Romania - Corvinesti Castle and Turda

Nagyobb térképre váltás

Armed with a passport for Iago, signed and approved by a local vet (we had to book ourselves in between the local cattle injections), we headed off towards the Romanian border. It's always a bit nerve racking going through any border control, or indeed any situation that involves negotiating with heavily armed gunmen who don't speak our language, but especially when we've got a room booked and we were turned away last time we attempted a crossing. But surely enough, the gruff wielder of the 9mm semi automatic smiled at the picture of Iago and said "Nice dog" then spent 15 minutes pawing over my passport before crediting it with an additional two stamps.

So by 9am Tuesday we were into Romania and on our way towards Hunedoara. I'd read that there was a quite impressive castle that has been around since the 14th century (and even then it was built on old Roman fortifications) and also quite impressively it seems that Vlad the Impaler (read: Dracula) was imprisoned there for 7 years. It seemed to be quite far on Google Maps (5 hours or so) so we were going to stay the night then come back the next day.

The only issue was that when our GPS did its min(speed limit x distance) calculations it decided that it would be best to send us straight over the Bihor Massif, a proud member of the Western Carpathian Mountains. Which although we were technically allowed to go 100km/h at night, during a miniature blizzard, up a 1.8km elevation mountain we were only ballsy enough to go 30-40km/h max. This seemed to cause much distress to the local drivers who seemed to think that they'd lived a good life and it was about time to die in a horrific head on car crash trying to overtake terrified Australians. Needless to say we arrived at our destination at around 9 o'clock instead of the expected 3 o'clock that we were hoping for.

We decided to steel our nerves by going out for dinner at a local restaurant, but that was pretty hairy too. I don't know if we've mentioned that there are a lot of stray dogs in Hungary, but there are /sooo/ many more in Romania. They wander around the streets in packs, scrounging for food and barking at anyone seeking to enter their territory. They actually seemed relatively friendly as kids seemed happy enough to pat them, but they went pretty wild at Iago. Anyway, we all survived the experience, even if it did result in Iago's new found habit of whining pathetically at any dogs or aggressive looking sheep that we came across.

The next morning we set off to visit the Corvinesti Castle.

It was awesome. This was everything any budding castle lover could want. It had a moat, a massively long bridge that you had to cross to even get close to the walls, it had all the murder holes that you can imagine and a mess of rooms, spiral staircases, knights' halls, towers, guard rooms and courtyards.

The walls were at least 10 metres to the cliff face which dropped another 10 or so to the river. The whole castle had the feel of having been in consistant repair and renovation for the last 600 years. In one case, four levels of stairs and floors were missing such that it was now a cavernous shell. Outside we were reminded of a legend that says that in the 15th century there were three Turkish prisoners who were told that they would be freed if they dug a well. It took them 15 years to dig 28 metres to find water, but they were never freed. It is said that the inscription on the well says "You have water, but no heart". But it later was discovered that it is more closely translated as "Hassan, prisoner to the giaours in the fortress next to the church, dug here" or in the modern vernacular "I waz 'ere, infidels sux". Maybe related to this slur, not too far from the well is what is charmingly called the bear pit into which truculent prisoners were thrown.

Having spent two hours wandering around the castle, exploring this and that, we finally pulled ourselves away, flagged down some helpful Romanians to jump start our car as we'd left the lights on (again), then headed off to our next destination. We'd decided that it was going to take too long to get all the way back to Máriapócs the same day so we booked another night's accommodation halfway between Hunedoara and home.

It was again quite late by the time we got to our hotel 10km out of Turda. It was also snowing, foggy and -10degC. But we did end up finding the right place without too many tears and settled in pretty happily. It was a nice, if a touch tacky hotel from which we set off to see some local salt mines the next morning. This place was maybe even more impressive than the castle. It was a gusty -12degC outside when we arrived, but very quickly after entering the mines the temperature rose to a balmy 15 degC. I won't spend much time on it as I'm already pushing my reader friendship, but I'll let this video do my speaking for me.

- Daniel

Snow... again.

Christmas was really nice, we contacted our family over Skype a few times during the day then settled back to watch Big Bang Theory Season 2 from a removable storage device that Chris sent us. For Christmas lunch we cooked two big chickens, heaps of potatoes, pumpkins and carrots - it was awesome. Afterwards we had pudding with sugar and brandy butter... good times.

So although we didn't end up getting a white Christmas, snow began to fall on Boxing Day. I really love how pretty it makes everything.

Oh yes, in case anyone was wondering if Iago likes the snow or not, here is a little demonstration.

