Tami's Budapest Adventure

I LOVE Hungarian customer service!

2009-01-24T04:04:00.000-08:00

Just got back from the gym. Had a great work out. But it was almost a flop. Why, you ask? Glad you asked. I'll tell you.

So I am minding my own business, running like Forrest Gump on a treadmill, feeling like a rock star because I am not dead yet. And the trainer who works there comes up and taps me on the shoulder. I don't know what she said (it was in Hungarian), but she was clearly upset with me. I got off the treadmill, and stood there with my mouth wide open, wondering what I could have done. Was she jealous of my rock star status? Did my shoes not match my shorts? Then she points at the floor and says more menacing things. Oh.

As it turns out, I had mud on my shoes when I came in, and now there was a pile of it on the floor. GAH. Sorry, sorry, I mutter. I will clean it up. I didn't know. Then she YELLS - not speaks loudly, not motions, not calls out - she YELLS across the gym to the manager - a Venice Beach muscle head who wore a shirt one day proclaming the enormity of his manly parts - more about that later - so she YELLS and the whole place gets quiet. No music. No weights clanging, no treadmills whirring. I kid you not. I am really not exaggerating. Everyone stopped. It was like in the movies when the cashier yells "Price check on register 3!" for some poor kid buying a pregnancy test or something. Or in a saloon when the bad guy slams open the doors.

So, I am assuming she called him over because he and his man parts speak English. He looked at the mess, and I thought for a minute he might strangle me. I jumped in with, "It's no problem. I will clean it up myself. I am so sorry." He says, "Yes, it IS a problem. Look at that. You can't do that."

"No, no, no," I tell him, "It's not a problem. I will clean it up."
"It is a problem because you cannot wear shoes from the forest in here. You have to wear brand new shoes." (keep in mind that English is his 2nd language.)
"But I'll take care of it. I will clean it."
"No, the girl will clean it. You cannot wear those shoes."
"OK. I will make sure they are clean next time."

And I saunter off to the bathroom to clean my shoes - people still gawking. Of course, there are no paper towels in the bathroom (and no shower curtains either - eeew) so I have to come BACK out and get paper towels and go back to clean them. I let them run under the water and get mud all over the sink. I contemplated just leaving it there, but decided I should clean it up in the end. So I did, and I went back out to finish my work out. But seriously, why would you yell at a customer? Oh yeah, because we're in Hungary, and the customer is never, ever right.

Of course, I would like to say something mean, but I don't have the mean streak or the guts. So I just let it go. Besides, I am too blessed to be stressed! :) The sun is out today. It's beautiful and warm (well, warmER), and I live in Europe! :) And.....it gave me something to write about on my blog. So, see? There's the silver lining!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, kids!

The Fabulous Life

2009-01-14T12:07:00.000-08:00

So.
First of all, I know, I know. It's been too long. And I owe you an entry on Moscow. And now I owe you another on Egypt. But I thought I'd write down some random thoughts first. I thought I'd tell you a little more about my Fabulous European Life (AKA normal crap).

Well, let's start with it's been freezing here for about 2 weeks. I am not kidding. Below zero. Frozen solid. The sun was out once. It does make for some really pretty pictures out by the school, but actually living in it is not so pretty. We were supposed to have an ice storm today. It didn't exactly storm, but it rained ice. I've never seen such. You know how the Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow? I guess this is why. This is a kind I've never seen before. So, there's this coat of ice all over the ground - on the roads, on the sidewalks, on the roof of your house, etc. And I take Sasha out for a walk, and she starts slip sliding around. Have you ever seen a dog running on tile or linoleum? Their back legs sort of slide out from under them, and it's HILARIOUS! So I am doubled over with laughter, and I take a step...and slip myself! Serves me right! I think I heard Sasha start laughing too.

I had my second Hungarian class tonight. It's across the river on the Pest side, so I get bundled up in my Cuddle Duds, long johns, sweatshirt, and ski jacket (and wool socks and snow boots - ok, maybe I overdid it). And I am really warm. And very happy about it. So warm, in fact, that I am sweating. Even though it's raining outside, and I have to walk home in it. It's funny how quick you learn that your mom was right when she told you to wear a hat and scarf. But I'm pretty proud of myself because this is one more thing that I know how to do in Budapest - get around in the cold without dying. It might help that it has warmed UP to 0 degrees.

More stuff I know how to do....I went to the gas station and bought windshield wiper fluid and put it in my car. All by myself. I know it doesn't sound like much, but when you can't read the label, and you have to sort of guess, it really is an accomplishment. I also went to the pharmacy and bought cold medicine. I finally ran out of Nyquil, so I got the local equivalent. It's like Theraflu, and it knocks you out. I love it! AND I know how to mail a letter. I know, I know, trivial, right? But YOU try to decide which window to go to when there's 5 different signs in Hungarian and people have to stand in line to pay their bills and mail stuff and get stuff certified.

Something I evidently DON'T know how to do is scrape the ice off my windshield. The other day I was running late, and of COURSE the whole windshield was covered in ice and snow, and the door was frozen shut. I finally got in and turned it on and was going to let it start warming up (I don't have a garage any more) while I scraped the ice. I got back out, and the car starts ROLLING DOWN THE HILL. OMG! So I jump back in - I still have a cold, mind you, nose running, eyes watering, miserable cold - and I hit the clutch instead of the brake. And the car rolled down the hill till it hit a pole. Well, at least it was done rolling. And it didn't hit another car. :) This was after I had discovered a random dent - someone hit my car - the day before. That poor car. It's a trooper, though. It gets me around!

On top of all this cold, Russia has cut off the natural gas supply to Eastern Europe. They are mad at the Ukraine for something - there are many different stories - and most of Eastern Europe gets about 90% of their gas from Russia. So.....there are all these talks, and they said it would be ok, and then they said no, it's not ok. And the bottom line is, we have about 5 weeks left of natural gas to heat and cook with. I bought an electric heater just in case. But I'm one of the lucky ones. Many families don't have that luxury. They've shut down a lot of the big manufacturing plants, and a lot of businesses have switched to oil and some businesses and schools have just closed for a few days. Not mine, of course. :(

Sasha has gotten it in her head - or in her biological clock - that we need to get up in the middle of the night - every night - and go for a walk. And taking her out is a freakin PROCESS. I have to put on jeans, sweatshirt, ski jacket, snow boots, wrap my whole face and head in a scarf, etc. and trudge down the stairs - oh sorry, TIPTOE down the stairs, so as not to wake my neighbor. When I first got back from Egypt, she had been at the doggie hotel, and had gotten really sick. She had to go out like every 2 hours. I don't know how any of you people have babies. I just need to sleep through the night! She's better now, but she still wants to go out all the time. I am trying to wean her off of it. :) I am trying to trick her into sleeping all night.

Juliet tells me that there are big chunks of ice in the Danube, and I really want to go down there and take pictures, but it's so hard to get myself out of the warm house and into the cold. I really should, though.

Next weekend it looks like I'll be going to Vienna with the basketball team. They need a chaperone. I need a free trip. It's a match made in heaven. :)

We are coming up on the end of first semester, and I feel like I am in the swing of things at school. I can't believe the year is half way over, though! It seems like time just FLEW by!

We have another week off in Feb, and a week in April - that's when Julie and Andy are coming for my birthday - YAY! School's not out till June 12, and then I'm going to Spain for a couple of weeks and then home to GA and FL and out to ID to see everyone.

Well, I hope this post finds you fabulous and happy, and I promise to do Egypt and Moscow soon! :)

Dublin, Ireland

2008-12-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

December 20-22, 2008

So the islands were nice, but Dublin is my new favorite city. I don't know if this will change after I go to Cairo, but I can't imagine it. I don't feel like I had enough time there to actually see the city, but I did have enough time to learn that the Irish have nearly got the South beat on hospitality. And maybe I just like them because they speak English, and I haven't heard that in a while. Or maybe I like them because everyone was so helpful. Or maybe it's because I met a group of friends who sort of took me in so that I wasn't out by myself. Or maybe I just like their accent.

What I don't like so much is the Dublin airport. It's not horrible, it's just that after you check in you have to walk like 7 miles to get to your gate. OK, maybe it's not 7, but it's at least 6. When I went through passport control, the guy was very nice but very specific about what I was doing there and how long I was going to be there and what did I do for a living and on and on. Since I was at passport control, I got worried - like why is he asking me all these questions? But someone told me later that he was just being nice. Hmm... interesting.

Here's the other thing about flying - I was on Ryan Air - one of the discount airlines that goes around Europe - and they have the emergency instructions on the back of the seat in front of you. And can you see in this picture that you're not supposed to wear heels if you have to make an emergency exit? That makes sense, right? Don't want to puncture the raft thing. But then it also looks like you should take off your glasses - ok, I get that - and you should take out your dentures?????? What is that? Is that REALLY what that means? What else COULD it mean? I just think this is HILARIOUS!!!!!!!

I decided to skip the thrill of figuring out how to get to my hotel using public and took a taxi. I know, it's the easy way out, but, hey, I was on vacation. It was already dark when I got there at 5pm. UGH. I miss Florida. But I decided to go on a walking tour anyway. I went all around the Temple Bar area and across to the north side of the river to O'Connell Street and past the Customs House and the famine memorial. These are a group of statues done in 1997 to remember the Irish famine in the mid 1800s. During this time more than a million people died, and more than a million and half left Ireland. On the way back I found a Christmas market - nowhere near as coool as the one here in Budapest, mind you. I wandered around O'Connell Street a while longer and was amazed by the throngs of people that were out - presumably Christmas shopping. It looked like NYC.

Later on I went to the pub down the street from my hotel and met my new best friend, Baby Guinness. It's not really Guinness, but it's REALLY delicious! The next day I took the big red bus tour around the city. It was cold and rainy and miserable - everything that Dublin is supposed to be - and I loved it. All the Christmas lights were up, and the city looked like a painting. I shopped and went to Trinity College and Christ Church Cathedral. You have to pay to go in the cathedrals, but they give you a nice little tour guide, so I learned a lot. You can see the north wall that leans by 18 inches since the collapse of the roof and south wall in 1562; you can see the "foxy friars" in the tile work on the floor. These are beggars in the form of foxes pretending to be pilgrims. You can see their hats and sticks and shoulder bags in the outline. I went to Hard Rock and got my obligatory shot glass. My collection is growing by leaps and bounds! :)

Then back to Buda with just enough time to do laundry (it takes 2 days, remember?) and pack for Egypt. I am leaving in a few minutes actually. Weather.com says it will be warmer there. We'll see. I am looking forward to seeing Alison and bringing in the New Year! Talk soon!

Tenerife, Canary Islands

2008-12-26T04:58:00.000-08:00

December 15-20, 2008

Hi kids!
So I just got back from Tenerife, one of seven islands in the Canary Islands. The islands were named by the Romans who discovered packs of dogs (canus) - not birds - running around when they got there. Officially it's part of Spain, so they speak Spanish there - YAY! They're off the west coast of Africa, so it SHOULD be warm there, right? Well, it was...on the first day and on the last day - when I was in the airport. GAH.

But it was a nice trip. I stayed in a sleepy little beach town and bummed around with the pensioners. Read 4 books while I was there, saw a show, slept on the beach, hiked a volcano, and toured the island.

The island is very cool in that there are four different vegetation zones, and it's almost like there's a line drawn between them. It's very clear when you move from one to another. There's one that's desert and lava. All rocks and no vegetation. Another is tropical with banana plants, potatoes, and other crops. One more is what we think of as mountainous - with pine trees, etc. The last is the one closest to the top of the volcano. It's freezing cold up there. When we went up, it was 19 degrees (C) below zero with the wind chill. I thought my ears were going to fall off. They have a cable car thing that takes you to the very top of the volcano and you can hike around. There are amazing views, and it's worth braving the cold.

I stayed on the southeast part of the island - rented an apartment about a block from the beach. It's a pretty touristy area, but it was nice to be able to walk from beach to beach along the boardwalk. I spent about 3 hours walking one day just to see what was there. As you walk by, the vendors come out, of course, and call to you - don't you want to go see the dolphins, don't you want to buy some souvenirs? Come take a break and eat at my restaurant. One guy says, hey, you want to get a tattoo? Now, is that really something that people decide as they're walking down the beach? Someone suggests it and it hits you, oh yeah, I need to get a tattoo? Seriously. Come on.

On the northeast part there's a town called Candelaria that is famous for its black madonna - she's carved out of a black wood and dressed in fine silks. The sand there is also black - in fact, there's only one beach on the island with white sand, and that's like a curiosity that people go and see.

I really enjoyed my trip here - mostly because I speak Spanish and I felt so much more comfortable here than in Budapest. I never really realized how much anxiety there is associated with doing ANYTHING in Budapest. For me, anyway, just because I never know if I'm going to be able to communicate what I need. I usually get lucky and get someone who speaks at least a little English. So I am going to start language classes as soon as we get back in school in January. I really need to. No more excuses, right?

Christmas in Budapest

2008-12-14T06:22:00.004-08:00

Well, 'tis the season! And here in Budapest, the season is long. And beautiful. It starts on Dec 5, which is Saint Mikulás's Day. His American name, of course, is Saint Nicholas, and his name day has been celebrated here in Europe for generations. Supposedly, he was a 4th century bishop who, upon hearing of a poor man who couldn't afford a dowry for his 3 daughters, secretly tossed bags of gold through an open window into their home so that the girls wouldn't be sold into slavery. The gold landed in shoes that had been left by the fire to dry. This led to the modern day custom of children hanging up socks or putting out shoes to await gifts from Saint Mikulás. (In Mexico, they have a similar tradition, but it involves the 3 wise men on Jan 6.) So the tradition is fo children to put shoes or boots on the window sill on Dec 5 to be filled by the saint in the middle of the night. He comes with a book of all the children's names and their good and bad deeds throughout the year. He has 2 helpers: an angel who gives out goodies, and a devil with a long red tongue who leaves a golden twig or switch as a warning to the bad children.

Around town, the lights are up, streets are decorated, and Christmas markets are in full swing! At the markets you can buy funnel cakes, hot wine, typical "fair" food, traditional crafts, meet St. Mikulás, and see shows every day. There is also an advent calendar at the biggest market, and every night they open one of the windows on the calendar to count down till Christmas. Here are some of my favorite pictures...

These "funnel cakes" are the BEST I've ever had. They had them at the Sziget Festival and the wine festival, too. They originally come from Transylvania, and they're a doughy concoction cooked over open coals and then dipped in sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, walnuts, or whatever else you like. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.................

This is near the shopping street. The lights are simply gorgeous!

This is a glass pistol filled with wine. It's called a "one shot" drink. Get it? HAHAHA!! People here are serious about wine. And beer. And palinka. And unicum. And vodka. Did I mention that you can get a beer in a pub as early as 7 am???????????? Wow. Not that I drink beer - STILL. But, you know, it's just funny!

This is a picture of some of the lights and decorations at the big Christmas market. People come from all over Europe to our market. Ours and one in Germany are supposed to be the best in the world.

Manger scene with figures hand made from wool. And they're probably each about 2 feet tall.

This is an ice skating rink on the Pest side. You can skate right in front of that old castle. It's like a fairy tale.

This is the hot wine that they sell at the market. Well, it's the containers that the wine comes in. They are traditional clay pots.

This is part of Hero's Square. It has statues of all the most important people in Hungarian history. There's another part just like this one on the right, and an obelisque in the middle of the whole square.

A doll vendor at the market.

