Vienna and Dublin Part 1

Train travel makes me anxious. I can't help it, being basically illiterate and only having basic speaking skills in Hungarian adds a whole new level of difficulty to navigating public transportation. Thankfully, Maggie not only drive me to the train station, she also helped me purchase my ticket as well as the two extra tickets needed for the IC and Railjet sections of my journey. It took three trains to get to Sopron but I made all my connections so life was good. The train from Gyor to Sopron was a little crazy because it split up and only two cars went to Sopron. Luckily, saying Sopron? with question intonation worked and I knew I was on the right section of the train.

I had an hour and a half to kill before Kristen arrived but the station had wifi! I ended up skyping a friend who is teaching in Japan for a while and then watching Wednesday's episode of Happy Endings (great show).

Kristen made it on time and we waited for a bit and then boarded the train to Vienna. I was surprised that our passports were never checked either at the ticket counter or when we arrived in Vienna. After a bit of mix up regarding where the bus to the airport was we figured it out an arrived at the airport hotel where we would spend Thursday night with no other problems.

The hotel was nice but they originally had us in a smoking room with one bed instead of a non-smoking room with two twin beds. The situation was resolved and we ended up in a nicer room before heading to the airport to get dinner. Kristen and I ordered a gnocchi dish and a pizza and split them. The food was delicious, especially because I was feeling a little light headed from not really eating much during the day.

After dinner we headed back and I passed out around ten. Traveling exhausts me even when I'm just sitting on trains or in train stations all day.

This morning we woke up and headed back to the airport, this time to catch our flight. I had a moment of panic where my carry on wasn't fitting in the luggage measurement thing, but I shoved it a couple times and the guy let me slide saving me a 30 euro charge to check the bag.

The Vienna airport has a TON of really nice duty free shops after you get into the boarding pass only area. Kristen and I ended up grabbing breakfast and I got a Carmel macchiato and a bagel sandwich. (side note: I have missed bagels since coming to Hungary. I got some from Emily after I visited her but they just aren't really available normally) The sandwich was actually pretty good, the herbed cream cheese spread was particularly fantastic.

After breakfast there was more waiting as you can't go through security (which is right before your gate) until the previous flight has cleared out. Unsurprisingly, I got patted down as an extra security measure. The last few times I've flown it's happened, so I've given up being annoyed. Strangest thing was, there was a kid playing with a lighter while we were waiting for the plane, so they must be allowed past security here. Maybe because so many people smoke in Europe?

Only bad thing about the flight so far is that you have to pay for any kind of drinks. We should arrive in an hour and a half.

To be continued.....

We made it to Dublin and after running around the area outside the airport because no one could tell us where the city bus picked up we finally found it, (thank you helpful other kind of bus driver) and made it to our B&B. Ashling House is lovely and my bed is comfier than my Hungarian bed so I'm a happy camper.

Bernadette let us settle in and then helped explain the buses we needed to get to the city centre and back home. Our first plan was to go to the tourism office and get these Freedom Passes that allow us 3 days unlimited city bus travel and 2 days hop-on-hop-off bus travel (the tour bus that stops at all the touristy areas). It ended up that Bernadette actually had one for us to purchase and then very kindly sold me the city bus and hop-on-hop-off separate passes for the same price as the freedom pass. Nice people for the win!

We ended up just walking around the city for a while and taking in the sites. Our quest for (relatively) cheap food was stymied by the fact that everything except junk food in Ireland seems to be extremely expensive. Luckily we found a place that had lunch specials until 6pm and we both ordered Irish Stew and brown bread with Harp. The food was delicious, the beer was cold, and we both felt much better afterwards.

Wandering in the Temple Bar area on a Friday night right before Halloween was an experience! A fair number of people were in costume (sorry no pictures my camera is no so great at night time pics) so that was amusing and I appreciate the Halloween revelry as Hungary does not celebrate it.

Pics are taking forever so go look for them here. (only works if you're my friend on Facebook). I'll add more to the next post when we did the tours and such.

Next Post: First Full Day in Dublin

Angel Inductions

Ok, last Thursday was a fun day. It was "Angel Inductions" day which meant the fifth and ninth graders (the new students to the school) were dressed in pajamas and carrying their books in pillowcases instead of backpacks. The older kids also got to write all over those dressed in pajamas (this mostly happened to the ninth graders) so by the end of the day they had some interesting looks going on. 