- Daniel

It was the week before Christmas...

This week has been pretty cruisy. After the excitement of Vienna, Daniel and I were happy to spend a few days bumming around at home before embarking upon any further travels.

Yesterday we were both quite sad to wake up and discover that 90% of the snow in our backyard and around the town had disappeared overnight. It seems that Hungary has been struck by a pre-Christmas heatwave and local temperatures have soared from -5 degrees to 10 degrees over the last few days. So it looks like we're not going to get the White Christmas we'd been hoping for :(

Anyway, the lack of snow and ice has had one positive impact - it's now much easier to drive. With this in mind we set off on a roadtrip to Romania yesterday afternoon. After checking out a neat still-frozen lake on the way, we soon arrived at the border town of Vállaj.

Unfortunately Vállaj was as far as we got. The border guards weren't prepared to let Iago into Romania without an official Pet Passport (even though he has all of the vaccination and health clearance certificates that are supposedly required), so we had to turn back and come home. Ah well.

In other news, this afternoon there was a Christmas Eve nativity play and carol sing-a-long at the local church in Máriapócs. Many of the performers paraded through the town (and walked right past our house) on their way to the church. Daniel and I were rather impressed by the massive shaggy coats that some of the performers were wearing! The play itself was also really lovely and we got to catch up with many of our students, colleagues and friends after it had finished.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

- Amanda, Daniel and Iago

Vienna - A very punschy city

This weekend Daniel and I went to Vienna with a busload of teachers from the nearby high school and their families. We set off from Nyírbátor at 5am on Saturday morning and crossed into Austria at about 11:30am. I was quite impressed that the bus just rolled right across the border without even stopping - no passport checks, no quarantine inspections, nothing at all.

Shortly after we arrived in Austria, the bus made its first stop. Daniel and I shook ourselves from our slumber and prepared for the amazing cultural treat that we were sure we were about to experience. Unfortunately, we soon discovered that we were at a factory outlet mall. Oh well, at least there was a Burger King!

After the mall, we jumped back on the bus and made our way into Vienna's city centre. Vienna is an absolutely gorgeous city that straddles the Danube River and accommodates a large number of very impressive buildings and monuments. During our visit the city was covered in snow and everywhere we looked hundreds (if not thousands) of tiny Christmas lights twinkled back at us.

We accompanied our tour group on a walk around the city, starting at St. Stephen's Cathedral at Stephansplatz and then winding our way through a complex network of malls, alleyways and tunnels until we reached the Hofburg Palace, an imposing building which has a long history of housing Austria's rulers, including its current President.

After the walking tour, we had some free time to explore the city on our own. I quickly dragged Daniel off in the direction of Vienna's Rathaus (like a town hall) to check out the famous Christmas market (Christkindlmarkt). There were heaps of stalls selling everything from Christmas decorations and hats to massive pretzels and puppets. While the market was rather neat, the crowds got to us after a while and we decided to wander off in search of something to eat and drink. Luckily Vienna was full of little street stalls selling hot punsch (some kind of alcoholic fruit drink), wienerwurst, potato fritters and maroni (chestnuts). Yummo!

When our free time was up, we climbed back on the bus and drove to the Hungarian town of Sopron which lies just across the Austrian border. I was particularly looking forward to this part of the trip as Sopron is the town where my father was born and I was keen to check it out. Unfortunately it was already quite late when we checked in to our hotel and we also checked out rather early on Sunday morning, so I didn't get to see much of Sopron at all. What a shame :(

From Sopron we travelled back to Austria and visted the town of Eisenstadt. Despite being a relatively small town, it still boasted its own large palace as well as a number of churches. However, the town's major claim to fame is its tie to the famous Austrian composer Joseph Haydn who lived and worked there for a significant period of his life.

After our walking tour of Eisenstadt the bus returned us to Vienna and we cruised around the city taking in more of the sights and getting a better idea of its size and scope. In many ways Vienna reminded me of Melbourne, but when I told Daniel this he said I was crazy to even make the comparison and that Vienna was clearly more architecturally impressive. I'm still not entirely convinced that he's right.

Anyway, we eventually had to leave the comfort of the bus to check out the Schönbrunn Palace. This building was the home of the famous Habsburg dynasty - a family who ruled over a significant part of Europe for some 600 years and whose influence in Austria's government only ceased at the conclusion of WWI. We took a guided audio tour around the palace, checking out the emperor's quarters, the ballroom and other typically palacial rooms. It was really interesting and definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

After the visit to the palace the bus made one more stop to grab more punsch and wienerwurst in Vienna, and then it was time to start the long trip back to Nyírbátor. Happily we arrived safe and sound just after midnight last night.