A pottery vendor. Pottery is very popular here - but Poland is actually the most famous place for it. Don't worry, we're planning a trip soon!

A basket vendor at the market.

November 20-23, Moscow

2008-12-14T06:22:00.003-08:00

I owe you an entry on Moscow! I have been SLACKING! But I will get it done soon!

Belgrade, Serbia

2008-11-30T07:39:00.000-08:00

November 8-9, 2008

On Friday we asked each other, "What are we going to do this weekend?" Hmm.... "Why don't we go to Belgrade?" OK! And we did. It was a short 4 hour drive to the capital of Serbia. We were leaving the European Union, so getting out of Hungary was no problem. Getting back in, on the other hand, well, that took a little bit longer.

Belgrade (which means "White Castle") is situated around the intersection of the Sava and the Danube - the same Danube that runs through Budapest (and a lot of other places). It's not as pretty as Vienna - in fact, I think it's the polar opposite of Vienna. It was bombed by NATO less than a decade ago, and you can still see the ruins around town. Serbia is a part of the former Yugoslavia - in fact, it was only in 1991 or so that it broke up. It's the home of the infamous Slobodan Milosevic and ethnic cleansing.

We drove Juliet's car, and getting to town was no problem. Getting AROUND town, however, proved to be a little more difficult. See, the map we had was using the Roman alphabet, but the street signs - and everything else in Serbia - uses the Cyrillic alphabet.

We drove around for a while, using all the educated guesses we could make, trying to remember what we knew about Greek letters, trying to match the number of letters or the number of words, or at least the first letter of a word, but to no avail. We gave up and stopped and asked for directions. The guy was very nice and even drew us a map. It made it SO much easier! We went to the hotel, dropped off our bags, and headed out for town.

First stop, the shopping street - Knez Mihailova - a pedestrian only street with all the good stores. No Starbucks, though. We were actually happy that it didn't have one because we would have been mad if they had one and we didn't! We also visited Republic Square and took the requisite tourist photos.

Next up, the Kalemegdan fortress. It's a former citadel on top of a hill overlooking both rivers. Now it's a nice park and tourist place. There are monuments, a collection of tanks from various wars, and a huge monument called the Victor - in honor of the first Allied victory after WWI.

A colleague of ours is from Belgrade, so we called him and asked him where we should go for dinner, and he recommended a street with lots of sidewalk cafes and small, smoky bars. We stopped in one that had a no smoking sign and a stack of ashtrays right next to it. HA. Afterwards we had dinner at an AMAZING Italian restaurant next door. We were going to go out that night, but we went back to the hotel to get ready and to take a "short nap." Well, that short nap turned into sleeping all night. But that's ok, because the next day we had enough energy to go sightseeing again.

So Sunday we had a faulous breakfast at the hotel - the hotel looked like something out of Star Trek, by the way - and went out to the Tesla Museum, the Orthodox Church, and a little cafe for lunch. Nikola Tesla was a Serbian inventor and engineer. He worked in Budapest for a while, but is most famous for his work with Thomas Edison in America. He discovered the alternating current - or made use of it for AC electrical systems - and is considered the father of physics. The museum, to be honest, does not really reflect how important this guy is. It is just a small house on a corner. It was still pretty interesting though.

Then we went to the Temple of St. Sava - the biggest Orthodox Church in the world. It was different because there are no pews, and it was being renovated, so there was construction material all around. Their rituals for prayer seem very intricate, and I wonder how long it takes them to learn them when they're young.

In the smaller church next door and in another church across from the cafe where we ate, we got to see 3 weddings and 2 baptisms. It was interesting that it was on a Sunday, and that they seemed to be happening back to back. Bride and Groom would enter the front doors, there was chanting, singing, praying, and then they would go out the side doors, and the next couple would come in the front.

The cafe we ate at was right across the street from the church and it was called "?". It used to be called something like the Church Bar, but the priests got mad about that, so the owner changed the name to "?" to say that de didn't know what all the fuss was about. It is supposed to be super authentic Serbian food. The fare included young bull's sex glands, kidneys, bowels...oh, and burgers. We had tomato and cucumber salad, french fries, and grilled chicken. I know, I know, I should venture out more. I should. I really should. But not with THOSE choices! :)

Istanbul and Cappadocia, Turkey

2008-11-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

October 18-25

Last week I went to Turkey with Jeremy, Juliet, and Janet - three people that I work with at AISB. Andy tells me to stop using the word AMAZING to describe my trips, but honestly, how can I help it? :)

Sat, Oct 18 - We flew into Istanbul and got there at like midnight. We had gone through the Munich airport - if you ever have to have a layover in Germany, go to Munich. This airport has a MALL in it - not just airport shops - like St. Johns Town Center. It's my new favorite airport! But I digress. So we get to Istanbul and stay in an area called Sultanahmet. It's sort of a touristy area because that's where the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia are. I was surprised that lots of places were still open - restaurants and bars, of course, but also a few rug and pottery shops. We walked around a bit and went to see the mosque and Hagia Sophia at night - great pictures! The hotel, on the other hand, was not the greatest. We were in a basement apartment that smelled like mold - like the bottom room in Mexico that we did not use, remember? There was a sign in the kitchen that said, "Do not fry fish. It is forbidden." We thought, hmmmm. We can probably do that.

Sun, Oct 19 - We had breakfast on the terrace on top of the hotel - an incredible view of the area, including the Bosphorus Sea, the mosque, the palace, and the Hagia Sophia. It was our first of a dozen breakfasts with tomato, cucumber, and bread. Oh, and apple tea. Having tea in Turkey is sort of like sweet tea in the south or Pirate's Punch at the Palace. It's just what you do. They say the apple tea is for the tourists, and black tea is for the locals. We headed out to explore, and Janet and I went to the Topkapi Palace. This is where the sultans of the Ottoman Empire ruled for about 500 years. It stands on the ruins of Byzantium (from the Greeks). The Ottoman sultan Mehmet the Conqueror captured Constantinople and built this palace (or the beginnings of it) in the 1470s. The sultans used it until the last one was ousted in 1922! Inside there is a Hall of Holy Relics. They have things that were brought here when they conquered Egypt, Mecca, and Medina - Moses's staff, Abraham's cooking pot, David's sword, Joseph's turban, Muhammed's sandals. So I am reading this, and thinking - is that THE Moses? Like Moses who parted the Red Sea? And David of David and Goliath? And yes, as it turns out, it is. I was confused because I thought those were Christian names, and the majority of people in Turkey are Muslim, but I found out that Islam and Christianity share the same history and traditions. Muslims believe in the traditions/stories of Moses, Joseph, David, Jesus, Mary, etc. They just believe that there was another prophet after them called Muhammed, and that's where they split. But isn't that interesting that the two believe in nearly exactly the same things? That they have the same roots? I guess I never thought about that before. Anyway, this palace complex is HUGE - each sultan added on his own building or update to the complex over the years. We spent 2 or 3 hours there, and could have easily spent the whole day.

After that we were running out of time, but we went to the Hagia Sophia - orginally the Great Church of Constantinople, then converted to a mosque, now a museum. It was built in 537. Can you imagine walking inside of something that's 1500 years old? Where do we have that kind of history in the States? The Notre Dame Cathedral and the Statue of Liberty would fit inside under the dome. Back then, can you imagine how HUGE this place must have seemed? And how do you build something like that with the tools they had then? I am just in awe of this stuff. It's so cool because you see pictures and traditions of Christianity and Islam right next to each other on the walls.

Next we went to the Blue Mosque, but it was closed for prayer, so we couldn't go in. We did end up going in the following weekend, and it was much different than I anticipated. It has 6 minarets, like the mosque in Mecca. I think they said when they built it, they added another to the one in Mecca so it would be bigger. Back in the day, the imam (prayer leader) would climb to the top of a minaret 5 times a day to announce the call to prayer. Now, they still do it live, but he doesn't climb up; it's over a loudspeaker. And they ARE loud! You can hear them wherever you are. The first one is at about 5:30 am. The first morning, I thought it was a tornado warning! It's called the Blue Mosque because of its blue tiles inside. I thought they would be all blue, but they're white with blue designs. The mosque was pretty packed when we did end up going. You have to take your shoes off at the door, and then you walk through and can see the big open prayer area. There aren't any pews like in a church. The prayer area is divided for men and women. Islamic tradition forbids living beings from being painted in mosques, so you see geometric designs instead of people on the walls. They say the Ottoman Empire went broke building this mosque, and this was sort of the beginning of the end.

In the afternoon we met Juliet and Jeremy and took a tram to Taksim Square where we met Jeremy's friend Inan. He was great, because he helped us get our bus tickets and kind of showed us around a little. It's always fantastic to know a local! Especially since the bus thing is weird. There are about 123,000 different companies that go to different places. I STILL don't understand how he knew where to go. But I am glad he did. That afternoon we went to see the Whirling Dirvishes - this is a ceremonial dance where they whirl around in circles and their robes fly out wide like a big human spinning top. It was a very slow ceremony, though. We almost fell asleep!

I only wish we could have had the Dirvishes on the bus with us that night. We took the overnight bus from Istanbul to Goreme. Now, let me just tell you right now, NEVER EVER take the overnight bus! Don't do it! Or at least on this bus line. I have heard that there are good ones, but we didn't get one. Even WITH our local contact! It was like a Greyhound bus, except they played some kung fu movie AT FULL VOLUME because there was only one set of speakers, and they had to play it loud enough for the people in the back to hear. Why would you play a KUNG FU movie on an overnight trip?? Don't you think people are trying to sleep!?!?!?!?! And then Linus was sitting in front of us. Clearly this guy had not had a shower in a month. He was like Linus from Charley Brown. You could see the cloud of dirt and BO around him. And, of COURSE, the most comfortable position for him to sleep in was with his arm up above his head, so that we could all get a good whiff of his underarms. UGH. I had to put my coat over my head to be able to breathe! We all put lotion on our upper lips to try and cover it up, but to no avail...... Then there was this other smelly guy in front of Juliet - not AS smelly, mind, you, and to be honest, you just sort of get used to it after a while. :( But he was more inconsiderate than smelly. He put his seat all they way back on TOP of Juliet - and she's a tall girl - she had NO room to move. Poor thing. And I would randomly smell cigarette smoke, get up, and look around for the IDIOT who would smoke on a bus. I didn't find him until the end. It was the DRIVER!!!!!!!!!!!! PATF. So we survived the 12 hour bus ride. TWELVE, people. Don't ever do it. We flew back - 1.5 hours, $85. Seriously. What were we thinking? Ugh.

Mon, Oct 20 - OK, so now it's Monday. We're here. We're tired. We're cranky. But luckily, the Turks are the nicest people ever in the whole wide world. At the bus stop (in Goreme, Cappadocia), this man sees us fiddling with papers and phones and asks what hotel we're staying at. We told him, and he said, oh, I'll just call them and have them pick you up. And he does. He knows the number by heart. (This town is VERY small, and everyone seems to know everyone. Later in the week, I wanted to get a tapestry that I had seen, and the waiter at the hotel says, oh, yeah, that guy's brother works here in town. I can call him if you want.) Anyway...a guy comes in a van, takes all of our luggage for us, and whisks us away. The hotel is on top of a hill with a dream view of the valley. The guys at the hotel welcome us, take our bags, saying, just leave them here, we'll take care of everything. We go in (it's about 9 am) and meet the receptionist who takes our info and tells us about the area. It wasn't like where you stand at the counter and give them your credit card. We sat on couches, and she sat with us and told us about tours they offered and where we could go and what to do. Then she offered us breakfast while we were waiting for our rooms to be cleaned. Now THIS is hospitality. The name of the hotel is Kelebek. If you ever go, you MUST stay in this hotel! So here we are, no shower, cranky, disheveled, and tired, and this lady is treating us like long lost friends of the family. I could get used to this!

We had our obligatory tomatoes, cucumber, bread, and tea (and there was actually a lot more at this buffet), and our rooms were ready, so we had a shower and headed out! First stop, the Open Air Museum. Cappadocia used to be the heart of the Hittite Empire and was once a Roman province. Volcanic eruptions left the place covered with lava and ash, and as the "tuffa" started eroding, the sturdier basalt rock didn't, leaving cone formations all over the valley. Tuffa is easily carved, so people dug out homes, churches, stables, etc. in the rock. You can see cave dwellings and storage facilities still in use today. "Medieval orthodox Christian monks (1000-1200 AD) carved the caves from the soft volcanic stone and decorated them with elaborate Byzantine frescoes. The valley, and other troglodyte ("cave-dweller") habitations in Cappadocia, may have been inhabited since Hittite times, but Göreme is known for its thousand-year-old churches." (turkeytravelplanner.com)

After the churches and some hiking around the Valley of Swords, we walked back into town for a late lunch. The food here was good, but I think this was where I got sick. :( They have this cool "pottery stew" where they make stew in a clay pot and bake bread dough on top of it to seal it. When they serve it, they crack open the jar to get the stew out. Looks delicious, but I'm not sure it agreed with me! We went back to the hotel to bask in the sun but stopped at Motodocia first to reserve scooters for the next day. Attila and his friend are the guys who work there. They were SO nice - helped Juliet and Jeremy learn how to ride, gave us maps and an itinerary for the next day.

That night, I went to the hamam (spa) in the hotel and had a Turkish bath. I had heard crazy scary stories about this (when I went to the Turkish bath here in Budapest) - that you just lay on this slab in the middle of the room and you're naked and this big lady scrubs you - ugh - but Juliet said I HAD to go - that it was the best thing ever. So I did. And it was a lot more discreet than that. There is a big marble slab in the middle of the room, but you have a towel over you, and the lady does scrub you, and gets all this dead skin off of you, and then pours bubbles over you - like a bubble bath shower. After that there was a Swedish massage and facial. I think I deserved it after that bus ride!

Tues, Oct 21 - Up bright and early for a hot air balloon ride! (http://www.kapadokyaballoons.com/) They picked us up at the hotel and took us to the office in town. They had tea and cookies for us, packed us in a mini van, and took us to a launch site. The owners of this company are not Turkish, but they are just as nice. It's a British couple who have 28 years of experience flying and 18 years in Cappadocia. It was one of the more expensive companies, but it was SO worth it! We took one of the longer flights with fewer people in the basket, and it was simply spectacular. Kaili was our pilot, and she was my SHERO! She is a bad#@*@&#$$ and man, can she drive a balloon! We went up and down and over and around the valleys in the area - we'd go up above all the other balloons, and then go all the way down to the valley floor - so close you could pick apples off a tree - at the end we landed in a small field right onto the trailer behind the truck. Now granted, the ground crew helped pull the basket exactly onto the trailer, but still - it was impressive! We went up with two balloons - a dozen passengers in each - and we traveled together over the valleys. Sometimes we would touch balloons, and sometimes we would go up and over each other. After the flight, they had a traditional champagne toast and gave us flight certificates. They also said if we helped pack up the balloons, we could have extra champagne - HAHA! So we did, of course. Once you get it all sort of bunched up, you have to put it in a bag - like a sleeping bag in its pack. Only much bigger. So they asked this other girl and me to jump on top of the bundle while they picked it up and bounced it so it would go it. SO MUCH FUN! It was like kindergarten again! Remember the big parachute thing in PE class?