The ceremony itself started at 4pm and I got to take part. The new teachers each year do some kind of fun skit or something. I got the lyrics (in Hungarian) of a re-tooled folk song. The other new teachers made up new words to the traditional melody about things like giving grades and not being able to find kids for classes (a problem I've luckily only run into once). We had practiced earlier in the week as there were also some dance steps involved in our performance. 

The ceremony was fun and each class did a choreographed number. The fifth graders were adorable and part of their number was Cotton-Eyed Joe which made me laugh. I have the 9 a and b groups so it was fun to see their performances. I have to say the numbers were rather impressive and I found out they'd been practicing for a whole month before the ceremony. 

When the teacher's turn came we came forward to some pretty loud cheers. A few issues with where we were in the song (we had chosen to only do 3 of the 5 stanzas and we mixed up the ones we got rid of) and which direction we were supposed to be dancing in aside, it was fun and the kids seemed to love us. After our song, the other new teacher who had joined in with the 9a group for a performance, came and joined us up front. We crossed arms and repeated an oath in Hungarian (aka they repeated and I mumbled some sounds) that I'm sure was made up by kids because at one point we said "something, something, Facebook." It was supposed to be a funny take on the oath the students take upon entering the school. 

After our oath, the new students had to take a funny (I'm assuming because of the laughter) oath and then there were some games and contests for the kids. 

The song I "sang"

Our new gym

Cotton-Eyed Joe with the 5th graders

My 9a before their dance

9a during the dance (I wish I had been sitting in front of them)

9b group (I only have half these kids)

The new students had to hold this position while saying their oath

I got this pin from one of my 10a students. I'm an angel now too!

The kids had to get a ping pong ball across the gym and back
using pvc pipe things cut in half as ramps

The three ladies who sang and danced with me

Last weekend I headed up to Szolnok to get some shopping done and see Emily. I found perfect (aka waterproof and warm) new boots and a silicone baking pan. I also got fabric to sew myself a new purse!

My new baking pan.

This morning my power went out and it took awhile to fix it because today is a national holiday in Hungary. It commemorates the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, you can read about it here. So people were in church and then with their families. But not having power made me more productive as I finished my purse and sewed a camera case. I plan on decorating the camera case with some bright red thread once I decide on a pattern. The purse certainly isn't perfect but it'll work well as my personal item on my flight to Ireland (on Friday morning!!)

Camera case and purse

Another picture of the purse, I'm rather proud of the
corners at the bottom

This past weekend my school hosted their annual English Competition. It was really interesting to see because we don't really have anything like it in the United States. In April, students at the religious schools in Hungary took a written exam. All those who scored higher than the cut-off point were invited to participate in the listening and oral parts that were held on Friday and Saturday. On Friday everyone arrived, there were almost 70 students as well as teachers and people who were helping out. Emily, a CETP teacher in Szolnok, and Christian, a CETP teacher in Karcag, were both acting as judges with me. 

The competition consisted of a listening part and 3 oral exams, a powerpoint presentation, a situation and a picture description. The listening and powerpoints were on Friday and there were some interesting topics. All of the topics were related to the Bible, so we heard about animals in the bible, mothers in the bible, sins in the bible, jobs in the bible, etc. I had helped a few of my students who were participating although I was not judging their group so I didn't get to see how they did but it was still fun. The juries were made up of 3 judges and if one of us had a student in the group we were judging, the scores of the other 2 judges were averaged so that it wouldn't be biased. 

Friday night we had a big dinner with all the teachers. There was delicious food, wine, beer and homemade pálinka from my contact teacher. It was nice getting the chance to relax with the other teachers and talk to some people I'd never met before. 

Saturday dawned bright and early with breakfast starting at 7am. Then from 8-12 we had the situations and picture descriptions. The situations were hilarious at times, like when I had to pretend to be an 18yr old kid's mother telling him paintball is too dangerous! Then the people organizing the competition tallied scores while Christian and I gave presentations. He talked about Washington DC and I spoke about Columbus, OH. I've noticed that because the Hungarians know I was born Cincinnati they always are surprised when I introduce myself as "from Columbus." I do this mainly because I feel more connected to Columbus as a city, no offense to Cinci. Anyway, I hate presenting (and yes I'm aware I'm a teacher and speak in front of teenagers every day, it's different) so I was super nervous but one of the other teachers told me I did fine so that was a relief. 