- Amanda

Christmas!

We had a Christmas celebration at school today. The kids did a quite neat nativity play with full costumes and songs. We have some neat videos and photos to show you but for now I wanted to post my contribution to the day.

Anyway, we've got to get to bed, as we've got to wake up at 4am to catch the bus to Vienna tomorrow!

- Daniel

Perving on God.

Is it just me or does Jesus look pretty ripped? I've never seen such a muscular messiah as can be seen just outside our church. Oh yes, we've decided that the Roman Catholic church in Máriapócs is ours.

- Daniel

Awesomeness

On Saturday night Daniel and I ventured into Nyíregyháza with a vague plan to grab dinner and then go iceskating. We found a small Christmas market in the town square and decided that hot chocolate and lángos would be an ideal way to kick off the evening.

I'm not sure if I've already decribed lángos, but basically it's absolute awesomeness. More precisely, it seems to be some kind of fried bread which is normally served covered in sour cream and grated cheese. Yummo!

After dinner, we wandered around the market a bit more and Daniel found a cool little stall that was selling homemade pálinka. He has developed quite a taste for the vile stuff since we arrived in Hungary and is even more fond of it now that he's seen just how effective it is at warming up the body when it's coooooooooooooold outside.

After the market, we walked a few blocks towards the iceskating venue. It took us a while to find the right place as it was housed in a large sports centre that was also hosting other events. Since Daniel and I didn't know the Hungarian word for iceskating we had to perform a little mime each time we asked for directions. Evidently our performances were rather poor as people seemed to assume that we were dancing rather than iceskating and kept directing us towards concerts and nightclubs instead of the iceskating venue!

Happily, we eventually found the right place and had a lot of fun showing off our moves on the ice.

- Amanda

Real snow

Well, as you know, Daniel and I were super excited last week when it snowed in Máriapócs for the first time. Not even our colleagues at school telling us that it wasn't real snow could dampen our enthusiasm.

Since last week, however, Máriapócs has experienced some kind of strange heatwave. While most days hovered anywhere between a top of 2 and 5 degrees, yesterday it reached almost 15 degrees. With these kind of balmy conditions, it seemed pretty unlikely that we would get any more snow for a while.

Happily, our predictions were wrong and we got our first real snow earlier today!

These snowflakes were much bigger than the ones we saw last week and instead of simply coating the ground with an icy sludge, we actually have soft white powder everywhere. The town looks absolutely gorgeous covered in snow, especially as the locals have been busy putting up lots of Christmas lights over the last few weeks.

I've attached a couple of pictures taken in our backyard this afternoon. Don't let the darkness fool you - these pictures were taken at 4pm!













- Amanda

Old Man Winter

Okay, so one last blog about Santa.

Apparently, although Santa is generally called Mikulás, he is sometimes referred to as Télapó or Old Man Winter. This name was introduced during the Soviet era as the religious reference to Saint Nicholas (Mikulás) was unpopular so the more secular name of Télapó was used.

This fact was brought to you by Daniel: The ever growing font of useless information.

The Krampusz

As Daniel mentioned in his last post, today was St Nicholas' nameday in Hungary. Over here he is officially referred to as Szent Miklós, but is more commonly known as Mikulás. Last night he visited all the children in Hungary and left them lollies and small gifts. The traditional Christmas lollies are called szaloncukor and you can buy them just about everywhere at this time of year. In addition to being rather yummy, they are also used as decorations on Christmas trees as they are usually wrapped in bright, shiny paper.

According to Hungarian folklore, during his rounds last night Mikulás was accompanied by a not-so-pleasant fellow known as the Krampusz. From what I can tell, the Krampusz is some kind of demon and his job is to warn the children who haven't been good that if their bad behaviour continues, they will not only fail to receive any Christmas presents on the 25th but they will also be stuffed into a basket on his back and taken down to Hell.

Well, either that or they'll be given a bunch of sticks. I can't really figure it out!

Unfortunately, this story doesn't seem to scare the kids half as much as it scares me. Many of them were dressed up like the Krampusz at school today and they seemed to find much amusement in chasing each other around and doling out punishments for bad behaviour.

This afternoon all the kids from school and the nursery next door gathered for a special service in the church. In addition to lots of singing and a short play performed by our Grade 2 class, Mikulás himself made an appearance (sans Krampusz) and distributed even more lollies to the already sugar-crazed kids. It was quite a lot of fun and I really feel like Christmas is a special event over here, rather than just another excuse to go shopping.