Anyway...so after the balloon extravaganza, we went to the moped place to get our bikes! Attila was waiting for us and had the most excellent looking scooters gassed up ready to go! Jeremy had to have the red one, so we got the rest. Mine was blue. :) He showed us the map again and told us when we got to the last town to stop at the restaurant right before the entrance and ask for Nuri. We could get lunch there, and would we bring back some apples for him? We got set up with helmets and, feeling like biker chicks, headed out on the open road. It actually was like the open road, since there were hardly any cars. We went for about 30 minutes or so to a town called Mustafapasa. Isn't that the coolest name ever? There was an old Greek settlement there, and we walked around, sort of accidentally went off roading with the mopeds (oops), and then visited the Old Greek House where the manager invited us in to see it, take pictures, etc. When we were walking around, a random old lady starting yelling at us to come into her house, did we want a Coke, and come on over. We don't speak Turkish, but we speak context clues and charades. And Coke is the same in every language! She was so funny - a big, toothless (ok, one tooth) grin, and so excited and loud. The guy at the Greek house told us she was a little crazy, and not to pay her any attention. We kept going to the last town on the map - where Nuri's place was - and stopped here and there to see things. At one point we were driving along this long, windy road on top of a ridge. It felt like the road that goes from Barstow to Vegas. Like you're in the middle of NOWHERE, and if you crashed, it would be a week or so before someone came by and found you. (But don't worry - it wasn't REALLY that desolate.) Then we would drive through areas that looked like New England with golden orange leaves falling from the trees and dancing in front of us. There were poplar trees on both sides of the road sort of like columns guiding us into town. We were sure that we were starring in Easy Rider - except our bikes maybe were not so cool! That feeling of open air, of independence and freedom - AH! We decided that we loved it so much that we are going to rent Harleys this summer from the Harley Davidson place here in Budapest. But SUMMER is the key word. It was SO cold going back. I thought I was going to freeze solid and just fall over sideways.

OK, so we get to Soganli - where Nuri's place is. And sure enough, there on the left is an apple orchard with a little restaurant in it. A man came up and said welcome, can I help you? We said, we're looking for Nuri. That's ME! All righty then! Come on in, have some lunch. So we had lunch at his restaurant - great food, especially after the long ride - and he gave us a bag of apples to take back to Attila. I said that I thought the bag was too big to fit into the seat of the scooter, and maybe we should divide them into two bags. But Nuri misunderstood and just gave us another bag of apples. And when I told him that Attila said that he could show us where the ladies make the bread, he gave us 3 loaves of fresh baked bread, too!

We were laughing about the bread thing too because we, as tourists, wanted to see how they make bread from scratch and cook it in traditional ovens. But for them, this is not something to marvel at and take pictures of. Can you imagine if someone came to your house and wanted to take pictures of you making macaroni and cheese? HAHAHAHAHA! It's funny what amazes us.

After lunch we explored the town and stopped to look at some traditional dolls that these ladies were selling. The ladies would ask, what's your name? And then they would remember it and call your name to get your attention. It's a great sales tactic, I think! I was standing there when a lady called out, Tami, what's your friend's name? Tami, you buy doll. Two for five!

Finally, we headed back up toward Goreme to Sunset Point. We had to pay 3 lira to get in, but at that point, we were so cold and frozen, we didn't care. We just wanted a place to rest. They had little stands set up, of course, so we bought apple tea and cashews, and sat on these coushins that were along the ridge. The sunset itself happened literally in 2 minutes. And we didn't want to wait for it to get any colder, so we hopped on the bikes and went screaming out of there! We passed the gas station on the ridge because we thought there would be one in town, but not so much. Luckily Attila and his friend didn't make us go back out, and we just paid extra for gas, and they invited us in to have tea and eat the apples and bread that we had brought. They brought out home made cheese and built a fire in the fireplace and we sat around and told them about our day and ate with them. How cool is that? I love it here. Attila used motor oil and an old bicycle tire to start the fire, though. I think there was wood in there too, but mostly oil and rubber! They also invited us to go play pool later on at the local pool hall. We didn't end up going though.

When we got back to the hotel, we were exhausted and freezing. They had a fire in the lobby area, so we went inside to huddle around it. Unaly was one of the cute waiters/hotel guys who helped us with our bags the first day. I saw him when we got back, and he asked how our day was, and I asked how his was. Chit chat, chit chat, and I asked him about going to the Turkish Nights show that they have there, and he asked what we were doing that night, chit chat, chit chat, and then he says, well, if you want, I can take you to the lookout point on my motorcycle. AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! And while this is extremely flattering, my teeth are still chattering from the little baby motorcycle that I just got off of. There is absolutely NO way that I am going on another one! But really, how great is that? Do you think that's just good hospitality??? :) I'm sure they do that for all the guests. Again, it's the Kelebek Hotel. Go there. You will love it. But don't go without me!

Wed, Oct 22 - On Wed, we went on a tour and hike in the Ilhara Valley. The guidebooks say that this hike will be one of the highlights of our trip. I have to say, they are SO right. This place is beautiful. We started out at the Pigeon Valley overlook. You can see all these holes cut into the sides of the rock formations - they are holes for pigeons to go in and nest. The locals collect their guano (that's a nice way to say poop) and sell it (it's fertilizer). We went past the Uchisar Castle to Nar Lake and then to the bottom of the Ilhara Valley. The valley is between two cut out cliffs, so you look up and see sheer rock and then at the bottom there's a river and poplar trees - long groves of them - and along the way there are churches and a monastery cut into the rock and tuffa. They say that this is where the monk Gregory lived and developed Gregorian chanting. I think they also said that this is where the idea of living together in a monastery came about. The guide told us about the reason that the churches are defaced - they are mostly Greek in origin, and when the Greeks and the Turks were in conflict, people came here to deface the churches as a sign of disrespect to the Greeks - or get rid of all things Greek. It's funny that in a country that is 99% Muslim, we only visited 2 mosques, but we visited more than a dozen churches and monasteries! In one church we were in, there were a lot of geometric designs and some figures with white eyes - no pupils. This was at the end of iconoclasm, when they weren't allowed to have living beings represented in churches. He pointed out paintings of Pegasus and other pagan figures as well. They have similar paintings in some churches I saw in Italy.

We hiked a ways, and then our guide told us he was going to go on ahead to this tea place on the river, and we could take our time, and he would meet us there. It was a gorgeous hike, and perfect weather. We got to the tea place, and they had all these little tables made of tree stumps right on the river, and one in the middle of the river. We hiked half way up the valley to Belisirma and had lunch, then we drove to the monastery in Selime. They say that one of the Star Wars movies was filmed here, but I don't know if that's true. I can see why people would say that, though, it does look like it. We climbed the rocks to see the huge kitchen, church with gallery, and stables with feed troughs. On the way back down, we came across two kids with a lamb that had just been born - still had the umbilical cord attached. What was presumably their grandma came out and started talking to us. She was laughing and excited. She patted the lamb around the belly and then put her hand to her mouth in an eating motion. So she was telling us she was going to fatten him up and eat him. And she just GIGGLED and giggled. She was SO happy about it. Hilarious!

That night we went out to the Pide Express - if you go, you must eat here. Locals eat here. Great pizza, great pides (sort of like pizza, but on longer bread with less tomato sauce). You could also eat at the hotel - tomato soup is perfect. Atmosphere is even better. You feel like you're in their home in the dining room, and grandma is in the kitchen.

Thurs, Oct 23 - Today we went to the underground city of Kaymakli. There are tons of underground cities here, but they say if you visit one, it's enough. Some cities date to Hittite times up to 4000 years ago. FOUR THOUSAND YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How is this possible? In times of peace, the people lived above ground, but when invaders came, they went underground into their cave dwellings where they could live for up to 6 months at a time. They had kitchens, a church, a well, bedrooms, an air shaft, etc. There is a series of tunnels that connect the whole thing, but it's pretty well protected from invaders by round doors that they would roll over to block entrances. The doors had a hole in the middle that they could stick a spear through to defend themselves. They say that getting into the city was not a problem, it was once they GOT in that the invaders had problems. Tens of thousands of people lived here. It's hard to imagine how they navigated the tunnels and didn't get lost, but they did. You can still see smoke stains on the walls.

After the underground city, we went to a wine tasting at a local winery. They store the wine in the rock, like everything else. It's not in barrells, so it has a different taste to it. I don't think I liked it as much, but they had several award winners, so somebody did!

Next, we headed to the Fairy Chimneys - this is what Cappadocia is famous for - it's the tall rock formations that just jut up out of the ground and have mushroom tops. St. Simeon lived in one of these (in the cave at the top) for 37 years and never came down. People brought him food and necesities. We climbed up this one - it was sort of like rock climbing because it was a small little passage way that went straight up - like 90 degrees - you had to grab on to these little hand holds and find a place for your foot. At the top there was a bed cut into the rock, and of course a cross.

Later we went to lunch in a yellow rock cave that has been turned into a huge dining hall that holds at LEAST 500 people. Then we went to see a pottery maker in Avanos. We saw how they make it, how they paint it, etc. This was awesome for me since it's like the plates that I collect, but they wanted like $700 for a nice plate. That's US dollars. No ma'am. So I asked if we could go to a cheap place, and they took us to one - real cheap. So cheap I didn't want to buy anything. HA! But in one of the places, there was this room full of pieces of hair and cards with names on them. I asked the guy what it was, and he told me it's the Hair Museum. They are in the Guiness Book of World Records for the most locks of hair in one place. EEEEWWWW. Evidently women leave locks of their hair and put them on the wall with a card with their name and phone #, and these people pick names each year for a free trip. I thought it was sort of gross. But when I got back, I was talking to my principal's wife, and she said she had left a lock - I guess it's a popular thing to do!

Next stop, the caravanserai. This is a place where the camel caravans used to stop to rest, get food and water, etc. And people could stay here for up to 3 days for free if they were in transit somewhere. This one dates from 1200 something. I couldn't tell if it was still in use - not by camel drivers - maybe by truck drivers - but they definitely had tourist shows there. Finally we went to the ridge in Rose Valley to watch the sunset again. It was very similar to the one we had seen a couple of days ago, except we didn't pay for this one! We watched it from the top of a ridge - climbed a while to get there - and got to see the Rose Valley with the setting sun lighting it up. When we came down, we looked into a cave that we were passing, and we saw a random horse in there. He had been left there by someone - he was clearly going to be pulling a cart - but it was just funny that here is this horse in a cave. Just hanging out.

For dinner that night, Ali told us about a place called the Goreme Restaurant - original name - where he would be singing. So we went. We sat on coushins on the floor and ate from a big metal disc. We played cards - I learned hearts - and watched the manager pull people from the crowd to dance with him. Fantastic atmosphere!

Friday, Oct 24 - Today we headed back to Istanbul. But this time we FLEW! No more bus for us! It was a short, easy flight, and then we took the metro to our hotel. The metro ride was almost as long as the flight! We dropped our stuff at the hotel. This hotel was SO not the Kelebek. The rooms were about the size of my bathroom in Budapest. There was construction going on in half the hotel. The elevator did not have an actual DOOR for the car. You just went up, and you could see the doors for the floors passing as you went by. Anyway...we went to the Blue Mosque finally - it was nice, but not nearly as impressive as I thought it would be. And then we went to the Grand Bazarre. This place was fun. It's like a flea market, only it's covered, and you can see old painting on the arches that cover it. It dates from the 1400s and is one of the largest covered markets in the world. They say it has about 60 streets and 6000 vendors. Jeremy and Janet were looking for lamps, and they went off on their own - thank goodness! They came back $400 lighter, but their lamps are BEAUTIFUL! Afterwards we went to meet Inan again at Taksim Square. We had dinner and then went to this little out of the way alley where there were all these quaint little restaurants and bars. Some of them literally had 2 tables and that was it. There was a singer doing cover tunes at one of the places - songs in English that we all knew!

Sat, Oct 25 - On Saturday we went to the Dolmabahce Palace in the morning and flew out that afternoon. This Palace is what the later sultans used - they moved from Topkapi to here to keep up with the times. They still use it today as a ceremonial place and for big government meetings, like when presidents and other dignitaries come to visit. On the way in, we got mixed in with a Greek tour group - a bunch of retirees on vacation. These people seemed to have no concept of personal space. Or they were really worried about people skipping in line. Because the lady behind me had her purse on my butt the whole time we were in line. At least I hope it was her purse. :(

So, back to school, back to the normal world. More adventure soon!

Prague, Czech Republic

2008-10-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

Just got back!
I don't have enough time to do the long entry right now. But I took NOTES, People! :)
I just HAD to share these things!

Do you remember this ad? Wasn't it for Bose speakers? (Which, by the way, my cuñado Adam tells me are THE BEST, and I agree.) Anyway. This was me last night. JULIE, I went to CARMINA BURANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh.My.God. It was something indescribable. And in the opening and closing, when they do Oh Fortuna, I was just WAITING for it to come: waiting for that tsunami of sound and cymbals and emotion to hit me. And it did. It did. You guys know this one - search for it on iTunes and listen to a piece. You'll know what I mean. Powerful is the word to describe it. "Gorgeous" is the word the British lady next to me used. She was a sweet 60 something with long blonde hair and a huge red beaded barrett in the shape of a bow. Loved it! Speaking of LOVE - my sisters just got back from New Kids on the Block in VEGAS, Baby! Woo Hoo!
This is Rebecka. She is from Sweden. She plays soccer for our team. She and I were on the Fall Trip together. As you can see, she is a beautiful young lady, but every time I tried to take a picture of her on the fall trip, she would hide and turn away. She's not much of a talker. Which is why I laughed my @%^$@*# off when she came up to me on this trip and said, "Do you like my perfect Swedish skin? Isn't it beautiful? I bought it at IKEA." AHAHAHAHAHAHAA! What a CARD! So I asked her if I could buy some too. "No," she stated flatly. "You have to have a Swedish passport to buy it." I love this kid!

This is the Tyn Church in Old Town Prague. It dates back to the 14th century. It was a Hussite Church (precursor to Lutherans) before the Catholics took over in 1620. They melted down a symbolic golden chalice on the front to make a relief of the Virgin Mary for the front. It is supposedly the inspiration for the castle at Disneyland (and Disneyworld). The two towers are unique in that they are different heights. The taller one is said to be a man, the shorter one is a woman. I don't know the whole legend, but I am going to FIND OUT!

I wish this picture was bigger! It's the Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge. I am going to put a bigger version on the side. It's SO pretty! I'd say it ranks RIGHT UP THERE with Budapest! Are you noticing that all of these capitals have something in common? They're all on a major river. So far, I really think Prague is the most beautiful. Budapest is clearly second. :) But I have a lot more exploring to do!

Life in Buda

2008-10-05T01:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday, October 5, 2008

I'm getting settled in here in Buda. I spent all day yesterday in my flat, updating my blog, because you people won't leave me alone! Just kidding! I did spend all day inside, though. I cleaned the place from top to bottom and then got to work on the blog. Finished up this morning. I'm learning how to do things here. I know how to go grocery shopping. I know where to find cilantro, serrano peppers, baking soda, and American cookies. I know how to mop the floor and how to get my clothes clean but not stiff as a board. I know where to go running with Sasha and when I can take her in a place and when I can't. I'm learning where the good restaurants are. My friend Mike and I went to this sushi place - an all you can eat sushi place - on Sunday. They have more than just sushi - they have rice and desserts and soups and calamari and stir fry - all served on these little dishes that come past your table on a conveyor belt. You just take what you want. As much as you want. It's so cool. And DELICIOUS! And expensive, of course!

