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