- Amanda

Nikolaos of Myra

Santa is coming tonight.

It's his name day on Monday so he will visit the kids and give them a bag full of chocolates. It seems like he must divide his workload. He must visit the old-world nations on the 6th of December, then he has a bit of a breather then does the new-world nations on the 25th. The kids in the old-world nations don't miss out on Christmas however, as he outsources his present-giving activities to Jesus.

This Saint Nicholas dude is the saint of everything by the way. According to wikipedia he's the saint of sailors, merchants, archers, thieves, children, students, Aberdeen, Amsterdam, Barranquilla, Bari, Beit Jala, Fribourg, Huguenots, Liverpool, Siggiewi, Lorraine, and weirdly enough New York.

This dude gets around.

We're famous!

Exciting news! Daniel and I made it into the county newspaper this week.

Our school is hosting an Open Day for prospective parents of new students tomorrow and the newspaper article gives all the relevant details.

I don't understand much of the article, but I am a little worried that it seems to refer to me as a tart....

Anyway, as part of tomorrow's Open Day, Daniel and I will have a bunch of parents sitting in on one of our Grade 2 English classes. This is a pretty big deal for the school and so we have spent a bit of time over the last few days finetuning our lesson plan. Now we just need to hope that the kids can behave themselves!

- Amanda

It's snowing snow

All week people were telling us that it was going to snow in Máriapócs this weekend. Monday and Tuesday were pretty darn cold and it seemed certain that the snow would eventuate as predicted. By midweek, however, the sun had reappeared and I had resigned myself to a snow-free weekend.

So I was quite exited this morning when I looked out the back window and saw snowflakes falling in our backyard. Daniel, Iago and I immediately rushed outside to check it out. Sure, there wasn't a lot of snow falling and it didn't last very long, but still....it snowed. Woo hoo!

I've attached a picture of Iago covered in a few tiny snowflakes as proof of this momentous occasion. And here is a picture of Daniel in his new snow hat.

We're all looking forward to more snow falling over the coming weeks.

- Amanda

Wedding Video

Well, I finally got organised and put together some of the photos, videos and music from the wedding. I tried to keep it as short as possible, but it still ended up as 12 minutes or so.

I know we said this a lot during the wedding, but we want to send a big thanks to everyone for coming and helping to make the day special. You are all awesome.

- Daniel and Amanda

Mogoso

Yesterday, we went with the choir on a journey into Transylvania, Romania. It was really nice of them to invite us, as I'd basically only been to one or two practice sessions, but they were more than happy to have us come along. It's strange that even though I can communicate only a few words to a number of them, and not at all to the rest, they are really very nice people.

So anyway, we woke ourselves up at 6am on Saturday morning, dragged ourselves into the car, threw Iago a bone to keep him happy for the day, then got arrived at Nyirbator by 7am. We were expecting to have to wait around for a bit while everyone got organised, but Amanda was pleasantly surprised to see us leave basically on the dot. So by 7:07am we were well on our way out of Nyirbator and heading off at great speeds towards the border.

We've discovered that when you travel with Hungarians, you must be aware of a few factors. The first is that they don't travel lightly. Every man, woman and child brought a number of coats, bags and of course food and drink. So by the time we'd left Nyirbator, there were already bags of pogácsa, biscuits and homemade cakes being passed around. We'd brought a sandwich each for the journey, but we found that we were seriously under prepared as most people had eaten their first sandwich before we hit Máteszalka. The other thing we were unprepared for was the drinking. Choir tradition dictated that everyone down a cup of pálinka to start off the journey. Amanda didn't want hers, so by the time we hit the border at 8am, I'd had two shots of pálinka and a glass of wine. Nothing like starting the day early.

We had a bit of an extra delay at the border, as the guards had to check out my passport (read: take it off me, then disappear off the bus without explaining what they were doing). Everyone with a Hungarian passport was okay, so we were basically just sitting around waiting for me. Soon enough though, the passport was being passed back down the aisle (inspected by the curious along the way) and we celebrated our crossing the of border with a few more pogácsa and more home-made pálinka.

By the third stop of the day (a toilet stop in Satu Mare) my head was starting to reel but I was in good spirits. Soon enough we were off again and by 11:15am we'd made it all the way to Mogosa. Mogosa is a ski resort high in the Carpathians which must be absolutely amazing in Winter, because it was pretty bloody beautiful when we arrived.