I was reading the guide for expats the other day, and it said that in the first month, most people feel really excited and are in love with everything here. Then later, they start feeling homesick and things here don't seem as quaint. The next day I was homesick. HA! Self fulfilling prophecy, I think. I called Julie to tell her about it. She said, "Put the damned book away!" :)

Mama VanZant, you'll be happy to know they FINALLY fixed the light in the hallway, so I can walk down the stairs and see where I'm going! The other night Sasha wouldn't even walk down. She literally stopped, turned around, and came back up. I had to get a flashlight for us to go out. But now we have a switch, and it lights up the whole stairwell and the garden. YAY! It's the little things that keep me happy!

Last Saturday we had to work - it was a teacher work day at school. For me, it was really no big deal because I had taken Monday off for Paris - actually, I had that Friday off too - but I was sick. So, everyone is complaining - I can't believe we have to be here. This sucks. This is ridiculous. And I was like, you people need to shut up. There is absolutely nothing to be complaining about. First of all, you live in Europe. So hush. Secondly, we are going to have a WEEK off this month. Just because. And we have another week off in February. Do you know why? Is it because we have to? Is it because we need it? No, it's called SKI WEEK. So you hush your mouth right now. If I have to work one Saturday so that I can have SIX weeks off during the school year, I am ok with that. The school also fed us breakfast and lunch on Sat. For lunch we had LAMB. Who has lamb? At school? For free? These people are crazy. This really is some alternate universe, isn't it?

Tuesday night we went to a Turkish Bath called Rudas. There are lots of these here. They are hot springs - kind of like Itchetucknee is a super cold spring - these are baths that were built by the Turks and the Romans and are still used today. The one we went to was built in the 1500s. It has a dome roof and minaret arched doorways. In the roof there are little stained glass pieces so that the light streams through in different colors. It has a big thermal pool in the middle - all thermal from the springs, so it sort of smells like a well - like sulfur water - kind of like the water at my house in GA, now that I think about it - and supposed to be very good for you. And your pores. There's a pool in the middle and four little pools that look like jacuzzis in the four corners. The outside pools are set at varying degrees - some cool, some at what seems like boiling. Then there is a cold pool in another room and two saunas in another room - a dry one, and I guess a "wet" one - it had so much steam that I couldn't breathe the air. It was ladies' night when we went. Evidently, ladies used to not be able to go at all. It was a men only thing. And there are still men's nights, and also coed nights. Well, on ladies' night, lots of ladies like to go naked. I didn't like that part so much. My friends and I were 3 of only about 5 people in swimsuits.

Last week was also Spirit Week at school. We had dress up days, and on Friday we took the whole middle school outside and had them come up with cheers and then we played 4 goal soccer. It was so much fun. I really do like these kids - I always thought middle school would be so hard, but they're FANTASTIC! Next Wed we have a pep rally at lunch for the teams that are traveling that weekend. I am actually going to travel with the girls' soccer team to Prague. We leave Thurs am and come back Sunday. WOO HOO!

Then the weekend after that - Oct 18 - I leave for Turkey. I'm going to go with 3 other people from school. We're going to go to Cappadoccia and go hot air ballooning. I can't WAIT! Friday night we all went to Juliet's house to see her pictures from Africa. She spent 40 days there this summer with the nurse from our school. These pictures were incredible. Margarita and I are planning a trip for next summer. Who's in?

Well, I supposed that's it for now. I have to grade some papers before tomorrow, and the sun is coming out, so I'll want to go out and walk Sasha too. I hope you have an AMAZING day in your part of the world! I know that Julie is in GA/FL this weekend, and I am so jealous that you guys are all together. I miss you something awful! I also hear that Camden is having a stellar season. Let's go all the way, Cats!

Paris, Baby!

2008-10-05T00:54:00.000-07:00

PARIS

After the wine festival, I had to WORK for 4 days. What’s that about? I had a cold all week and was sort of miserable in general. The nurse kept telling me to go home and rest. But, you know me; I had things to do, so I kept trudging along. Tues, Sep 15 was Mexican Independence Day, so of course, I had people over. I made fresh tortillas by hand, Alison’s Guacamole Extraordinaire, homemade salsa, fajitas, vegetarian chili, and salads. Heather brought a piñata, and we used a broom stick to hold it up, and the handle from my Swiffer to break it. Oh, it was hilarious. True culture right there, people. But her 7 and 8 year old boys didn’t care that it was a Swiffer handle. They swung like Babe Ruth. Wed was supposed to be movie night, but I was sick and just stayed home and went to bed. Thursday we went out to dinner, and by Friday, I was down for the count. I called in sick and slept ALL day. Until it was time to leave for the airport, that is. What? You didn’t think I was going to waste my plane ticket, did you? My logic was that I would rest all day to get better for the weekend. It half way worked. I didn’t die, anyway.

So Juliet and I headed off for the airport. We took her car instead of a taxi so that she didn’t have to pay for parking on her street and because we thought it would be cheaper than a taxi. We THOUGHT. Well, since we can’t READ the signs, we evidently parked in the “Don’t-park-here-for-more-than-20-minutes-because-you-can’t-afford-it” lot. But whatever. We spent the weekend in Paris.

Our flight was delayed, of course, so we got in pretty late. We were lucky to get the last train into the city – they told us a taxi would be about 60 euro ($90US). We took the metro from there to our hostel. Now, I’ve never stayed in a hostel before. You hear about them when people like Tripp go backpacking across Europe, right? Stay in a youth hostel, it’s cheap. Well, there’s a reason that they’re cheap! J First, since it’s called a youth hostel, I didn’t know if I would be able to stay there. I am 57 years old, after all. But Juliet said it would be ok. We shared a room with 2 other people that we didn’t know. We had 2 sets of bunk beds and only one key. So when we got in at 1:30 am, we checked in at the bar. That’s the hostel “office” – it’s where you check in, rent sheets, have breakfast, and check internet. And meet people, of course. So we head up to our room, and we have to knock on the door and wake up the poor guy already there. They said they didn’t have another key, and we just had to knock till he got up and let us in. We felt awful, of course, but the guy didn’t seem to mind. He was from Newcastle, I think, in England. He was finishing up a week in Paris and was traveling on after that. When we got there we realized that we hadn’t thought of bringing a towel. We had to rent our sheets, which we expected, but had no way really to take a shower. The shower was down the hall anyway, and that was too much fuss. So we went to bed. The bathroom was down the other way, out on the balcony. I mean, there was a room, but it was still out on the balcony. So in the pictures, this place looks so cute – bright and colorful and people from all over the world who love to travel. But in reality, just be prepared!

Saturday morning we had a croissant in the bar, and then headed out to explore. We walked past all the things that make Paris famous – little cafes, fruit stands, bakeries, churches, parks – oh it was beautiful. We walked several blocks from our hostel to the Eiffel Tower. I took a bazillion pictures, of course, and it was impressive, but I don’t remember being blown away. I do remember thinking, huh, this is where Tom Cruise proposed to Katie Holmes. Seriously. How demented. But I digress. The lines were too long to go up, so we decided to wait till Monday to do that. We walked across the river to have a better view of the tower, and then back across to the south side and down the river to the Alexander Bridge and the Grand Palace. It’s called Grand for a reason! Actually, everything here should be called grand. The people, the fashion, the architecture. I love this place. I would live here if I could afford it. But Budapest does have better bridges, we decided. The Danube is better, the bridges are better, and getting around is faster. But Paris pretty much rocks on everything else. The Grand Palace is a huge glass building that was built for the Paris Exhibition in 1900. Today it is a national gallery and shows several important collections. They have an interactive website at http://www.grandpalais.fr/en/Homepage/p-617-Homepage.htm if you want to take a virtual tour.

The Grand Palais is on the corner of the Champs Elysees, so we thought we’d have some lunch and find one of the big red buses for a tour. I know it sounds terribly touristy, but the big red bus is a great deal to get you oriented to a place. Don’t knock it. We had lunch at a side street café. Choosing the food was the hardest part. EVERYTHING looked good! Then we walked up to the Arc de Triomphe and climbed the stairs to the top. From the top you can see all of Paris on a clear day. It was fairly clear on Saturday, but you could also see the pollution that a city of 2 million people has. Inside the arc there are historical and educational videos, books, and plaques on the way up.

After the Arc, we finally found the Red Bus. I wish we had had a pedometer. We must have walked a hundred miles on this trip! On the bus we went past the major landmarks, including the Louvre, and we got off at the Notre Dame cathedral. I remember being excited to go in, but once in, I was not overwhelmed like I thought I would be. There were smaller churches in Italy that were more impressive. And by impressive, I don’t mean by their architecture. Obviously, Notre Dame outranks most churches in the world on that front. What I mean is, they made more of an impression on me. I think it was because there were so many people – so many tourists – in this cathedral, that it didn’t seem like a cathedral, like a church, like a religious place. But they do have services here regularly. Maybe I need to come back then.

We had lunch at an Italian café on one of the little side streets across the river, finished up the red bus tour, walked to Hard Rock Café, and went back to the hostel to figure out how to shower. We asked the guy at the desk about the towel situation. He said we could rent them. YAY! So we rented our towels and went upstairs. The shower was like one of those spigots on the side of your house, except up higher. To turn on the water, you pressed a button and it stayed on for about 15 seconds. So you had to keep pressing the button. It’s a good way to conserve water, I suppose. But I just pretended like I was camping, and this would be great for camping. In fact, we would have knocked each other OVER to be able to use this shower when we were at Outward Bound! I remember thinking, "I wonder if Madonna is getting ready in a shower like this in her hotel. Nope. Probably not."

The English people had checked out of the room now, and there was someone else’s stuff in there, but we didn’t know who it was. Later we would find out that it belonged to an Australian lady – also not eligible to stay in a “youth” hostel – who was a banker and had been traveling in Egypt and was going to Thailand, I think. She never came home that night. We didn’t see here till the next afternoon. Seems she had met some locals and went out with them. The other guy staying in the room was from Mexico – a grad assistant finishing up law school. I was super happy to be able to speak Spanish, and we got along famously. He told us that his “jefa” – which can mean boss or mother – I’m not sure which he meant – was staying in another place, and that they were going to tour some military school. He had an Armani suit and was probably pretty well off. I thought it was interesting that he was staying in this place.

Finally, Saturday night we went to the Madonna concert – the whole reason we were there. Now, we had already had an ordeal trying to get these tickets. Our friend Jeremy had bought them and had them mailed to Budapest. They were lost in the mail, and he had to call them and get replacement tickets, which was no easy feat. The requirements for this were interesting. They had a tracking record – like UPS or FedEx – that said the tickets had made it to Budapest, but had not made it to Jeremy. But they wanted him to send them a letter and “swear on his honor” that he had not received them. So he did, and after more haggling, he finally got them. He sold his ticket to me because he wanted to save money – he owns a condo in Brazil that he is paying for – and a place here – and a place in Maine – must be nice. So he wants to save money. So I buy his ticket. And then he buys ANOTHER ticket to go see her in Vienna. HAHAHAHAHAHA! So much for saving. But ok, so we have our tickets. Except Juliet then lost hers. The week before we left, she realized that she couldn’t find hers. So she calls them to tell them that the tickets that were lost and then sent again – yeah, well, we lost another one. This time they wanted a police report. So she got one – with the help of some fancy internet moves – and emailed it to them. So, needless to say, when we were on the way to the concert – with only ONE ticket – we were sort of worried. We didn’t know whether they were going to have one for her or not. They said that there would be a replacement ticket, but honestly, who DOES that? But there was! There was actually a window called “replacement tickets” for morons like us who lose them. :)

The tickets said no cameras, so I didn’t take mine. But everybody and their DOG had a camera in that stadium! ARGH! I was a little frustrated with that. So, if you want to see the concert, you can see most of it on youtube. It was a great concert – Madonna is a showstopper! She’s in her 50s now, and still has tons of energy. I love the way she redid her old songs to keep them “new,” and I really like the new album. I thought it was funny how she tried to say a few things in French, and got them mixed up with Spanish a couple of times. She seemed frustrated that the audience didn’t get everything she said. One of my favorite parts was when she did “Like a Prayer.” I thought of you, Amanda – HOME! When she first released it in the 80s, it was like a slap in the face for the Catholic Church – remember the video with burning crosses, etc? Now when she does it, it’s all about religion. She has scripture and quotes on the screens in the background. Interesting how things go, isn’t it?

Sunday morning we had breakfast at the little café across the street from the hostel. As we were sitting there, I just kept thinking, it’s Sunday morning in Paris. Here we are at a café on a Sunday morning in Paris. How COOL! We also thought of our friends back in Budapest where it was raining and cold. It was sunny and 22 degrees (72F) in Paris.
We went up to the Sacre Coeur church – a white, onion domed basilica on the north side of town and walked around the little streets and markets outside of it. There were art galleries there, including one dedicated to Salvador Dali. I would have liked to go in, but it was 20 euro, so we said, nah. At this point, my camera died. So I had to wait till the afternoon to take more pictures. We went over a couple of blocks to the famous Moulin Rouge theatre. It was daytime, so we didn’t get all the lights, but it was still pretty neat. Juliet has those pictures on her camera. The Moulin Rouge is in a sort of seedier part of town. Reminds me a lot of Bourbon Street – they have the same kinds of stores and shows there. But the Moulin Rouge is more tasteful. Well, at least the pictures seem like it. It looks like a Vegas show with all the feathers and costumes. But it costs about 150 euro ($225US) to go! So, naturally, we didn’t go.

Sunday afternoon we went on a boat tour on the Sienne – we got that with our Red Bus tour. It was actually very nice. We went down past Notre Dame again and around the island that it sits on. The only problem was the lady behind us who talked entirely too loud and entirely too much. I am not sure why she was there. You can talk anywhere, woman. After the boat, we went back to the hostel and met the Australian lady. She told us about her adventures the night before. She was definitely an adventurer! Then we headed out for dinner at the Sorbonne. There was a nice little courtyard in front of the university where they had heat lamps – it was starting to get chilly at night. Then we walked back through the Latin Quarter – this is where all the action is, evidently! There were men breaking plates outside of Greek restaurants, cafes, ice cream shops, clubs, sports bars, tourist shops, all of it! Back on the north side of the river, we visited Notre Dame again – it was glowing in the lights. There was an educational movie showing inside, so we went in to watch. But it made us fall asleep, so we left half way through. HA! We walked back up to the Louvre and went in the courtyard where there is a smaller Arc de Triomphe that lines up with the real Arc de Triomphe, so you can see them all together. We never actually went in the Louvre on this trip – I think you just need more time to do that. I didn’t want to just rush in and look and say, ok, good. I’d like to actually take a day to really enjoy it. So I’ll have to go back. I’m going back in January, by the way. :)

We went over the pedestrian bridge back to the Eiffel Tower – we actually took the metro the last part of it because we were so tired from walking. And we got to see the tower all lit up! It was bathed in blue, and on the hour flashing white lights came on. It was especially nice because it wasn’t crowded with tourists. Not that I have anything against tourists – I am one myself, right?
On Monday morning, we finally got to climb the Eiffel Tower. Well, we didn’t so much climb as go up in an elevator. The visibility was not so good that day, but it was still a pretty amazing sight. Then we went back to the Champs Elysees and the shopping district. We stopped at the GAP for a little piece of home. It’s SO expensive there! But not near as expensive as Louis Vuitton, I suppose. We had lunch there and headed back to get our bags and go to the airport. The train to go to the airport was delayed for some reason, and there were literally hundreds – this time I am not exaggerating – of people on the platform. They kept making an announcement that people going to the airport were “invited” to take the bus upstairs. We didn’t know if that meant you HAD to, because this train was never coming, or if you just COULD to avoid all of these people. In the end, we decided to stay with the train because they don’t have to stop for traffic like buses do. We stood our ground and got a place on the train. We felt like people that you see on TV in the Japanese metros – where they push them on so that they all fit! But the important thing is that we got there. The Charles de Gaulle airport is not one of my favorites. It is sort of hard to negotiate, and the signage is not very helpful. We couldn’t figure out where to check in. There was a sign that said Malev Airways check in through here, but there was another sign that said you could only go that way if you had a boarding pass. So how are you supposed to get the boarding pass before you check in? But they let us through, and we finally found the check in. We’re home now. Safe and sound! I look forward to going back! I still have to see the Louvre and the Statue of Liberty. Who’s coming with me?