The awards ceremony was nice as there were a lot of books as prizes donated by different publishers. One of my students won 2nd in his group and 3 others placed somewhere between 5th & 9th (they were announcing in Hungarian and I got a bit lost, but I swear I know most of my numbers in Magyar now!) Also, the jury members got flowers and ceramic plates as a thank you for helping out, which was a nice touch

Here are some picture from the weekend:

Nametags!

Hungarians think my name is too short so they always add Lyn in.

Sanyi and Erika are so cute.

Niki giving the opening announcements and many of the jury members.

Representing CETP :)

Dr. Papp Andrea and Dobos Lászloné (I think I spelled that right)
the lovely ladies on the jury with me.

Mezotur pottery with my name on it, as well as the name if the competition.

Attempt at a dramatic shot of the flowers I received.

Sunday was a catch up day for lesson planning, laundry, and sleep. Tomorrow I will be participating in a group performance with the new teachers (where we will dance and sing in Hungarian) so I'll let you know how that turns out.

Sziasztok.

It's Already October!

It's hard to believe I've already been in Hungary for 41 days! I am finally getting into a rhythm with teaching, both my regular classes and the extra ones. I am not as comfortable in my town as I should be at this point, but I blame myself for not getting out and exploring more. That is something I need to work on, but I have the time so I'm not too worried.

Today was a great day as I got to visit the farm one of my private student's family owns. They have cows, horses, chickens, turkeys, and ostriches! The ostriches were cool, they always remind me of dinosaurs, especially their feet. I was a little wary of the birds as they are a lot taller than me and the males are very protective but it was fun to see them up close. I also got to pet the horses for awhile and I enjoyed it as taking horse back riding lessons was one of my favorite things in junior high.

My student's father made a traditional dish from the area that shepherds use to make while camped out with the sheep. It takes four hours to make! I need to get my student to write out the name for me because I'm not sure how to spell it, but it was delicious. Paprika, pasta, potatos and bacon = finom. It was also fun to get out of the flat and spend some time outside with other people. I can tend to be a bit reclusive and it's easy to fall back into that when in another country. But her parents were very nice and her mom gave me an (empty) ostrich egg to take home!

I'm off to type up situations for the English competition my school is having this weekend. Emily and Christian (two CETP teachers from Szolnok and Karcag) are coming to be judges so it should be a good time.

Sziasztok.

Drinking Juice Straight from the Carton

So I realize that I like living alone in that I can do things like drink out of the juice carton when I don't feel like washing the dishes, but the problem is that I'm a big ol' slob. I have worksheets, books and textbooks on pretty much every flat surface in the flat, including my bed.  I need to buckle down and spend an hour organizing all the teaching materials I have and find places for them, luckily I have a desk in my room. Not that I am in any way complaining about having a lot of material, as a first year teacher I spend a lot of time googling lesson plans and flipping through workbooks.

Unfortunately, the room cleaning will probably not happen tonight. I still need to finish planning my private student's lesson, which is an hour and a half so I need to make sure I have enough material. I also need to plan for my 8th grade conversation group. I absolutely love these guys they're hilarious and their english level is pretty high. We went through the material I had last week pretty quickly and I want to get them speaking to each other more and try to minimize TTT as much as possible. The last group I need to plan for is the grammar review I normally have right now. My contact teacher and I switched days because she has a presentation tomorrow so I'm taking the kids from 3:30-4:30 tomorrow.

Which brings me to the fun news for the week. I am taking Italian lessons! My contact teacher is starting the lessons with another Italian teacher and I thought it would be fun. I'll keep you updated.

Book is in Italian, Glossary is in Italian and Hungarian. This should be fun :)

Random picture from this weekend. 

Poutine from my kitchen, delicious.

These are right outside the building I live in, the students love hanging out here in between classes.

Statue of Szegedi István in the school courtyard.

Sziasztok.