The lake was crystal clear and after a quick song, a photo and a snack, we jumped onto the chairlifts to head up the mountain. It went up, and up, and up, and up. The whole ride took about 20 minutes or so, up across a mountain trail, a few running streams and endless forestry. It ran the length of three ski fields, each of varying difficulty and length. It was a wonderful experience. After around 15 minutes of being on the chair, we started to ascend into the clouds, to the point where you could see the chairs in front of you disappear. Once on the mountain, there was an awesome view, albeit a little cold, so a number of us had another sandwich and I shared the last of a bottle of vodka with a new friend. Here's a video of going up the chairlift, and Amanda attempting to remount the thing for the trip down. Please also note the most awesome dog in the world (sorry Iago), this little puli cross met us at the bottom of the chairlift, then ran up the mountain and met us up the top, then raced back down with us. Each time, beating us significantly.

From here, a few of us were feeling hungry, so a few of the others had some more sandwiches and pálinka (this is where Amanda and I had our first sandwich of the day). The bus lead us back into Baia Mare, where we went to visit a 200 year old church, had a quick tour, then the choir sang a few songs in front of the chapel. I really needed to pee at this stage, but even in my pain I was able to enjoy what was a truly beautiful performance. They asked me to come to the front and join them but I didn't really know the songs yet and besides, I wanted to keep my legs crossed. Concert finished, we made a quick pee stop, then back on the bus.

From here, we made a longish trip to the house of Sándor Petőfi esteemed poet, novelist and revolutionary of the 19th century. The choir sang a few songs, laid a wreath, visited the museum and I assume that a few people snuck away to have a bit more to eat and drink. The interesting thing that we noticed through this entire trip is how much Hungarian pride there is in Transylvania. Our troupe had no issues finding anyone that spoke Hungarian. There were a number of Hungarian flags, road signs and icons to be seen throughout the trip. Methinks that Transylvania is not a happy Romanian county.

After leaving Petőfi, we went to get dinner, which was a modest meal of steak, schnitzel, rice and gerkins. And of course, wine, beer etc etc. It was only a quick 30 minute hop back over the border to arrive back in Nyirbator at almost exactly the ETA. Amanda was pleased. I leave you with a picture of a happy Amanda on a chairlift.

- Daniel

Elvisz

I went along to a local choir tonight just to have a go. When they saw all the troubles I was having with the Russian, Latin, Polish, and Hungarian, they decided to sing an English song which they kindly had translated into phonetic Hungarian. See if you can figure out the song.

Vájz men széj onli fúlz ras in

bat áj kent help fólling in lav vid ju

Sell áj sztéj? Vud it bi ö szin

íf áj kent help fólling in lav vid ju

Lájk dö rivör floz súrli tu dö szí

dárling szo it góz

szamzingz ár ment tu bí

Ték máj hend ték máj hól ídjk tu

for áj kent help fólling in láv vid ju

- Daniel.

Mysterious Mounds

Several weeks ago Daniel and I noticed some strange mounds of dirt in our backyard. At first we thought that Iago had been digging in the garden (as he sometimes does), but then we started seeing these dirt piles in other parts of Máriapócs too. We also noticed that the mounds usually form a sort of pattern, making it easy to imagine a pathway connecting them under the surface. We now believe that some kind of mole or badger is responsible.

I've attached a couple of photos of some of the mounds in our backyard, including a shot with Iago so that you can see just how big some of these things are.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has any alternative theories about what could be responsible for these mounds....and should we be worried about them?

- Amanda

The Goose Festival

Apologies for the lack of recent posts. Daniel and I went back to work this week and we've both been run ragged. The kids returned to school on Monday with their batteries completely recharged and a lot of learning from before the break completely forgotten. Aargh!

Anyway, in spite of feeling utterly exhausted this morning, we both woke up early and made our way to Nyíregyháza to attend the famous "Goose Festival". As far as I understand, the Goose Festival is celebrated across much of Europe at this time of year and is historically intertwined with the Feast of Saint Martin (November 11).

According to legend, in the year 371 (or 372, nobody is quite sure) Saint Martin was in hiding from a bunch of people who wanted to make him a bishop. Unfortunately, for reasons I have been unable to Google, Saint Martin decided to hide out with some geese and his disingeneous hiding position was quickly revealed when they started to honk. Not only was the reclusive Saint Martin forced to take up the position that he had been hoping to avoid, but he became forever linked to the traitorous birds that had caused his downfall when he was later made the Patron Saint of Geese.