Wine Festival

2008-10-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 12, 2008

We got back from fall trips just in time to have a shower and head up to the Castle for the annual wine festival. Hungary is evidently becoming famous for its wines. I don't know much about the whole story, but luckily, my friend Andras does.

We went up to Castle Hill and paid the entrance fee and got these funny little bags to wear around our necks to hold our wine glasses. Then we had to buy tickets for the wine. We bought about 20 tickets the first time around, which I thought was A LOT because I thought it was one ticket per glass of wine. But, no, it's more like 4-6 tickets per glass. And food was 8-10 tickets, depending on what you were getting. So I got one glass of wine and one plate of chicken and potatoes and had to go back for more tickets!

Staci and Andras were already there and had staked out a table, so we met them inside the courtyard. It became sort of the AISB hang out. So a dozen teachers came and went, and we had a blast.

The whole castle is covered with all these little stands that wine merchants put up. Andras showed us around and pointed out the best stands. You can buy just a glass or you can buy a whole bottle. Evidently you are supposed to go from whites to roses to reds. But I never really got past a couple of whites. Julie, I tried a red, but I just didn't like it. Sorry. :( I found a scrumptious one (can you use "scrumptious" to describe wine?) called Grillo that is from Siciliy. Now the problem is I think I have to go to Sicily to buy more. Oh well, if I must. Luckily it's not too far from here.

Fall Trip at Lake Balaton

2008-10-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

This is IT, kids! FINALLY! I have time to update the blog. It’s been, what – a MONTH? So this will be a long one. I have gotten so much PRESSURE from you guys! GAH! Just kidding – I know, I was bad about it this month, but honestly, I have been on the run since fall trips – you’ll see – read on….

FALL TRIPS
From what I understand, at nearly all international schools, each grade level takes a trip somewhere every year as a sort of get-to-know-you / teambuilding activity. Middle school grades went to places within Hungary, and high school grades went to places like an orphanage in Romania, an Outward Bound course in the Czech Republic (I was SO jealous), and Auschwitz in Poland. I went with the seventh grade to Lake Balaton and the surrounding area. Balaton is the largest lake in central Europe, and it’s a huge tourist destination. Hungary is landlocked, so it’s our own little “Hungarian Sea,” and throngs of Hungarians spend their summers here. Luckily, we went in September, after the tourists had gone home, but when it was still nice enough to swim at the beach.
We left on Wed, Sep 10 – yeah, we miss a half a week of school for this! We met at a hotel parking lot and took two big Greyhound style buses out to the lake. We arrived at the Zanka Children and Youth Center in a couple of hours. It is sort of like a camp ground, but with dorm rooms. Let me tell you, this is a LOT different than traveling with my cheerleaders. Although it was about the same amount of people – 70 kids – my cheerleaders know the rules and know how we do things. They know to be quiet when we get into a hotel. When we checked in here, two of the boys started playing their DRUMS! Are you KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!? Who plays DRUMS in a hotel?!?!? Why do they even HAVE drums on this trip? Later on I found out that they were for the talent show. But still….no drums. Thank you.
We had about 10 minutes to drop off our stuff and meet downstairs to walk to the beach. When we got there, it was a sunny, beautiful day. The kids got a water safety / stay with a buddy speech, and everyone dove in. Marc, John, and Doug are three of the guys I work with. They were playing in the water with the kids – the kids were jumping all over them, and they were throwing them around like my Uncle George used to do with us. I don’t know if this is ok because it’s middle school or because it’s an international school, but I could see the headlines back home now: “Teacher Arrested for Throwing Students” And isn’t that sad? Kids need adults who will play with them and care about them, and sometimes teachers are scared to do that in the States – we constantly get warned not to touch students, not to get too close, etc. And then we have homerooms set up so we can “establish a relationship” with kids during their high school careers. Whatever. OK, I am off the soap box. Back to the lake…So as great as all these fun and games are, one of the girls accidentally kicked Doug in the nose and broke it! Marc had to take him to the hospital and to a specialist. He went home the next day. Poor guy. Not only because he got his nose broken, but also because he had to miss the rest of the trip.
That afternoon we went to Sümeg Castle to explore and do a scavenger hunt. It was built in the early 13th century and has been used to defend against Mongolian and Turkish invasions, among others. They told us that it was used to defend against the Turks for 158 years. It was a beautiful drive out there. We went through quaint little villages and passed a horse drawn carriage that was actually in use. We also passed some parasailers who were sort of jumping off the top of this huge hill. I found out a couple of weeks later that my landlord does this. He has his own equipment and everything. He said he would take me up just to hear me scream – hahahaha – but we’ll see! After the castle, we saw a jousting match and had a medieval dinner and show. The kids really seemed to enjoy that! The teachers did too – the “knights” gave Juliet a flower, and all the kids went wild!
The dinner was “eat with your hands” (no silverware) and was soup, cole slaw, goose leg, boiled potatoes, and boiled corn bread followed by blood sausage. Um, eeew. It was filling, if nothing else. I didn’t have the blood sausage. I couldn’t do it. I had never had boiled corn bread before, but it was pretty good. At the teacher table, we got 2 bottles of wine with our juice and water. As a teacher coming from the States, I was like, “Oh no, we can’t drink that.” They must have rolled on the floor laughing at me for 10 minutes straight. “Welcome to international education,” they said, “Cheers!” OK, well, when in Rome, right?
And it was probably a good thing that we did have wine because the kids were really taking this medieval thing to heart. They started throwing food, yelling, running around, and being general idiots. I just kept thinking, can you imagine if my cheerleaders had done that on a trip? Oh my. No, let’s not imagine it.
After dinner we headed back for the hotel/dorms and had journal writing and lights out. Now this, they were really strict on. No one was allowed in anyone else’s room “on pain of death.” This was the catch phrase of the trip. No, you may not throw mud. On pain of death. No, you cannot run into traffic. On pain of death. No, you may not eat the last piece of cake. On pain of DEATH!
The next day a big group of kids got up at 5 am and went with Marc to the beach for the annual Polar Bear Swim. It’s not all THAT cold, but it’s a fun tradition that they have here. I stayed in my warm little twin bed that morning. After breakfast we all got together to make the preparations for a big goulash feast. So, you know that goulash is like the Hungarian national dish, right? And one of the things we want to do at our school is teach about the local culture. So we had 70 kids cut up about 100 pounds of potatoes, carrots, onions, meat, peppers, garlic, and all the rest. Me, the germaphobe, I was thinking, hmmm….that’s a lot of dirty little hands preparing that food. Even though we made them wash them, some kids were still sneezing and picking up things and – ugh. But as it turns out, it all got boiled, and none of us died, so, ok.
That afternoon we went to Festetics Palace in Keszthely. The palace was built in the 1700s by the Festetics family, the most famous of whom was György – he started the local agricultural university and amassed this huge library. It's the only extensive aristocratic library that survives in Hungary. The kids had a treasure hunt in the palace – they had a set of questions that they had to answer by taking a tour and looking at things – like counting the number of dogs in a certain room – in the paintings, in sculptures, etc. It was pretty cool. Afterwards we gathered on the lawn to hear about the history and share the answers to the treasure hunt. Then Juliet showed them how to do a contour drawing – they each got a paper and spread out all over the lawn to draw a small part of the palace. They were actually all really, really good. I was super impressed.
After the palace we took the kids into “town” and let them explore, shop, and have lunch for a couple of hours. Now, when I first heard we were going to do this, I felt like Julie Mann when she saw us let the elementary school kids just “go” after a cheer camp. What are these people thinking? You don’t just let 12 year olds RUN FREE in town. And just tell them, ok, here’s money for lunch. See you back here in 2 hours. Really? Can you DO that? That’s SCARY! But when we got there, I could see that it wouldn’t be a problem – it was a small pedestrian street, and the kids had strict instructions to stay on this street and not to veer off. They did a great job, and I wonder how this would compare to a group back home. Margarita said they did the same with the 8th grade – they told them to go out into town and meet back in a few hours. I think what they say about expectations is true. It seems like in the States we have all these rules at school, which sort of implies that we expect them to do bad things, so we've made all these rules to prevent them. But here there are very few rules because it is just EXPECTED that the kids will be good and do the right thing. And when they mess up, as they inevitably do, it is dealt with. But not by making new rules. It’s a whole different way of doing things. It’s interesting. It’s a great learning experience for me, and talk about a social experiment!
Afterwards we went back to the beach for more fun and games. We played Backstabbers and Saran Wrap Challenge from my book of tricks. They loved it, but they fell all over the place. We had lots of scrapes and bruises. I don’t remember my kids ever having this many problems with running around! On the way back to the hotel, a kid named Misa offered to carry all the girls’ bags. Offered or got swindled, I am not sure. But this kid is such a cutie – he’s already an Italian heart throb. The girls are all in love with him, and him carrying their bags just made them swoon! I suspect he knows what he’s doing.
At night we had our goulash feast around the camp fire and then went in for the talent (or lack thereof) show. The best part was certainly not the talent. Because there were some HORRIBLE acts. I know, I know, teachers aren’t supposed to say that. But, oh my! But the BEST part was that all of the kids supported each other no matter what. There was not the typical poking fun, snyde comments, secret laughs, etc. The snobby American girl clapped for the Korean girls. The Korean girls laughed at the Czech and Hungarian kids’ skit. The British boys were mesmerized by the Chinese boy’s card tricks. Oh it was great. It was a great big, talentless, appreciation fest. OK, not all the acts were bad. There really were some good ones. But the bad ones were more memorable. :) We had poetry reading, dancing, acting, a flute duet, those stinkin drums, magic tricks, etc.
After the talent show, we had a DANCE! And it’s great to know that middle school is middle school wherever you go. They danced with rigid arms and shuffling side to side. Who teaches us this dance? I remember doing it too. Where did it come from? The Romans? I dunno. But it’s universal.
Friday morning we had breakfast and went to Káli Medence – the Stone Sea. It’s a hilly area with rock formations that you can hike. Since we were going to be hiking, we thought it would be good for the kids to have water, so we bought a dozen bottles for 70 kids. This means we were telling them to drink after each other. PATF. But I am learning a lot here. New points of view. So I went with it. But I didn't drink anyone's water. :) We hiked in and played a game called number war. I love this game. I don’t know why I didn’t know about it before. It’s great. You run and yell numbers at people. There is, of course, strategy involved, and it’s a great teambuilding game. My favorite memory is when one of the kids got called out, so he was in “jail” with the teachers, and he was yelling at two of the other kids still in. “YOU SUCK, THEY SUCK, YOU’RE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Is what we thought we heard. But really, he was calling to Youn Suck and Tay Suck – REAL student names – they are from Korea – and telling them that they had been called out. But JEEPERS it was funny when we thought it was “you suck”!
We were home by Friday afternoon – just in time for a quick shower and the wine festival. But that’s the next blog. :)

Things I forgot...

2008-09-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

Some things I forgot....Random thoughts. A la James Joyce....

I finally got my Madonna tickets last week. The guy who was selling me his didn't have them yet, and it seems they were lost in the mail! But, you know, worst case scenario I get stuck in Paris for a weekend, right? But they showed up this week, and now I have tickets! To see Madonna. In Paris. That's in France, by the way.

The custodial staff here at school takes the time every single morning to clean EVERYTHING, including the lockers and on top of the lockers. Individually. I am telling you, this place is a palace. These kids don't even KNOW how good they have it. Luckily, I do. And when you want something for your classroom, you just write a work order and tell them what you need. And they get it for you. They GET it for you! This week on fall trips, I was asking our team leader about sleeping arrangements - who stays with whom in the rooms. Oh, no, honey, teachers don't share rooms. We get our own. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! My OWN room? On a school trip? That is PAID for? When you are PAYING ME to travel? OK. If you insist. I believe I must be in an alternate universe. This cannot be real, right?

So you know how you go into a cheezy souvenir store and see some lady working there, or you go to an ice cream vendor in the street and some pimply faced kid is dishing it out? You wouldn't THINK that any sort of special skills are needed for these jobs, right? I mean, how hard can it be to sell someone a Coke? But, nay, my friend. If you are a waiter or a newspaper guy or a shlub who hocks plastic figurines of the Sweet Little Baby Jesus on the street, you had better speak at LEAST five languages. Last weekend I was just blown away to be in a shop and hear the lady behind the counter speak in 3 different languages in just the time that I was in there. Seriously. How cool is that?

When I came for back to school night a couple of weeks ago (sort of like open house), ALL the cars in the parking lot were BMWs, Lexus, and Mercedes. Even the poorest ones were Infinitys. Most of my kids have an ipod touch. Um, I don't even have an ipod touch. And these kids are LITERALLY 12 years old. I have a JOB, for goodness sake! Strike that - a CAREER! And I have this little Radio Shack tin can device. But at least I have a phone, right? And I have this phone because my old phone doesn't work here. In Europe. That's where I live, by the way. (It never gets old!)

The other day I wanted to go to Office Depot, so I asked one of the guys in the office where it was. He said it was out past Ikea near Cora. Ok. I have been to Ikea. I don't know what Cora is, but I can do this. So I get in my AWESOME 1999 Opel Astra without air conditioning and I cruise on down the highway with the windows down. Because I am cool. Or I think I am. It's really all in your state of mind. So, I figured out how to get there - it's about 30 minutes on two different highways - he didn't mention that - but I FOUND it. And I don't speak Hungarian to be able to read signs, but I am pretty pumped about my sense of direction. So I found it, bought my stuff, and found my way back without getting off track even once! I am so proud! It's the little victories, people, the little victories! :)

So I am feeling all proud of myself, and I think God decided to put me in my place. I took Sasha out for a walk, and I dropped the leash. She seems to know this and knows that I cannot run as fast as she does, so she takes off INTO the street. I am panicking at this point - chasing her in my heels, trying to step on the leash and get her back. But she runs just till I catch up, and then - just when I am within reach - runs some more. I tripped over her and the leash, fell on the sidewalk and hit my head on the fence right there. Not a white picket fence. A hard, metal fence. I still have this goose egg on my head. I am ok - it's a little sore - but I am trying to imagine what the people driving by were thinking. Here's this crazy woman in heels running and falling across the street, skirt flying, trying to stomp on something, and this dog making fun of her as it runs away. All I can do is laugh! AHAHAHAHAHA!

We just finished a test in my 7th grade class, and the girls are playing patty cake. Some are doing it in English - Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack... - and others are doing it in Korean. I don't know this song. But they have such a cool pattern - slapping upside down, sideways, two hands, back hands going up, one hand, crossing, etc. And they are so FAST! Their hands fly through the air in an exotic Asian blur. I am going to learn it this week! OK, maybe not the song, but the hands at least! It's like something Mr. Miagi would teach to learn how to catch flies.

So that's it. Random thoughts for the day! More this weekend after the fall trip!

I got my green card, and I went to Vienna!

