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Bakery Strikeout
I just had my first strikeout at the bakery. I was working late at school, so I went across the street to the bakery (there is a bakery across the street from everywhere in this country). I spied a pastry that looked delicious. It looked like a croissant-type flaky thing with an apple/nutty filling and sugar granules on top. 100ft - not bad. So I got it. The "sugar granules" were actually salt, and the filling was actually warm sauerkraut. Surprise! I gave all but one bite of it to a homeless guy at the metro station.
Posted by neal on Oct 25, 2001 at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)
country life
Just got back from a lovely weekend in Sárospatak. (A quick Hungarian lesson - S is pronounced "sh", so this place is pronounced Sharo-shpot-ock. 'Patak (as we call it) is lovely. It's a town of about 16,000 in northeastern Hungary about 4 hours from Budapest. There are 2 Americans teaching there with ESI, so we went there to visit them. It was wonderful to get out of the city. The pollution in Budapest is pretty bad, but I am so used to it that I forgot how good clean, country air smells. 'Patak is in the middle of Hungarian wine country too, so vineyards cover the rolling hills. We visited a 1000 year old castle, and took a lovely hike through the vineyards and the fall colors to a nice lake in the hills. Judi and Christy (the teachers that live there) are fabulous hostesses, so we got great food too. They made a huge Mexican meal in honor of Dave's birthday. This was a special treat, because Mexican food just isn't available here. (A few restaurants here claim to serve Mexican food, but they are lying.) These girls, though, made the real deal. Delicious.
Posted by neal on Oct 24, 2001 at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
responsibility
I sent out a letter yesterday. In the letter, I said something about becoming more responsible because I'm a a teacher now. Well, I'm still a teacher, but you can forget about the "more responsible" baloney. Last night I proved that I'm still an above average procrastinator. I grossly underestimated the amount of time it would take me to prepare a lesson for my 13s, and I had to pull my first all-nighter as a teacher. I never imagined it would take 11 hours to prepare one lesson! Aye Carumba! As a student I stayed up all night many times, but this is the first time as a "responsible" teacher. I hope I'm not setting a precident for the rest of the year. As it turned out we spent the whole class finishing up a project from last week, so I never even used the lesson I stayed up to make. That's not bad though, it just means that I will be extraordinarily well prepared for next week's lesson.
I happy thing happened Monday. Several weeks ago I joined an international Bible study. There are about 10 folks in it; a couple guys from Cyprus, some Nigerians, a couple Hungarians, and a Norwegian. We decided that instead of studying the Bible, we needed to have a social evening to just hang out and get to know each other, so we went out for pizza. Now, you need to understand that Hungary is a nation of very quiet people. It's not uncommon for a metro car, with 50-60 people on it, to be completely silent. You all know that I am not a quiet person. This is a struggle for me. But Cypriots are loud too, and the Norwegian woman lived in The States for a few years. So we were loud. Very loud. We were so loud that people driving by in their cars were staring at us. It was wonderful to be be in the company of fellow loud people.
Posted by neal on Oct 18, 2001 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
Besplendored
"Besplendored" Why did that word pop into my head on the tram this morning? Words seem to do that to me. Now that I'm living in another country though, I treasure words like that. It's a daily struggle to hold onto my vocabulary. Any time I think of a multisyllabic word, I throw a little party in my head.
I had another thought about Hungarian culture this morning too. I passed by an expensive French salon on my way to work. I could see through the window that it was a high class place inside. The furniture all matched and it was newly decorated. The outside of the building was in sad shape though. Many of the roof tiles were cracked and the plaster of the walls was dirty and cracked. I thought to myself, "self...that would never fly in The States." Even though it's nice on the inside and I'm sure the service is good, the outside of the building just doesn't look nice. As I though about it, I realized that there are many other stores like that around here. There's a great new cafe near our flat that is clean, bright, has live music, delicious iced coffee, and good service. It's in the basement of a building that is otherwise dirty and nasty. I wonder if this is a metaphor for the Hungarian people. On the streets and in my school, people that wear the same old clothes every day are on an equal level with the folks that wear nice expensive clothes. Society is not divided along lines of appearance. It's as if the outsides just don't matter to these people. It's what's on the inside that matters. I wish I was more like that.
Posted by neal on Oct 18, 2001 at 07:12 AM | Comments (0)
Pork Chops
It's gorgeous here. I love it! Budapest is in the midst of a wonderful old woman's summer (that's the Hungarian version of an Indian summer). Fall is definitely here. The leaves are turning colors, and it's cold at night, but the days are bright, sunny, and the air is crisp. I haven't seen a cloud for almost 2 weeks. The hole city seems to in a good mood because of it. We have a three day weekend coming up, so several of us are going to the hills of northeastern Hungary to visit some friends. Maybe we'll do some camping too. Here's hoping.
I'm beginning to feel like I know what I'm doing sometimes. Yesterday, I went into a butcher shop and bought a sausage and some pork chops and I got exactly what I wanted on the first try. Yeah!
Posted by neal on Oct 16, 2001 at 07:14 AM | Comments (0)
Trick Observation
Here's another funny story from today. I was told before going to my 9/D.1s that some men would be in my class. I was told not to worry about though, because they were just working on the computer network. Actually, they were education majors from a local university. They were at Trefort to observe classes. So they sat quietly at the back and took notes on what I did. Luckily the kids were very well behaved today, they were on-task and quiet. I don't know why the guys were placed in my class. I guess that means I'm a teacher. Hahahahaha!
Posted by neal on Oct 3, 2001 at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
small bubble
The most exciting news here is that we got an answering machine. We still can't call anyone from our phone, but at least we can know if someone calls us, then we can go down to the pay phone at the corner and try to call you back. So try it out and leave us a message.
Here's some fun stories. First, a warm fuzzy...Today I got done with my lesson early in one class. So rather than try to invent something to do, I just figured we'd talk about something. So they started asking me questions. One of them asked my if I was planning to come to come back again next year to teach. I said I wanted to come back again next year and they all cheered. Yeah! That's a good feeling. I like those kids.
Next, I was on my way home from school. I was waiting at the tram stop for my tram. After 10 minutes, the crowd was getting antsy, we hadn't seen any trams come from either direction. We all knew something was wrong, but no one knew what was up. The tram stop is in the median of a 6 lane road. Then a bus pulled up to the curb on the far side of the road. Someone yelled something and the whole crowd ran across the busy road. Traffic had to stop because there were so many people in the road. We rushed the bus and piled into it and, I'm not kidding, fit 135 people (I counted) onto the bus. It was an amazing feat. I've never seen so many people in such a small, moving space. In typical Hungarian style, everyone was agreeable, helpful, and completely silent. I am really glad I'm not claustrophobic and have a small personal bubble.
Posted by neal on Oct 2, 2001 at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)