In addition to its links with the Feast of Saint Martin, the Goose Festival is also important for other reasons. Firstly, the Festival marks the end of the harvest season and is the time of year when animals are traditionally slaughtered and the new wine is ready for tasting. The Goose Festival also marks the unofficial beginning of Winter, and it is said that the conditions on Saint Martin's Day can be used to predict what sort of Winter will follow, hence the expression "If the geese at Martin’s Day stand on ice, they will walk in mud at Christmas."

As far as I can remember, there wasn't much ice around on Thursday so it looks like we're in for a mud-free Christmas. Yippee!

The Nyíregyháza Goose Festival was held in the Sóstói Múzeumfalu. This is a sort of Old Town where a traditional Hungarian village has been recreated. There are lots of little shops where people make items such as barrels, wheels, shoes, hats, gingerbread, etc much like they would have done hundreds of years ago. There are also houses, pubs, a fire station, a millery, a well and lots of other buildings that we weren't able to identify. It's a pretty cool place.

At today's Goose Festival the centre of the Old Town had been turned into a bustling stage and marketplace. There were lots of handmade items and foodstuffs to sample and buy. Daniel and I chowed down on yummy lángos and hot mulled wine while we watched a lot of weirdness unfold on the stage. Probably the strangest sight was the goose beauty contest where owners had dressed their geese up in colourful costumes in the hope of winning a prize. The competition was eventually won by a bandana-wearing goose named Lady Gaga.

After the beauty contest, we watched a bunch of old people push their grandchildren around an obstacle course in wheelbarrows. This was even more scary than it sounds as the wheelbarrow appeared to made out of sticks and the children were unable to hold on to it as they had to clutch a life-sized goose statue instead! It was quite impressive stuff and all of the oldies and most of the kids seemed to be having the time of their lives.

All in all, the Goose Festival was a lot of fun.

- Amanda

Eger not Egér

For a couple of weeks now, I've been reading the historical Hungarian epic Eclipse of the Crescent Moon by Géza Gárdonyi, which is "based on the real events of..." the siege of Eger (the town, not Egér the mouse) in 1552. I was especially interested in this story because it portrays a Hungarian victory. Amanda and I are getting very well versed in Hungarian tragedies, slaughters, repressions and rebellions, but this promised to be a rip-roaring tale of Hungarian triumph (and it was if you ignore the fact that many of the major heroes were later killed in a variety of tragedies, slaughters, repressions and/or rebellions).

The book tells, and the castle shows, the story of Dobó István, Gergely Bornemissza and almost 2000 other brave Hungarians who stood against the Ottoman army which counted in at around the 80,000 armed soldiers and 70,000 in support (150,000 combined). Dobó stood against these massive odds with only 6 large cannons and 12 smaller cannons, against the Ottoman's 16 awfully large cannons and 150 smaller cannons.

The drive to Eger was around 2 hours from Mariápócs, which was quickly passed by doing some Hungarian language practice, and chatting about this and other books that we are reading at the moment. We arrived in Eger at around 1pm, and after finding a park went to have lunch at a local restaurant (which was rather nice). The main square is now called Dobó square and has a large rather impressive statue of him and his comrades standing in the middle. Dobó is quite a figure of folk legend in these parts, and along with Eger itself, has become the national figure of Hungarian defence. Which is ironic considering how he died.

After lunch, we walked our way up to the castle, which is pretty impressive with all it's thick walls and large cannons. It was strange to stand up on the castle walls, and imagine 150 thousand people surrounding you, swearing at you, throwing things at you, enticing you with fantastic rewards to open the gates, cursing you with the horrendous consequences of your inevitable defeat.

It's hard, but impressive to think of the 150 odd cannons blasting all day for 39 days, their horrid noise echoing off the nearby hillside. Then every night you would try to repair the damage done during the day, before getting blasted once more. At the end of the 39th day, the survivors counted the cannon balls (excluding those that got lodged on the walls) and almost 12,000 cannon balls landed inside the castle walls. That is over 300 cannonballs a day would crash into your living area. Amanda and I captured the imagery pretty well by giving our impersonation of these heroic soldiers (I was a Turk, she was a Hungarian).

Over the 39 days, the Hungarians repelled the Turks with a combination of Gergley's ingeniously vicious explosives (i.e. bombs inside bombs: BOOM! ... ... ... "Okay, I think it's fine to charge ag... BOOM!, or his bombs and guns attached to a milling wheel then sent rolling down towards the enemy BOOM, BANG, KAPOW! KAPOW!), Dobó's strong leadership, the strength of the Hungarian will and the fact that winter was coming and the Ottoman soldiers had already been on the march for almost eight months prior. By the time the Ottoman army withdrew they had lost over a third of their ranks.

This is where the book cheerfully ended.