2008-09-08T13:28:00.001-07:00

SZIA, people! How are things in your hemisphere? I have SO much to tell you! I haven't been able to sit down and write a lot because things have been crazy busy. Go ahead and feel sorry for me. I had to go out of town for the whole weekend. To Vienna. Austria. :)

So, let's start with the home front...I am SO official now. I have my residence permit (my landlord Russell says, "Poor Hungary!") and working visa. I have a parking sticker for my car, AND my shipment came on Friday. That's all my STUFF that I shipped back in June. All my clothes, shoes, books, teaching materials, spices, grits, peanut butter, ziplock bags, more sheets (woo hoo!), towels, pictures, paintings, my bike, etc. All the stuff that makes it feel like my place. It's HERE! FINALLY! I had been living off of what I packed in my suitcase when I came a month ago. It was great to have some comforts from home - like my tortilla press and granola bars. It's so hilarious that half of my shipment was food. (FGT, SUZANNE!!!!) But clearly my priorities are in order. I unpacked a box of shoes and thought, jeez, do I really NEED all of these shoes? And then I thought, yes. That was a stupid, stupid question. So I am all unpacked and feeling all settled in.

So now that I am a resident of Hungary, I decided it was time to leave the country. :) I decided to go explore Vienna. Why, you ask? BECAUSE I CAN! HA! It's 3 hours by train - as long as it would take to go to Orlando. They say it's only 2 in a car, but I wasn't brave enough to drive it yet. So Margarita and I "planned" a trip. Planned is sort of a loose term. We knew we were going to Vienna. We reserved a hotel. We knew we had to go on the train. But that's it. We didn't have a map, a hotel address, an itinerary, or even a clue as to what we were supposed to be seeing in Vienna.

Now, if you've ever been on a cheerleading trip with me and seen one of my itineraries, you will know that I was obviously out of my ever lovin' mind when I agreed to this non-plan. But it all worked out just fine. We had an AMAZING time. A friend of ours gave us a map, and everyone here told us what to go see. I got my guide book from my shipment, we packed a backpack, and took off Saturday morning. It was an easy train ride, and when we got there, the first thing we saw was a bakery/deli in the train station. Viennese food is my new favorite food. After Mexican, of course. But it was SO good. Fresh, light, and delicious! Hungarian food is so much heavier, and someone told us once that he decided to start watching what he was eating so he decided to eat fried cheese instead of fried turkey. Really.

So, we have a couple of sandwiches, ask which way to the cathedral - because we know our hotel is near it, and go straight to the metro and head out. Four stops later, we come up smack dab in front of St. Stephen's cathedral, THE landmark in Vienna, and we go around the corner to our hotel. We actually went STRAIGHT there. No getting lost, no extra turns, nothing. It was amazing. The lady at the desk asked us if we were from Budapest. Yes, actually, yes we are. :) She knew another teacher from our school - evidently a lot of us stay there - and was extremely nice. We dropped our stuff, asked her what she recommended to see first, and headed to the church. We toured this amazing cathedral with an audio guide to sort of get a feel for the history of it. It has actually never been completed, so the north tower is shorter than the south. This lack of symmetry makes it immediately recognizable on the horizon. We climbed the north tower and took some great pictures. We didn't get to climb the south - that's the taller one - I will have to do that when you come to visit.

Next, we did the hop on hop off bus tour - the one that takes you all around the city and shows you the major sights. It's a good way to sort of orient yourself and see what you'd like to go back to. We got off at a food and wine festival at the Hofburg. It looked like what you imagine an Oktoberfest to look like. Tons of tents with crazy amounts of food and wine. We went to one table that was selling lard. Yes, lard. And she was slicing it like bacon. Hmmmm. We moved on. Next up, flavored pumpkin seeds. Now THOSE were really good. But we didn't buy any. Then there was apple wine. That was so good we bought a bottle. But they weren't really prepared to sell it by the bottle, so they made us a makeshift bottle. They poured it in, added a cap (like a Budweiser cap - it didn't seal), and then added DUCT TAPE to seal it shut. DUCT TAPE!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's her in the picture on the left! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA! Who knew it was universal? We are more alike, my friends, than we are different!

We took so many pictures of the architecture. It's like a perfect city. Extremely clean. It's like Disneyworld. Everything is refurbished and amazingly striking. We went to a 500 year old restaurant called Griechenbeisl. People like Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mark Twain, Johnny Cash, and Phil Collins have eaten here, and they leave their signatures on a ceiling in one of the rooms when they do. It's pretty cool. Vienna is obviously known as a city of music, but it is also known as a city of intellectuals, and you can go to cafes where Freud and others used to sit and argue, study, and philosophize.

That night we went to a concert with selections by Mozart, Strauss, and Beethoven. There were opera and ballet performances as well. Now, as I type this, I think, wow, that sounds pretty cool. And when the guy who sold us the ticket was giving us the spiel, it also sounded cool. We told him we wanted to go to an opera. Yeah, this one is performed by the Imperial Symphony. Imperial is good, right? Sounds official. Sounds impressive. The pictures of the grand concert hall that he showed us were amazing, as were the 50+ members of the Imperial Symphony. Margarita and I were joking on the way there that it was probably going to be some high school production in a gym. We arrived at Beethoven Plaza and entered an immaculate, century old building. As we marveled at the arched hallways, we noticed a courtyard. With basketball goals. Really? Basketball goals? OMG. This is a HIGH SCHOOL! And it was. We were led up to the 2nd floor into what was probably the cafeteria - set up with wooden chairs in rows of 16. Seven chairs on the stage with a DRUM SET and a piano. A DRUM SET! For an opera? And then the usher had the nerve to try and seat us in the back. Um, yeah, that doesn't really work for me because the guy who sold us these tickets told us that they were front row, section two, aisle seats. So she says, no those are taken. They must have already been sold. Well, I explain, in my most polite teacher voice, your salesperson has misrepresented this entire evening. And I then pointed out on her chart that she could easily remedy the problem by giving us those two empty seats in section 1, row 4. And she did. Well, at least something went right! It really was a great concert - I imagine it is like Nashville - even the people on the streets are amazing singers. It just would have been a little better with more than a nine person orchestra. :) But you live and learn. So when you go to Vienna, do NOT buy tickets for anything from guys dressed like Beethoven in the church plaza. You've been warned.

The next morning we went to see the Vienna Boys' Choir. We got there early to buy tickets, but there seemed to be no one around. Hmm. That's odd. It's the Vienna Boys' Choir. People have heard of this, haven't they? As it turns out, they were not performing this Sunday. We'll have to go back next week I guess! Next, we headed off to the Schonbrunn Palace - the summer home of the Hapsburgs. Now, this place is ridiculous. Bigger than the Biltmore in NC. It has 1400 rooms. (Biltmore has a paltry 250.) We toured 40 of them, and I was exhausted. It sits on what seems like a bazillion acres. With a water feature that rivals the Trevi Fountain in Rome. I had heard of the Hapsburg Dynasty, but had no IDEA how powerful and influential they were. They include Maximilian - who was emperor of Mexico - Marie Antoinette, Maria Teresa, and Elizabeth - who was queen of Hungary - among a hundred others. So we learned a ton of history and tried to keep the family straight. They basically ruled over most parts of the world at some time or another. And their strategy was to do it through marrying into alliances instead of invading and killing. Interesting, huh? We spent the day there, and then headed back to the city for pizza and to get our souvenirs. We ended up seeing a parade go by on the way to Starbucks - there are 2 in Vienna. Speaking of capitalism, Vienna is the place to go if you need Gucci, Tiffany's, Prada, a Lamborghini, or Ferragamo. Keli - there is a Zara store there too! (We have them here in Budapest too!)

This trip was also cool because Margarita and I kept talking about "back home" in Budapest. So it's starting to feel real now. Starting to feel like home a little. Speaking of home - Sasha stayed home this weekend by herself. I left the patio door open and left plenty of food and water - before you PETA people attack me - she was FINE! :) And when I got home, everything was just as I had left it. WHEW! But really, I don't understand how she does not eat or go to the bathroom for essentially 2 days. I mean, it was only over night, but still, it was basically 2 days. But I DID discover what she does - she pushes the closet door open - a huge sliding glass door - and goes in there to sleep on the bottom shelf with my shoes. She pushes the shoes out of the way, I mean, and makes herself a little cubby on the bottom shelf. How funny is that? Amanda, I am going to try and catch her, like I did in the tub!

So..............today we had another assembly/pep rally. We did a relay race today - so much fun! Tomorrow I only teach 2 of my 5 classes because the rest are on fall trips. And then Wed, I leave with the 7th grade for fall trips. We are going to a castle at Lake Balaton. I think I told you about this already. The whole grade level goes away, essentially to camp. Get to know you, team building, etc. And it's part of their school - part of their tuition. No extra cost. It's just what they do. How cool is that? So I will have pictures when I get back on Fri. And then I will have the wine festival that weekend. So I won't be checking email from Wed-Fri. Don't worry about me. I am ok!

The other thing I am working on is the conference that we will be hosting here in 2010. It's a middle school conference, and I've volunteered to be on the planning committee. (Of course I have.) So I've been going around to local hotels with Tia - the coordinator - to check out the facilitites. It's been great because I get to have a tour of all the best hotels in the area, and then they always take us to the coffee shop for a drink and dessert when we are done. Oh, it's SO good. These are all 5 star hotels, so it's just amazing! We went to two this afternoon. Double dessert before dinner. And then I had scrambled eggs and grits when I got home. How can you go wrong? :)

OK, last thing. We went to a REALLY good Mexican restaurant the other day. It's called the Iguana. It's pretty authentic. They even make their own salsa, Andy! And when I was telling Russell about it, he said, oh yeah, I know the owner. Of course you do, Russell, why wouldn't you? So I asked him - are you his good friend? Like, do you have his cell phone number? I need you to call him and find out where he buys his cilantro. I can't find any. HAHAHA! So, he said he would ask him next time he talks to him. How crazy is that?

All right, then, that's it for now from the big city. Hope you are well. Miss you all like crazy, and I cannot WAIT for you to come visit!

Erzsébet Lookout

2008-08-31T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today we took a chair lift up to the Erzsébet lookout. It's a lookout point on top of one of the hills where you can see the whole city. At night it's all lit up and looks like a little castle. The view was spectacular, of course, but it was kind of hazy today, so the pictures are not the clearest.

If you look REALLY closely, you can see Parliament and the castle in this one. But you have to look hard!

After we hiked the hill, we went back down and across the river to a Greek restaurant. The food was delicious, and so was the waiter. :0

White Trash

2008-08-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

OK, so Margarita and Juliet and I planned to go to Vienna this weekend. But then we found out that there is a White Trash / Euro Trash party at another teacher's house. And we simply cannot pass that up. Specifically, since Margarita and I are from Georgia, we feel it is our patriotic duty to go to this party and represent the south. So we opted for white trash instead of Vienna. It's a logical choice, I think. :) We will go to Vienna in 2 weeks. That's the weekend before the Madonna concert in Paris. Does life get any better?

We also had our first sort of pep rally at school, and Doug asked me to emcee our part - the Spirit Club part. We did the one where the teachers go up the ladders and get a pie in the face. Only we didn't use the pies - we gave the kids an early lunch. It was SO much fun. I was super nervous because, you know, I don't DO the pep rallies. I RUN them. I am the organizer, right? The kids DO them. But this time I did one. When I was walking up on the stage, the guy tried to hand me the microphone. Awww, that's cute. Um, I don't think I need that. Clearly you have never been to one of my practices! So we did some cheers in my big "I will KILL you, Cy!" voice, and had loads and loads of fun. I still have no new pictures to post. Paul was supposed to send me one, but alas...

Tues night I had HS back to school night and got to meet lots of parents, and tonight was MS back to school. I am still in love with my kids - it's so cool how they are completely ok with trying a new language. It's completely normal to them. They have amazing coping skills, and they teach ME lots of stuff every day! They take notes. They take NOTES! Without me telling them to! WHO ARE THESE CHILDREN? And where can I find more?

I found out today that I get to go on the 7th grade trip to Lake Balaton - to a castle/ruins, medieval jousting show and dinner, etc. Get this - the ENTIRE school goes on a fall trip. We will have been in school for 2 weeks, and each grade goes away for nearly a week. It's a time for them to bond and get to know each other, etc. It's like cheerleading camp. Without the froo froo. In the middle of the school year. I promise I will have pictures. I will take them myself! HA!

I do have one complaint. Tomorrow is Friday, and I cannot wear jeans. No such thing as a jeans day here. But, honestly, this is my biggest problem right now. :)

Hope you have an amazing day in your part of the world!

What I've Learned So Far

2008-08-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

So here's a little of what I've learned so far...

Take your own bags to the grocery store.

Pay close attention and follow what everyone else does. It's sort of like Catholic church for me - stand up when everyone else does, sit down, kneel, stand up......

I wear a size FORTY in European shoes!

European shoes are FABULOUS.

I should not run without my knee brace.

Pull your hand back quick when you load the washing machine.

Canadians are way cool, eh?

It takes 2 days to dry my sheets, so I sleep without them on weekends.

Sometimes my kids think I'm crazy. Wait - that's not new.

Dogs can ride public transportation here.

When driving, yield to the person on your right.

Show the number 1 with your thumb, not your index finger.

To get in line, you have to get a number from a computer at the cell phone place and at the bank. Even if you don't speak Hungarian, and you don't know what kind of number to sign up for. Take a number.

People are people all over the world. Mean ones and nice ones. Smart ones and idiots. All over. Isn't that refreshing? There are rednecks here too!

I still don't like beer.

I LOVE life.

First Day of School

2008-08-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

Thursday, Aug 21, 2008

Well, I finally had my first day of school today. I must tell you, I LOVE middle school. I never thought I would. Well, I always THOUGHT that high school was the only thing for me. But I'm broadening my horizons. These kids are AMAZING! And the staff is great; the principal is all about team building and taking care of his people. From dragon boat racing, to a sort of initiation/pledge ceremony for new teachers, this guy is all over it!

I'll start with yesterday - St. Stephen's Day - a national holiday, so no one works or goes to school. We spent the afternoon at a Belgian Brasserie on the river watching the Red Bull Air Races. These planes - Cessna size, but I don't think they are really Cessnas - race UNDER a bridge, through an obstacle course on the river, in front of Parliament, to the Margaret Bridge, and back. They do all kinds of shows - like the Blue Angels - they even had a WWII US Navy plane fly over - flip over, spiral around each other, stall in the air, all KINDS of crazy stuff. I am SUPPOSED to have pictures from Margarita's camera, but, AHEM, I haven't gotten them yet. :) I am sure it will be soon! Then last night we went to another teacher's house - right on the river. RIGHT ON THE DANUBE RIVER across from Parliament - it's AMAZING! We went there to watch the fireworks - it's sort of like Fourth of July. But it was weird because even though it's not really MY country, I was SO touched - SO blown away - by the beauty of it all. There were THOUSANDS of people lined up along the river - it reminded me of New Year's in Sydney - and they played all this classical music and pop music and the national anthem to go along with the fireworks. All I could think was, MAN, I LIVE HERE. I live here in this former communist country where people my own age lived through the Russian occupation. And where the people that I have met (well, the ones I could talk to) truly VALUE their freedom - because some of them know what it's like to live without it. And I wonder if everyone sees the same beauty that I do here on the river. And I walk home later with a thousand other people - completely safe, completely happy, completely aware of how amazing this whole experience has been so far - and school hasn't even started at this point!