The National Gallop

So I've been terrible about blogging and I was going to make up for it by posting a backlog but well I'm lazy. The most interesting thing I did was my trip last weekend to Budapest. I met up with Kristen at the train station (Keleti is cool by the way) and we headed to the hostel to drop our stuff off. We grabbed gyros which have become my new fast food love here in Hungary at a little shop a couple streets down. The people were very kind and spoke enough English I ended up using that instead of the little Hungarian I know. (Does anyone else have that problem? I know enough to have a very basic conversation in certain situations but if they speak English I cop out and just switch to my native language.) We then met up with Molly and Laura and got beers at a bar that Laura knew. We got carded walking in because the bouncer heard us speaking English, it was a bit annoying but I'm sure it's typical in the city which gets a lot of tourists. The bar decor was eclectic to say the least, and I wouldn't advise anyone who is afraid of bunnies to go there. The main room has a tree with rabbit figures strung around it, and there were some Lewis Carroll -esque drawings above one of the bars. I want to go back when I'm less exhausted so I can enjoy it more. 

Our beds in the 12 person room, pre-loud obnoxious people. 

 The above picture is in the cheap 12 person room we thought would be fine (though we noticed when we first dropped our stuff off the other occupants were probably male from the clothes), well we thought wrong. We got back at 2:30am and everything was quiet. About an hour or so later people came back, flipped the overhead lights on (I was on the top bunk about 3 feet from the light) and started talking, loudly. Anyone who knows me knows that if I woke up from it, the volume level and movement had to be ridiculous. This continued for a long time and eventually Kristen got frustrated and went down to get us a double room.

Our new room.

We got to the new room at quarter to 6:00am (the sun was actually coming up already) and managed to grab a few hours of sleep before we had to get up again. In the morning we wandered down to Heroes Square where the National Gallop was being held. We met up with Molly, Laura, and Sue and later in the afternoon Annie and Tom joined us. Wandering through the stalls and seeing the horse races was a fun time. It was hot and sunny and we probably should have drank more liquid but it was a nice slice of Hungary. Here are some pictures of the area and the National Gallop.

These people on stilts were hilarious! I was a little jealous, stilt walking is fun :)

Laura became our tour guide, she went to Central European University for the last two years so she can not only tell us the history of some building but also the best dessert places. We had cake and ate at a Hummus bar, which had really good falafel. 

Delicious cake that was 300ft (~1.50$)

I plan to try and read this by the end of the school year, hopefully.

Budapest-Keleti train station.

Sunday we had breakfast at the hostel and headed out to McDonald's to get free wi-fi, after checking train times and getting tickets using the write-it-down-and-show-it method we headed back to a different McDonald's to get back on wi-fi. I was tired (this was when I started getting my cold I think) and Kristen had a bad sunburn so we were feeling lazy. Wi-fi and air conditioning is nothing to sneeze at and we had fun looking for more places to visit on future trips.

This week has been busier, I am trying to get all the extra hours I am working sorted. I have 2 conversation groups with students, 1 grammar review, 2 private students, 1 adult conversation group and a business English group. I will also be taking Italian lessons from my contact teacher after school hours. The extra stuff will be good to give me something to do but it's going to mean a lot more lesson planning. I think that's the worst thing about being a first year teacher. I have the ability to google and find lessons and such but I don't have the experience to know what works, what doesn't, etc. I am going to try this weekend to start typing up and organizing all the notes and possible plans or activities I have. That way if/when I teach next year I will have notes to go through and hopefully make my life easier.

Sziasztok

Weekend Festivals and I Survived My First Train Rides

Train travel seems a bit less scary on this side of the 3 train trips (5 trains total) and Hungary seems a bit less intimidating after finding out fellow teachers were running into the same kinds of problems as I am.

The weekend started when my contact teacher drove me to the train station, and thank goodness for that. I probably could have managed my ticket with what she had written down for me before but there was a possibility of a different train and I would never have been able to understand that exchange without her. Once I found my platform we said our goodbyes and I headed out on my First European Train Ride. The capitals were for emphasis but really everything went smoothly. I made it to Szolnok, switched trains and got to Hajdúszoboszló (which I can finally say, most of the time anyway) at exactly the same time as Skye's train which was coming from the other direction. Seeing Jenna and Skye was nice although both Skye and I were jealous of her and Lee's apartments (mainly Lee's).