We know of course, that the turks returned not too soon afterwards, took Eger quite easily and hanged Gergely from a post. Dobó was long since gone at this point having been accused of treason and died in captivity in modern day Bratislavia. The Hungarian tradition is thus maintained.

The Turks held Eger for the next 91 or so years and built this rather impressive minaret not to far from the castle walls. It's over 40 meters tall with ninety seven steps to the lookout. So for two hundred forents (about $1 AUD), I climbed all the way to the top and held on for dear life. I'm not usually afraid of heights but the combination of the tight spiral staircase that was just a bit tighter than my shoulder width, and the rusty lookout at the top overlooking the town really unnerved me. Still, it was a pretty awesome thing.

- Daniel.

Boo

Happy Halloween everyone!

Even though Halloween isn't usually celebrated in Hungary (much like in Australia), Daniel and I have been doing a lot of Halloween-insprired activities with the kids over the last few weeks. They were introduced to Halloween by their former English teacher, Tara, who was from Canada, and now they can't seem to get enough of it!

At first Daniel and I were both a little reluctant to encourage the kids to celebrate Halloween, but then we saw how much they enjoyed it and more importantly, how easy it was to find Halloween colouring pages and craft activities online, so now we're huge converts. Besides, it's really hard not to like such a fun and crazy holiday - when else do kids get to dress up as ghosts and ghouls, carve spooky faces into pumpkins and be given lollies as a reward for not defacing people's property?

Anyway, our Halloween celebrations culminated in a party in the school gym on Thursday afternoon. Our colleague, Ili, did most of the work and I think she was pretty stressed about how it was going to go, but she needn't have worrried. The kids loved putting on their costumes, participating in the songs and games and receiving their sugary treats. I've attached some photos from the party below.

Tomorrow, November 1st, is a public holiday in Hungary for All Saints' Day. It's a pretty big deal over here. People visit cemeteries all over the country and place flowers and small candlelit lanterns on the graves of their deceased relatives. In addition to tomorrow's holiday, Daniel and I also have the rest of the week off for Autumn Break. Being a teacher is awesome!

- Amanda

Happy name day to me!

Guess what? I just found out that today (October 26th) is my name day!

Some of my Grade 3 students burst into one of my classes this morning to share the exciting news and to present me with some lovely flowers. Then this afternoon, some of the kids from Grade 1 also gave me little gifts and celebratory drawings that they had made.

Names days are a pretty big deal in Hungary and are treated much like a second birthday.

According to a website I found, name days are a tradition of attaching personal names to each day of the year, and celebrating the association of particular days with those for whom that day is named. Name days originate from the Christian church calendar and the tradition of naming children after saints.

Boldog névnapot nekem!

- Amanda

1956 Hungarian Revolution - A short history lesson

On Friday night Daniel and I attended a ceremony at our school commemorating the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Yesterday (October 23rd) was also a national holiday in Hungary.

My understanding of the events that transpired in 1956 is quite limited, but as it was such an important episode in Hungarian history, I feel that I should at least try to provide a quick summary.

In the lead up to October 1956, a number of events took place which created an atmosphere for revolution in Hungary. These included the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the creation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955, changing political and social conditions in Austria and Poland, and the removal of Mátyás Rákosi as a powerful political figure in Hungary.

Sensing that the time was ripe for wide-ranging change in Hungary, students, journalists and academics began to be more active and vocal about the country's political situation. This eventually culminated in a group of students drawing up a list of 16 demands and taking it to the parliament in Budapest on 23 October 1956. By evening, a crowd of approximately 200,000 people had gathered.

When the Hungarian government officially refused to agree to the students' demands, the crowd began to take matters into its own hands - some of the protesters dismantled a massive public statue of Stalin and cut out the communist logo from Hungarian flags (this act became a symbol of the Hungarian revolution and was incorporated into the www.google.hu homepage yesterday).

Eventually the protests spread to other buildings in Budapest and then escalated into violence when the state police began to arrest protesters and shoot at the crowds. The news of these atrocities spread quickly and disorder and further violence erupted throughout the capital and across the country. Eventually the government fell.

In the days that followed, impromptu resistance councils sprung up all over Hungary and demanded political change. A new government was quickly formed and soon announced its intention to disband the state police service, withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and re-establish free elections. By the end of October 1956, fighting had slowed and things seemed to be returning to normal.

After initially declaring a willingness to comply with the new Hungarian Government's request to withdraw Red Army forces from Hungary, the Soviets soon backflipped and moved to crush the revolution. On 4 November 1956, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country. Hungarian soldiers and civilians fought fiercely against the invading Soviet troops until 10 November 1956 when the last pocket of Hungarian resistance called for a ceasefire.

