help with this. Wahoo! The place is great too. It's big - Kitchen, bathroom, dining room, living room and 2 bedrooms! It's closer to downtown Boody, but about the same distance from school. It's on the first floor (the first floor in Hungary is *actually* the second floor, they number 'em different over here) of a 3-4 story building on a nice, quiet street. I'll get some pictures of the place soon, so you can check it out too. One bummer is that we don't have a phone, and may not for a while. I'll keep you posted.
Posted by neal on Sep 16, 2001 at 07:01 AM | Comments (0)
What to say?
What to say? I don't think anyone knows what to say about the terrorist attack in the US. Of course my prayers are with everyone affected by the tragedy. I just learned that a good friend (Neil) of a good friend of mine (Steve) was in one of the towers with the plane hit. No one has heard from him, so everyone is just waiting and hoping and praying.
I think we all feel very isolated over here. We have all seen the the multiple-angle videotapes of the attack, but without being in the country, I feel like we can't really understand the impact.
The Hungarians I have talked to have a very interesting take on it. Of course they area all appalled, sympathetic and supportive. But the attitude missing from their reaction (and an attitude that is very strong in the US) is revenge. There is talk of justice, but not if revenge. Hungary has been the whipping-boy of Europe for thousands of years. They have lost almost every battle they have ever entered. The country is just so accustomed to being abused that they just accept it. So this attitude combined with ocean that separates us makes it all seem very surreal. If it wasn't on the headline of every newspaper in the city, it would be easy for me to believe it's just a bad movie.
I do feel safe though. Hungary is a very safe country, and as one of my students said, "No one will attack Hungary. Everyone likes Hungary, and besides, what would they attack, we don't have anything valuable here."
I pray that something good can come of this. That God can use this for something better then we understand.
In the midst of all this chaos, shock and grief, I have good news. We finally have a place to live! Whoo Ha! We met the landlord and signed the lease tonight. We'll probably move in this weekend. It's a very nice place. It's even bigger than the place we're in now. Get this! There's a baby grand piano in the living room! ha! I'll share more bout it later.
Posted by neal on Sep 11, 2001 at 08:04 PM | Comments (0)
Please no apples
I can't believe it's been a week since I wrote anything here. The last 7 days have gone by so fast. I suppose that since I've taught a week of school, I'm a seasoned teacher now. HA! Not really. Every day on my way to school, I think to myself, are these kids really going to listen to me today? Am I actually their teacher? I can handle the idea of teaching, but being a teacher carries much more responsibility and I don't always feel worthy. I do it anyway though, and hopefully when I see the students learning I will feel more teacher-ly. I just hope they don't bring me any porcelain apples that say " Teachers change lives" or some other cheesy encouraging phrase. I've never been one for collecting ceramic fruits.
I think I have learned more this week than I have taught. The 12s and 13s want to learn web programming like Perl, PHP, Javascript. I know only vaguely know this stuff, so with the help of a few smart friends, I've been cramming lots into my head.
Apart from academic learning, I've been learning a lot about Hungary and Budapest. Last weekend 5 of us took an overnight trip to Szeged to visit Stephanie. Her teammate, Kara, left for the weekend, so we took the train to sunny Szeged to keep her company. Train travel is so cool. I'm still in my honeymoon phase with public transportation here. The metro runs every 2 minutes during rush hour and my bus leaves every 6 minutes. So handy! I can usually get within a block or two of anywhere in the city on a bus, metro, or tram.
I do miss ground beef though. I'm sure it's around here somewhere, 'cause they have every other kind of meat, but I haven't seen it in any of the grocery stores I've visited. So if anyone wants to send me a care package, please include some ground beef. Thanks.
I also think the Hungarians are a bit obsessed with underwear and shoes. I think there may be more shoe stores in Budapest than people. They're everywhere. You can also buy underwear at many metro stops, train stations, sidewalk vendors and of course the underwear stores. I guess we have fast food restaurants on every block to match the Hungarians' shoe stores. We've all got our vices.
We're still looking for a place to live. We won't be kicked out of our current place for 2 more weeks, but we are supposed to have a new address by tomorrow. We are supposed to have proof of a domicile by tomorrow so we can register with the government. We need a rental contract to get our visa and residency permit. It doesn't seem very likely to happen. I know we will have a roof and walls; we can crash at other ESIers places if we have to. If we don't register with the government in time, we wont get our 1 year working visa which means we will have to leave the country every 90 days to get a new visa. Big hassle.
Something will work out. God'll take care of us. He always does.
Posted by neal on Sep 6, 2001 at 07:05 AM | Comments (0)