But this morning, it did start. So we got there early - because that's what good teachers do. We put on our name tags and headed out into the hallways to help the kids find their way around. Except I was missing one of my class rosters, so I had to run around and get that. Good to know that the first day is chaotic EVERYWHERE! :) I am a floater (PATF) and am working in four different classrooms. Today I was in five different rooms because of that missing roster. And I am also working in 2 different divisions - middle and high school. Granted, we are in the same building, but the scheduling is different, so you have to be on your toes! For middle school I see my kids for 40 minutes every day. For high school, I see them 80 minutes twice a week and 40 minutes once a week. And it's not the same each day. And, of COURSE, the first day schedule is completely different. So I had that thing taped to my arm like a quarterback with his plays. I kept my head down and plowed through a few kids, but I got to class on time! (Just kiddin!)

My kids are AWESOME. (Well, most of them are.) Almost ALL of them already speak 2-3 languages. They don't know how jealous I am of them. :) But it's SO interesting because the Korean kids are very quiet and reserved, and the one American and one Australian are loud, and the Hungarians are actually the loudest. The MS kids are so cute - very sweet and want to do a good job. One of my high school classes has a lot of Hungarian kids in it, and I'm sure I'll have to deal with them speaking in a language I don't understand. Yet.

My favorite part of the day was the afternoon assembly. They seat the kids in the auditorium by class - 6th, 7th, and 8th. And they do this ceremonial graduation thing where the 8th graders get to move up to their rightful place in the front three rows. And then 7th comes up and then 6th. The energy was AMAZING. Those kids were SO pumped to get to move up closer. They were crawling, running, hopping, and bouncing over the seats. Once they were all seated and quiet - which was impressively quick, by the way - the activities coordinator recognized EACH and EVERY country that is represented at our school - 39 in the middle school alone. And they asked the kids to stand when they called their country. What a GREAT honor! And EVERYONE clapped for each other and for all the countries. You talk about a celebration of diversity - OH MAN - and the kids were genuinely clapping for each other. It was like one of those "pass it on" commercials - when someone does something nice for someone, you know?

You guys, I am SO in my element. I LOVE this place. I think this school was made for me. It's like they built the school and got things running smoothly, and then called me and said, "Ok, we're ready. Come take your job." It's not perfect - there are things to deal with. But the community - the people - the values - OH, it's just a perfect FIT. Then they introduced me as a new Spirit Club advisor. I love this. It's the spirit part of cheerleading - with the same enthusiasm, but without all the hours. :) (We don't have a regular cheerleading team here.) Doug is the other advisor. He's been doing it for a few years, and when we talked about it, he told me that the time commitment was about 2 lunches a week and maybe one meeting for the 2 of us. This - compared with 14-15 hour days that I am used to - is a piece of CAKE! And I told him a few of the things we had done at Camden - game tickets, some pep rally ideas, dress up days, theme weeks, etc. He was blown away. He made me feel like I was the smartest, most creative person he had ever met! And I was thinking, wow, this stuff is like 10 years old. But, hey, it's NEW HERE! :) I'm also working on the international conference that we are hosting next year. I wonder if all of those ideas will be as well received!?!?!?

Then they called all the new teachers up and gave us this little trophy thing of a Blazer - that's our mascot - because the gym burned down several years ago - in a blaze - get it? Blazers? And they had us say this pledge - it was HEEEELARIOUS! And the kids loved it.

Tomorrow after school we have a welcome dinner/thing at the American ambassador's house. Seriously. I love this place.

My Fabulous, Exotic European Life

2008-08-16T07:09:00.001-07:00

This one is for those of you who have been secretly wishing I would fall down a well or something....

Two days ago Sasha got some aluminum foil out of the trash that smelled like chicken and decided to eat it. I tried to get it away from her, obviously, but she was having none of it. She was protecting that scrap of aluminum like a lion protects a fresh kill. Seriously, she was growling, barking, and biting. I chased her with a broom to try and get it out of her mouth. She ate the broom. I tried yelling at her, reasoning with her, begging and pleading. In English and in Spanish. I finally gave up when I saw that she had swallowed the foil - all of it. I figured she would either throw it up or have to go to the bathroom pretty soon. That was 2 days ago. I haven't seen it since.

Until...

I got in really late last night. When I got home, I could tell something was wrong because when Sasha came out to greet me, she had her ears down low, like she knew she had done something bad. She had thrown up the ball of foil and whatever sort of stomach acid had been working on it for the last two days. She left it precisely on the spot where I sleep. ON the bed. Two inches from my pillow. It covered and soaked through the duvet cover, the down comforter, the sheets, and the mattress itself. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. But at 3 am, I am not going to be cleaning and doing laundry in my crazy washing machine. So I pushed it all off the side of the bed, and I slept on Sasha's side of the bed. She was nice enough to sleep on the vomit side.

This morning I got up ready to wash the mess, and I saw that I didn't have any laundry soap. That's ok, I thought, I have a CAR! I can go to the grocery store! I can go to the BIG grocery store out by IKEA.

So I get in my big girl car, and I take off down the road. Now, driving in a new place is hard enough - you don't know where you are exactly, things look different, etc. But add to that the fact that I don't speak Hungarian yet, I'm driving a stick again (it's been a long time), I'm in a BIG city where people drive like madmen, and the fact that I've only been to this store once. But I have a pretty good sense of direction, and I figure, worse case scenario, I just turn around and come back the way I came, right?

I'm on what seems like an interstate and people are whizzing by me and passing me. I'm going 80! Then I realize that's kilometers, and the speed limit is 100! I find the exit and feel a huge sense of relief and success! As I exit, I see that you exit INTO a roundabout. I am picturing the Griswald's European vacation - look, Big Ben, Parliament!

But I get out of the roundabout and get to the store. Now I am feeling great - super confident - because I KNOW how to shop. I've DONE this before! I go to get a cart, and they're all chained up one to another. I wish I had had my camera. You have to put a coin in a slot to release it. In other words, you have to PAY to get a shopping cart. But, at this store, they give you bags at least. I went in and got most of what I needed. I tried to weigh my fruits and veggies, because that's what you DO, right? No, not at THIS store. They will do it for you. So, how confusing is that?!

In the store, I met a couple from Mexico City. Such a small world. The lady has a daughter in 3rd grade at my school and works with the board a lot. Isn't that funny? They were arguing about which fabric softener to buy, and she told me to buy this one because it was from her husband's company. Hilarious! They asked me first if I was Mexican. Then Hungarian. When I told them I was American, they said, are you SURE you're not Mexican? :) Well, I am a little bit, I guess. So we exchanged numbers, and she said if I needed anything - or just wanted to have a coffee - to call her. I think I will see if she makes good Mexican food! :) I also met 2 guys from Mexico last night. But not from the DF. But still, I just think that's so funny!

I found the American section - kind of like the Mexican section that we have - and paid $7 for a chocolate chip cookie mix. But comfort food is important! I can probably sell them at school for $7 each! Still can't find peanut butter. But my shipment comes at the end of the month, so I will have some then. More exotic things I bought: a frying pan (because Russell took mine - said the previous tenant had left it here and wanted it), a mop, bleach, soap, bananas, and milk.

On the way home, I got off track twice. I won't say LOST because I knew where I was, I was just on the wrong road. I had gotten in the wrong lane and missed my turn. And it's not like at home where if you miss it, you just go to the next exit and turn around. It's much more complicated here! Well, at least that road was.

I finally got here and got everything all cleaned up, washed the down comforter by hand in the sink - the dirty part, anyway. And I have it out on the terrace drying. And the wind blew it over. So now it's ALL COVERED in dirt. This is my not happy face.

At school yesterday they told us about the curriculum review that 3 departments are doing this year - world languages is one of the "lucky" ones. It's like a part of school improvement - it's essentially a program evaluation, but it's a long, involved process with lots of data collecting, analyzing, and report writing. So, the German teacher sees me in the hallway in the afternoon. TAMI, she squeals, [kiss, kiss], how ARE you? We were just TALKING about you! And she tells me that they have nominated ME (woo hoo) to be the lead person for the language dept for the curriculum review. No, I tell her, I am new, and I don't know as much as you all do. But, she reminds me, you're the only one whose first language is English. For the rest of us, it's our 2nd or 3rd, and for us to write a document like that would be incredibly hard because we just don't have that kind of vocabulary. And while everything she says is very flattering, I am not sure that I want to be the in charge gal. Basically, that means the "do all the work" gal.

I've already volunteered to help plan the international conference we are hosting here next year. We'll go out next weekend and look at locations around the city. And I'm helping with the Spirit Club - because of all my cheerleading experience, they tell me. But I think it's going to be TONS of fun! They actually tried to start a real cheerleading team here last year, and some of the parents complained and said no because of the stereotype that cheerleaders have! Isn't that interesting? And IMPORTANT - for all of you who still cheer - remember who you are and whom you represent! Even half way around the world, people think they know you!

So this is my exotic life. Pots and pans, mops and buckets. Here's the thing, though, I think life is what you make of it. I am just lucky right now in that it's easy for me to see and appreciate all these mundane things as new experiences. I really and truly wake up every day just SO happy. Happy for the amazing weather, for the vomit on my bed, for my family and friends that are supporting me back home, for my new friends and colleagues, for crazy drivers, mean cashiers, and the opportunities ahead of me. But don't you have the SAME things? Granted, you have it in a different place, but we all have these things. OK, that's the end of my speech. But I hope you're thankful for something today! I am thankful for YOU taking the time to read this!

Riverboat Cruise

2008-08-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Aug 16, 2008

We finally got to go on the cruise last night - part of pre-planning, you'll remember. It was AMAZING! The city is even more beautiful at night, and this was a great way to see it! Check out the slide show above...

Behind door #2...A NEW CAR!

2008-08-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

Thursday, Aug 14, 2008

OK, so it's not NEW. It's a 1999. But it's new to me! This is the one I bought when I came in June, but it was in another teacher's garage all summer. She just got in yesterday, and we went to her house to try and start it, but nothing. I was just a WEE BIT worried, needless to say!

We went back to try again today, and after some fuss, we finally got it! Margarita's dad is a mechanic, so she knows about cars, and she magically got it started! So....it's a stick, no AC, has a radio and cassette player. The brakes feel sort of weird, but I will get that fixed. Besides, you don't really NEED those, do you? :)

So, I drive home, and don't get lost. That's a plus. Stopped for gas on the way home - spent SEVENTY DOLLARS to fill it up! it was 33 litres at about $2.00 a litre = more than $6 a gallon!!!! But I have a car. I do have to pay for parking on the street because I don't have my parking pass yet, so I go to the meter - the blue thing below - and I can't really figure out how to use it - how much to put in, etc. I called another teacher, and she told me to go to the corner store and get change and put in as much as I had. So, I got Sasha and headed to the store. And as we're headed down the hill, here comes the ticket guy. He rounds the corner with his blue vest and something that looks like a credit card slip printer, and he probably saw me the minute I saw him. I was wearing bright green shorts - the Umbros, Andy! - and a t-shirt and tennis shoes. I promise I don't wear this every day, but we were rowing on the Danube today - more on that later. So I look him dead in the eye, assess the situation, yank Sasha in a 180, and high tail it back up the street. I am trying not to run, but I am obviously trying to walk faster than him so I can get to my car before he does, and before he sees that I have no parking sticker. I think I see him out of the corner of my eye trying to walk faster than me, but he has to stop at the 2nd car to give them a ticket. YESSS! I dodge cars, stuff Sasha in the back seat, and peel out before he can get to me! (OK, I didn't really PEEL out, but isn't that a better story!?!?!?)

This one - the Porsche - is my landlord's car. That's my landlord, the public school PE teacher and/or possible drug dealer?, by the way. I snuck a picture while he was talking to the carpenter!

This one is my car again - on my street!

The stinkin' parking meter! You have to look for them when you park on a street. There's only one for the whole street - not one per space.

Before all this, the middle school staff went off campus to do some teambuilding activities today. They told me that they did a ropes course last year. I hate that we didn't get to do that this year! But we DID get to go to the Danube and do several activities, including cooking goulash, races while dragging a stump, etc., and then we went rowing and had what are called "Dragon Boat" races. They put 15 people in a canoe and the teams race against each other. My team came in second. (Out of 2, but that's not important.) So, I don't know if this teambuilding effort is particular to middle school in general, or to international schools, or to my current principal. But they make a huge effort to make us feel like family and to take care of us and support each other. You know I love that.

This is still pre-planning, by the way. Meetings all day yesterday (but when we went in the all faculty meeting in the auditorium, Queen was blasting from the speakers - "Under Pressure"!), and dragon boat racing today, more meetings tomorrow, and then we sort of get to it. Fri afternoon we have a formal thing at the American Ambassador's house, and then the cruise on the Danube Fri night. Next week we have pre-planning on Mon and Tue, and then Wed is a national holiday, so no one works. We will go to the Red Bull Air Races - where they race planes low along the Danube, going UNDER the bridges along the way! School sponsored BBQ and fireworks at night, and then FINALLY, the kids come the next day - Thurs Aug 21. But even then, it's not a normal school day. It's a get to know you day. I never EVER thought I would say this, but I LOVE middle school! :) Well, so far....I'll keep you up to date - it might change later on! HA!

I do hope you are well! Email me SOON and OFTEN!

Sziget Festival

2008-08-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

Wed, Aug 13, 2008

After pre-planning today, I went to see Alanis Morissette at the Sziget (Island) Festival. The island has about 15 stages with all different types of music. There are lots of stands with fair food - like the Catfish festival, only 100 times bigger! You can get a week pass and camp there and listen to concerts 24/7. And the great thing is that it is SO well organized! Tons of people, tons of languages, and everyone is having a great time. REM plays on Sat!

A Three Hour Tour

2008-08-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

Sun, Aug 10, 2008

Szia! Sasha and I took a three hour walk around Budapest today. And then we went on a train. WOW! I am exhausted! And so is she! We walked down to Moscow Square – one of the main transit hubs – up to Castle Hill, and back down to the Chain Bridge, where they have it closed off for a weekend arts and crafts festival. There are vendors, food, musicians, people galore, and great views. Sasha was so good! She walked right through everything and didn’t bother anyone or bark at all. Some people wanted to pet her, and some people wanted to get out of her way! I stopped at one booth to buy a plate, and two old ladies came up behind me and sort of pushed me aside and picked up a broken piece of pottery on the ground and handed it to the vendor. Oh no. She’s going to think I broke it. Or Sasha did. Did she? Oh no. I don’t speak enough Hungarian to get out of this one. So I accept that I will probably have to just pay for it and give the old ladies my meanest thoughts (in my head, of course). But the vendor lady was very nice, and said something to the effect of no worries, and sent me on my way. :)

On the other side of the bridge, we sat in a park for a while and had some water before we took off again. Now, we’re on the Pest side of the Danube, and I wanted to go a few more blocks to check out information on the island festival that starts this week. REM is playing, Alanis Morissette (did you know she has Hungarian roots? Me neither), the Killers, Iron Maiden, Jamiroquai, and just TONS more. You can see all of them at http://www.sziget.hu/festival_english/programmes. So, we walked a couple more miles to go there, and then I decided to take the tram back home. Evidently dogs are allowed on the tram. It’s like a metro, only above ground. I bought a ticket, we got on, Sasha sat right next to me, and we came home to Moscow Square. I just laughed the whole time. Can you just imagine taking your dog on public transport and she just sits there like anybody else? People were looking at me, but I couldn't help it. Just picture it. Or look at the first pic on this entry. That's her. Just hanging out on the train. With the people. Oh my! AHAHAHAHAHA!