Random Tangent:

I had a weird fixation on being envious that Jenna had a shower curtain and I think that is because I am such a privacy freak normally. I am that person that locks the bathroom door to shower when home alone in an already locked apartment. Hungary is extremely lacking in shower curtains, which leads to uncomfortable showers as well as the constant threat of flooding the bathroom floor.
Aside from my shower curtain envy, I also was jealous of the fact that Jenna has Lee and Emma (a returning CETP teacher) to talk to. I am much younger than the other teachers and I am already having trouble with students not willing to listen to a teacher only a few years older than them so I don't really have someone close to talk to in Mezotur. It was amazing to be able to prattle on in English, and not have anyone beg me to slow down.

End Random Tangent.

Jenna, Skye, Emma and I checked out the wine festival in the town and Skye decided to face her fears by approaching one of the (admittedly gigantic) cows that were part of the atmosphere. I got a lovely magnet souvenir pictured below. After Emma left to go to aerobics class, the rest of us found ourselves hungry and wandered to find something to tide us over until dinner. What we found was a delicious potato pancake about 8 inches across and topped with cheese. Not only was the food good, but the people in the stall helped us with our pronunciation when we ordered. We also sampled some wine relatively cheaply, 200 ft (~1$) for what we estimated to be 3-4 oz of wine.

First souvenir purchase!

 Later we met back up with Emma and grabbed dinner. I had turkey stuffed with fruit and mashed potatoes. We also got pálinka (either on the house or as a gift from a teacher Emma works with who saw us there, we aren't entirely sure). It was sour cherry pálinka and had a good fruity taste once you got past the bite from the alcohol. Sitting across from Skye and Jenna I was once again treated to their hilarious faces when downing the drink, thanks guys!

We went to the train station to meet Dan, and to make a long story short the poor guy has a series of unfortunate events that led to him being phone-less and arriving on the last train in two hours after we expected him. Needless to say, when we spotted him waiting to climb off the train there was cheering. We stopped in at Emma's (talk about apartment envy she not only has a separate living room and bed room, she also has a guest room!) and chatted until it was time to grab some sleep before our train to Szolnok in the morning.

These are actually the train tickets (with kontrol's marks) from Szolnok
back to Mezotur on Saturday. The one on the right is the extra
ticket necessary for an Intercity (faster) train.

I had a super Harry Potter nerdy moment on the train in the morning when we got on and it was like the Hogwarts train with separate compartments. Unfortunately no wizards in sight, but we did run into Joe, who we had planned to meet up with in Szolnok and he just happened to be on the same train as our group. Christian got on in Karcag and I discovered that he also teaches at a Calvinist school. We had a small laugh at our similar experiences with the Calvinist greeting "Grace and Peace" that is used between teacher's and students and becomes an unending cycle when passing a group of kids. One kid says it to you, you repeat it back, the kid behind repeats it because they heard you say it and on and on and on ad nauseam.

Emma on the Hogwarts train :P

Emily met us at the train station and thankfully let us dump our bags in her and her boyfriend's flat so we didn't have to lug them around the festival. We got to see a little bit of Szolnok as we walked to where the festival was and it was nice to see a city with (relatively) tall buildings. Living in Columbus for almost 4 straight years has made me a bit of a city dweller and Mezotur is a small town by any standards.

The goulash festival was fun (if lacking in public bathrooms) and we ate and drank the entire afternoon and into the evening. We ended up at a bar nearby before we all had to head back to the train station. It was great to hang out with the other CETP teachers and share stories about our towns, contact teachers, students, schools and apartments. Commiserating about shared experiences was cathartic and reminded me that I wasn't the only first year teacher in the program who was finding syllabi and lesson planning somewhat stressful.

Here are some pictures from around Szolnok:

Jenna is probably the best photog of the group, I steal her photos sometimes :P

A really cool fountain by Emily's flat

Pedestrian bridge. We could already smell the goulash before we crossed it.

The main street at the festival.

Enjoying our goulash.

My goulash = finom

Soproni Narancs = a fruity beer of awesomness

Sunday was full of laundry, syllabi and lesson plans as well as a much needed nap. Monday went well in some classes and so-so in others but I found out I will be going to Szolnok on Friday to file the paperwork for my residence permit so I will finally be legal :) Speaking of lesson plans, that is what I should be doing now!

sziaszotk