During the conflict over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed, and more than 13,000 Hungarians and 1,200 Soviet troops were injured. In addition, some 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees.

By January 1957, the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all public opposition. The Hungarian revolution had failed.

It was not until 1989, over three decades after the initial revolution, that Hungary finally implemented many of the reforms that it had been fighting so long and hard to realise. Between 16–20 October 1989, the Hungarian Parliament adopted wide-ranging legislation that transformed Hungary from a People's Republic into the Republic of Hungary. This long-anticipated feat was officially declared on 23 October 1989, the 33rd anniversary of the 1956 revolution.

- Amanda

Interesting Hungarian word #2 = Kukac

As part of my job over here, I teach English to my Hungarian colleagues twice a week. This is a nice change from teaching the kids as I find that the adults generally have longer attention spans and are less likely to cry, need to go to the bathroom, whack each other with their pencil cases, talk incessantly, etc during the classes.

On Monday I decided to teach my colleagues how to say numbers in English. I soon discovered that they mostly knew this already, so I got them to practice using the numbers in more complex sentences. I had them ask each other questions such as "What is your telephone number?" and "What is your address?".

Once they had mastered these phrases, I thought that they may as well learn how to ask "What is your email address?" I'm not sure why, but it never occurred to me that the @ and . symbols would be pronounced differently in Hungarian, but of course they are. In Hungarian, the @ symbol is referred to as kukac and the . symbol is called pont.

My colleagues then advised me that kukac also means worm in Hungarian. I suppose if you look at the @ symbol it does kind of resemble a curled up worm, so this makes some sort of sense.

My colleagues then advised me that kukac is also a term that is used to refer to a small penis.

Um, okay.

So I guess this means that an email address could literally be translated as something like "whatever small penis gmail pont com"?

Very strange!

- Amanda

The Cave Baths of Miskolctapolca

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Today we went to the cave baths of Miskolc, another mediumish sized town in eastern Hungary. Both Amanda and I are really getting into the whole swimming deal, or at least the splashing around in the thermal baths and buying the necessary accessories (goggles, caps, bathers etc). One day, I'm sure we'll get around to actually doing laps, but for now we're quite happy relaxing in the mineral spas and bathing pools thank you very much. We have found a bath (read: swimming pool) at the nearby town of Nyírbátor, although I fell sick from an ear infection (are we /sure/ these pools don't have to be chlorinated?), I was convinced to try, what we are told are, the most beautiful baths in Hungary. The Miskolc cave baths.

They were, I must admit, awfully impressive. It seems that they have been in use since "ancient times" but have only become popular during the occupation of the Ottoman empire (16th-17th century). I'm sure there is a floating footstool joke lurking around here somewhere but I'll let it lie for now.

It seems that since the Ottoman's enthusiasm for the baths, they have gone through periods of disrepair (the 18th- 19th century were dark, dark days for the Miskolctapolca baths apparently), but luckily the 20th-21st centuries have been fairly kind thus far.

This said, it does appear that the global financial crisis has hit even the hardest working members of the cave bath community.

I certainly hope things pick up for this hard working mensch.

Anyway, we eventually did find a gainfully employed door and did our best to ensure that it would remain so by entering into the change rooms. The change rooms are worthy of note, if only to fill out this paragraph so that the pictures align properly and we don't rush ahead with the cave bath narrative, because they were co-ed.

Well, sort of, you enter in through a small cubical with a door on either end, both of which lock from the same mechanism. You get changed, then leave through the opposite door into the locker room.

Mmm... nicely spaced.

The actual caves were awesome. You entered through quite a wide opening into a fairly extensive network of caves. The entire network was basically flooded with the mineral spring water.

In addition to the main network, there were a number of warmer pools, bigger waterfall like things, rock bridges, saunas, and even a room that seemed to be strangely set up as a planetarium (if sticking some fluorescent moon stickers onto the roof of the cave and adding strange lights and music is equal to a planetarium). It was probably closer to a 12 years old girl's sleepover party. If you flooded their bedroom with salt water. And invited a cluster of half naked Europeans of varying ages and ethnicities.

Still it was pretty awesome.

I'd also like to point towards the awesome photography work to get the above picture while standing in a pool of running water trying to take a photo of a dark place inter-spaced with bright spotlights. Oooh yeah.

Anyway, once we were done swimming we had a picnic in the park outside, saw some very cute squirrels and ate some delicious donuts.