This last week we had more orientation at school – I got to see my classroom. It is a shared room, so I have to float some, but it’s ok – I live in Europe. :) I have a SMART board and projector, and brand new Mac computers for the kids that we can use. The most impressive thing, though, is the people here. The staff at school is very open minded, well traveled, energetic, and they seem to just sort of enjoy life. The administration has said nothing at all about test scores – we don’t have NCLB here – but they have given us their personal cell phone numbers and told us to call if we need anything at all. They want us to do well so that we can do our best to help our kids succeed. The way they talk, you can tell, it really is all about the kids.

This weekend they took us to IKEA to get whatever furniture and other stuff we needed. There’s also a few really big “box” stores out there – like Costco, Wal-Mart, Sears type stores. You don’t have to bring your own bags there! :) My new colleagues and I just keep looking around the city and saying, “Wow. We LIVE here.”

Not so exciting news - I did laundry today. Now, if you don't do your own laundry, I want you to go and kiss whoever does yours on the mouth. Right now. And if you DO do laundry, I want you to go and kiss your dryer on the mouth. Right now. I don't have a dryer. I am lucky to have this funky little washing machine. It's very different. Sometimes I get my hand caught in the drum where the clothes go. And then I hang them to dry. And now they are all crunchy. Remember "light as a feather, stiff as a board"? That's what they are now. Stiff as a board! So say a little thank you right now to your dryer.

Travel plans: Jeremy is the teacher whose place I am taking this year – he is moving over to ESL, and I am teaching his Spanish classes. He came back this weekend – he was in Brazil, Sweden, and Poland this summer – must be rough! And he’s got me planning my travel schedule for the year. You already know about the Madonna concert in Paris in September. Then there’s Turkey in October, Egypt in December, and I have to plan something for Feb. We have a week off then – it’s called “ski week” – that’s the name. Can you believe that? And then a week in April and then the summer. I am hoping for VISITORS – ahem, ahem – in April, so I am not going to make travel plans! And then there are the little weekend trips to Germany, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, you know, like going to Savannah.

I hope to get my car this week. Wish me luck! I can't wait to see what stories come out of THAT!

All right, I am going to go for now. Stay in touch! Much love! LIVE YOUR PASSION!

First day and SHOPPING!

2008-08-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

Wed, Aug 6, 2008

FIRST DAY!
I still didn’t sleep last night. I just keep waking up to every little whisper and crackle. Read for a while, stared at the ceiling for a while. Got about 2 hours of sleep, and my back is still in knots from the whole thing. Got up at 5:30 this morning to a BEAUTIFUL sun-shiny day! OMG the best – the kind of day that makes you happy to be alive.

Yesterday Sasha and I went down to the Danube. Walked about 10 blocks or so – that’s a complete guess. But I remembered where Juliet’s apartment was and the Belgian beer place and the chain bridge. Sasha did well, but almost got hit by a tram about 6 times. We sat in the park by a church. I really need to learn what all these places are. Took lots of great pictures. Russell called. I love when he calls. I remember walking along taking pictures and just thinking, oh my God. I LIVE HERE. How amazing is that? I LIVE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today was the first day of orientation for new teachers. The kids don't come till Aug 21. I met Margarita - a math teacher - in front of the McDonald’s. She sort of picked me out right away. UGH. I hate being picked out! I'm trying so hard to pretend like I'm a local. HA! The school van picked us up – with about 8 other people – so it was great to meet everyone and know that we are all in the same boat – LOST! Gives us something in common, right? They overloaded us with information at the meeting, but it was all good. Lots of bank info, buses, trains, customs, imports, driving rules, etc. My favorite: you have to get a Hungarian driver’s license after 6 months, but the test is in Hungarian, so you have to take a translator from the school with you. And they know all the answers to the test. So, the guy says, "Can you pass on the right?" and you say yes, and your translator says, she said no. AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!

I am still BLOWN AWAY by the school. It looks like a celebrity ski resort in Colorado. AND I WORK THERE!

So, I got a ride into town with some others who were going to get a cell phone. They went to some random mall on the outskirts. I think it’s the one that has the Clinique. But I was super proud of myself because I recognized where it was and knew how to get home. It’s near the Panda hotel. I am a regular compass!

Came home and had a nap since I didn’t sleep, but I HAD to go to the store before dinner because I really needed food. I've been eating bread and jam and apples and cheese. I was hungry all day – no real food left. I haven't had a REAL meal since I've been here. Don't even know if my stove works. I am contemplating drinking the beer. That has barley and hops, right? Isn't that grains? Good for you? No?

And I am all proud of myself because I know how to go grocery shopping in Europe already, right? I dress myself in my finest American uniform – shorts, t-shirt, tennis shoes – and get my plastic bags together. (You have to pay extra if you want bags to take your stuff home.) I head down to Mammut - the mall where there's a grocery at the bottom. Get my fruit, weigh it – because I am an experienced European shopper, and I know you have to weigh your fruit before you get to the register – get some other random stuff – the cheese that I like (I don't know what kind it is. I just memorized the name from the package from my welcome home groceries.), meat that looks like chicken, something that says "light," etc. And I get to the register and the lady says something to me (in Hungarian) and her tone says she is exasperated with me. Oh man. What have I done? I was SO careful to bring my bags, weigh my fruit. Now what? Evidently, you also have to take your FREAKIN food out of the carrying basket FOR GOD’S SAKE, now why would you think that is a cashier’s job? So she gasps GAH and rolls her eyes. And I scramble to take it all out, bag it all up, and pay for it all before she starts throwing the next lady’s stuff on top of mine. And all I can do is smile a big goofy grin all the way home. I am so sorry this lady is having a bad day, but I am having an INCREDIBLE life! Are you KIDDING me right now? How can you be upset like that when you live in a city like this? Look around you, woman! Life is AMAZING! Don’t let a stupid American get you down!

We had dinner at the Buda campus (lower elementary school), which overlooks the city. OH.MY.GOD. I hate that I didn’t have my camera. All the new people got new phones – we all got the same lame cheap one. But at least it’s a PHONE! So we're all acting like teenagers getting everyone's number, learning to text, trying to figure out how to lock it and how to dial a stupid number!

I met Tia – art teacher, married to a Hungarian, and lots of other very cool, very helpful people. Tia used to be an art dealer in LA. She sold paintings on Rodeo drive to movie stars. And decided she just didn't like it. So, she and her Hungarian boyfriend moved back here to Budapest, she started as a substitute teacher, and is now one of the best teachers they have! Go figure!

Szia! I have INTERNET!

2008-08-10T09:13:00.001-07:00

Tue, Aug 5, 2008

Szia! (That means HI!)

Sasha is HERE! YAY! She made it in yesterday – it was quite an adventure getting her from the airport. I am SO glad that I went with the moving service to get her here. I don’t know that I would have been able to get through all the check points and gates and paperwork to get to the cargo area. You know I like to be independent and do things on my own – this adventure has been an EXCELLENT learning experience for me. I have had to ask for help more in the past 4 days than in the past 39 years! But the wonderful part is that so many people are willing! The school has been so supportive – I feel like I have family here already – they are great! They sent me a driver yesterday to take me to pick Sasha up, and he navigated through all the red tape and got me where I needed to be. I am so grateful!

I had to take Sasha out last night and realized that there are NO LIGHTS in the stairway, and I don’t have a flashlight. (I will get one today.) Sasha tripped on the last flight of stairs, and I was scared out of my mind! I told my landlord about it today, and he said, “Oh that’s a little extra excitement for you – no charge! Hungary is a lot more exciting than the States. I think you’ll like it here!” AHAHAHAHA!

So I’ve spent the last few days getting things in order. Getting a cell phone and internet has been a HOOT! I was lucky enough to run into some people who speak English at the T-Mobile store – they are actually teachers at AISB – and the guy speaks Hungarian, too, so he helped me get a phone. It’s a tiny little Cracker Jack phone, but it’s a phone! The number is +36-30-361-1937. (So when you see a plus sign, it means dial whatever you need to to get a line outside your country and then the new country’s code. In the case of the US, that means dial 011 to get an outside line and then 36 is Hungary’s country code. Clear as mud?) :)

I couldn’t get any sort of contract for a phone or internet since I don’t have my residence permit yet, so I have pay as you go phone service, and my landlord was nice enough to vouch for me and get an internet contract in his name, and I just pay the bill. This is the Russell Crowe landlord, remember. :) BUT!!!!!! I have a new fangled 64 bit computer – thanks, Doug! – and the internet card does not want to work with it. So I have been at the Pannon office 4 days in a row. And now I am at some random house with a business in the basement. Very clandestine. Very 007 if you ask me. It’s like a secret Geek Squad that only cool people know about. J So, OBVIOUSLY, I found out about it! And the guy got me all set up - so, no more McDonald’s for this girl! I have INTERNET! WOO HOO!

Going shopping this afternoon – my welcome home groceries are running out. THANKS to all of you who offered to come and drink the beer for me! I even had one suggestion that things might go more smoothly if I did start drinking it! AHAHAHAHAHA!

Start new teacher orientation at school tomorrow, so I will have less free time to write these long novels. But I wanted to give you my info now that I have it all together. Also wanted to ask you for a favor – I didn’t sell my car before I left, so my dad has it and is trying to sell it for me. Will you help me spread the word? I have a flyer I can email you!

Thanks, too, for all of your responses to my first email! It makes me feel not so alone to hear from you all – almost like Christmas! :)

OK, gotta run for now. Take care, and I’ll send more soon! Love ya!

Budapest: Day 1

2008-08-10T09:11:00.001-07:00

Sun, Aug 3, 2008

Hi guys! So, I’ve made it here ok, and got a full night’s sleep last night. It was hard falling asleep because I live in an apartment now, and there are lots of noises that I didn’t have at my house. When people go in or out of the gate or even walk through the garden, it sounds like they are right there in my room! But I’ll get used to it, I suppose. Here’s the first update…

Fri 3:00 am – the adventure begins!

I had to get up early to finish packing before dad and Merrell came to pick me up at 4. I got everything in 2 suitcases and a big box. There was a lot of squishing and pushing, but I got it stuffed in. Merrell couldn’t believe that it all fit – and truthfully, neither could I! It took all 3 of us to close the box. And then we went back to dad’s house to get super strength duct tape to keep it shut. Because I was flying first class I got to take 3 pieces of luggage up to 70 pounds each (instead of 1 at 50 pounds like in coach). Got to the airport, and the stupid box weighed 72 pounds. L So I had to pay a $150 over weight charge. For TWO stinkin’ pounds! When I got the box on this end, it was intact, but it had started to split at one of the seams. Oh well, at least I got it! It would have been a LOT more to send it FedEx.

My flights all day left late, but it was ok because I had long layovers between each. They were all uneventful. That’s the way you want them to be, I suppose! I got to see Julie in NYC – she came to the airport, and we visited for a while. YAY! On one flight a few people got up and started walking toward the front as soon as we landed, so they announced that we were still on an active runway, and they would have to sit down. One lady stood as close as she could to a wall and tried to hide her head behind it – like they weren’t going to see her! AHAHAHAHA!

So I got in at about 11:30 Sat am. (Hungary is 6 hours ahead of GA.) My principal picked me up, we got lunch, and came to my new apt with the secretary from the school that does housing. Her name is Andrea, and she is SO nice! I was incredibly thankful to have her here because I don’t speak Hungarian, and even though the real estate agent and my landlord speak English, it’s always better to have someone on your side who does speak the language when you are signing a contract! She even brought me 2 bags of groceries and filled my refrigerator – sort of a welcome gift and so that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting to the store on my first day. Isn’t that thoughtful ? So I have milk, ham, cheese, fruit, orange juice, bread, cereal, cookies, Coke, and beer. HAHAHA! Too bad I don’t drink beer. Still, how nice was that?

The apartment is great – the only thing I don’t like is the pink wall in the living room. I don’t hate it, I just don’t like it. The view is incredible – I can see all of downtown, Castle Hill, and Parliament from my balcony. The cable was already hooked up – my landlord says that the apt has had it for a long time and we don’t know how or why, but not to question it. OK! I have lots of Hungarian channels, BBC, CNN, and MTV in Hungarian and VH1 in English. I also have a channel in French and another in Italian. I love it!

I had to pay him $2400 (deposits and rent) in cash yesterday, so I was scrambling to get that – American Express is the coolest company ever. I called them from Jacksonville and told them I needed the cash, and they wired me $1000 in Atlanta. Andy and Julie, you’ll be happy to know that I carried it on my person the whole trip! A little nerve wracking carrying $2400 cash across several countries.

After the walk through and learning about how to work things in the apt, I went to the mall – just 3 blocks away and HUGE! T-Mobile was already closed, so I couldn’t get a phone, but I will get one Monday. I took my laptop to McDonald’s and sent emails and called mom and dad on Skype. Skype is SO cool! I was worried that I didn’t get everything I needed before I came, but they have pretty much everything at the mall, so it’s all good. They even have a Clark’s shoes. Things are more expensive here – well, specifically, electronics. I bought a new hair dryer and plug for my computer – you know, because the plugs are different here. Paid like $30 for the hair dryer. I also looked at air conditioners for my apt. Everyone told me you don’t NEED AC here, but yesterday I disagreed completely. It was freakin’ HOT. I am going to have to buy a DVD player, and the cheapest ones are $70. They would be like $30-40 at Wal Mart. I miss Wal Mart already.

I can’t pick up my car until the lady who is storing it in her garage comes back from vacation. That’s sort of annoying. But it will be ok. I have other things to do till then. It might be a good thing. It’s going to be an adventure learning how to drive here! They drive on the same side as us, but seem to be more aggressive and the roads are all twisty turny.

Sasha gets here Monday – tomorrow – at 4:30 pm. I called the boarding place before I left, and they said she was doing well and hadn’t given them any problems and was even eating! That’s sort of a big deal for her. So I hope everything goes as planned. I’ll let you know.

When I came through customs with my big ole box and suitcases, one guy asked what was in the box and wanted to see my passport. I told him sheets and towels, and he said ok. So THANK GOODNESS they didn’t want to open anything. Mostly because it would have been a chore to close it back up.

Yesterday as the landlord – who looks like Russell Crowe, by the way – was leaving and showing me the key to the gate and which buzzer was mine, I met my first bum. He was rummaging through the trash, which sits just inside the gate. And my landlord shooed him off – I don’t speak Hungarian, but I can read context clues. And that’s when I learned that the lock on the gate is broken. Great. He came back this morning and went through it again – and it sounded like he was going through the trash in my living room! But Peter (landlord) says the gate will be fixed soon.

When I got back to the apt, I had trouble opening one of the locks – there are FOUR locks on my door – 2 on a gate and 2 on the door – and I was wondering what exactly I would do if I was, indeed, locked out. Luckily, I got it and got in – WHEW!

So, today is Sunday. I was unpacking this am and pulled something in my back. So my afternoon run is out for today. L At some point I’ll go to McDonald’s to use the Internet again.

Camden started school on Friday – I hope that went well for everyone! I start on Wed – new teachers go in on Wed – and returning teachers come a week later. New teachers have a LOT of orientation to do – not just to the school, but also to the country. They not only tell us how to report grades and take attendance, but also how to set up a bank account, how to use the metro, etc. It’s a very supportive community of ex-pats at the school. I am looking forward to it. We get to go on a cruise on the Danube as part of our orientation, too!
I suppose that’s it for now. Actually, that’s a LOT! I hope you’ll keep in touch! I’ll keep you updated!