No more bludging :(

Well, after almost a month of bludging, Daniel and I finally start our new jobs as English language teachers tomorrow! Yay!

While tomorrow is our first official day of paid employment, we have both already spent a few days at the school over the last week to organise our teaching timetables, put together classroom props (such as flashcards) for the kids and generally familiarise ourselves with the school and its facilities. We were also able to meet some of the other teachers. Everyone seems really nice so far.

This weekend has been pretty quiet. Yesterday morning we ventured into Nyírbátor to attend the local market. They have a great selection of really cheap fruit and veggies and everything seems to have been grown locally - and most likely by the same person who is selling it.

After the market, we met up with our colleague Ilona who lives in Nyírbátor and went over to her house for morning tea. She and her husband recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary (actually I think their anniversary was the same day as my 30th birthday!) and their children celebrated by surprising them with a gorgeous dachshund puppy - Blacky - who is extremely cute and utterly hilarious. He was not brave enough to approach Iago directly, however, he was quite happy to hide under the table and behind our legs and bark at him. Such a tough guy!

Ilona has been super kind to Daniel and I since we first arrived in Hungary and on Saturday she went even further by loaning Daniel a bicycle that he can use while we're here. He rode all the way home to Máriapócs from Nyírbátor (about 10kms). Not bad!

Last night we headed into Nyíregyháza to check out the Vidor Festival. It's basically a week-long celebration of music and performance art from around the world. Last night they had a pretty awesome Cuban band on the main stage. We also spent some time in a makeshift bar that had been set up in a parking lot watching old black and white comedy films projected onto the side of a nearby building.

On the way home from the festival Daniel reminded me about an unusual aspect of Hungary's drink driving legislation. According to another colleague of ours, the zero BAC limit for drivers in Hungary also extends to other passengers in the car. So, while I wasn't drinking last night, the fact that Daniel had been might have caused problems for me if I had been pulled over by the police. I'm still not sure whether or not this interpretation of the rule is correct, but I intend to find out soon.

Today was pretty quiet. We spent most of the day waiting for our new couch to be delivered. Since our house is a little tricky to spot from the street, we decided to camp out at the ice cream and cake store nearby to watch out for the delivery van. After several drinks and two slices of cake, our couch finally arrived. The third photo is one I took while we were waiting. Our house is right near the yellow car. And on the opposite side of the road from the car, behind the church, is the school where we will both be working. I would be surprised if it was more than 100 metres from our front door. I love living in a small town!

- Amanda

PS. Big congratulations to Chris and Juliet who officially become homeowners this Tuesday! Well done guys, we can't wait to see pictures of your fab new pad!

Awesome find

Yesterday Daniel, Iago and I travelled into Nyíregyháza to meet up with Christie, an American teacher who has been living there for the past two years. We all went out for lunch and afterwards Christie showed us where to buy the second-best ice cream in town.

So, here it is - multiberry spaghetti ice cream with white chocolate sauce.


Oh, so good.

We're already looking forward to meeting up with Christie again soon....

- Amanda

Our first trip to Budapest

Sorry about the lack of recent posts, but Daniel and I have just returned from 4 days in Budapest. The trip into the city took about 2.5 hours. We really enjoyed cruising along the autobahn at 130kms per hour, although it was pretty scary to see how many people seemed to be driving much, much faster than that!

Once we arrived in Budapest we spent a harrowing hour trying to find our hotel. Our GPS unit kept trying to steer us into a construction site and our attempts to find an alternative route were repeatedly thwarted by Budapest's numerous one-way streets. Happily, we eventually found our way and we are now experts at deciphering Hungarian street signs. The give-way "rules", however, remain a mystery.

On Monday we set out to do some sightseeing. Our hotel was just across the road from a major train station, so we decided to give the public transport system a go. After some intitial issues with the ticketing system we soon found ourselves
travelling on the underground train system - called the Metro - and we rode into city centre.

From there we headed towards the water and soon found ourselves walking along the banks of the mighty Danube. We walked across the famous Széchenyi lánchíd (chain bridge) and arrived in the castle district. The castle lies at the top of a seriously big hill, so we took the lazy option and rode an ancient cable car - called the Castle Hill Funicular - to the top (first picture).

The castle itself was quite fascinating. Over its long history it has been destroyed and redeveloped many times and it is currently being used
as a museum. In spite of its turbulent history, some of the castle's original medieval walls and chambers are still intact and were recently discovered by archaelogists. The current castle is shown in the second picture.

The third picture shows a large water fountain that decorates one of the castle's forecourt areas. It shows a group of hunters lead by the King, their hounds, a killed deer, a hawker and a young peasant girl with a doe. The fountain is based on a Hungarian legend in which a young peasant girl named Ilonka met and fell in love with the King while he was on a hunting expedition. Personally I don't really understand why she would find a guy who has just slaughtered a harmless deer attractive, but maybe that's not really the point. In any case, it is a particularly impressive work of art.

After the castle, we explored a little more of the city and got caught in a huge downpour on our way back to the hotel.
I've always really liked the way that Melbourne looks and feels when it's raining and Budapest has a similar sort of vibe.

On Tuesday we set out to do some more exploring. First up we went to Memento Park, a dedicated retirement home for many of the city's communist statues. In addition to the typical statues of Lenin and Marx and Engels, there were a number of quite dramatic pieces like the one shown in picture four, as well as many depicting the country's war heroes and their exploits.

Next, we visited Gellért Hill, home to the city's impressive Citadella, as well as restaurants, shops and market stalls. In its heyday, the Citadella played an important role in WWII and we took a tour of one of its large bunkers which now houses a war museum. Somehow I doubt this will be the last war-themed museum that we encounter in Europe.

The views from the upper walls of the Citadella were quite amazing and we were able to look back out over the Danube and across to the Buda side of the city (picture five). The thing that really struck me about the panorama was the absence of any really tall buildings. There are definitely no skyscrapers in Budapest. In fact, the tallest buildings in the city are all churches.

After two days of sightseeing, Daniel and I decided to spend the rest of Tuesday afternoon relaxing at the Széchenyi baths. After getting changed in a private cubicle, we made our way to the three central pools. The large central pool was for lap swimming and had the coldest water (about 20 degrees celcius), while the pools on each end were much warmer (about 27 and 37 degrees). There were also a number of saunas and smaller thermal pools and spas inside the surrounding buildings.

The outside pools were a lot of fun as each pool had its own quirky bits. For example, one of the end pools had underwater bubbles, a whirlpool and water jets while the pool at the other end had a big water fountain and chessboards. Yup, that's right - chessboards! If you look closely at the bottom of picture six you can see a group of old men clustered around the in-pool chessboards. How awesome is that?

As hard as it was to top the thermal baths experience, we did actually manage to find something even more fun to do in Budapest on Wednesday.

We picked Iago up from the airport cargo centre!

We were both a little anxious about how he'd look after his mammoth journey from Melbourne. Would he be tired? Would he be confused? Would he recognise us?

But we needn't have worried. As they brought his cage out on a forklift, he heard our voices and turned around to see us. His tail was wagging like crazy and he definitely knew who we were. We're so, so, so pleased that he is now in Hungary with us. And I think picture seven shows that he is pretty happy to be here too!

Awwwww.....

We are heading back to Budapest again next week for Daniel's orientation program. Iago and I have also been invited to attend, so I think it's going to be a fun week.

- Amanda

Good Times.

What a day of fun! Yesterday, Amanda's birthday, we had a skype call home, attempted to push start our car, went shopping for a couch and a sewing machine (came home empty handed bar the first season of Big Bang Theory), had a pasta meal and birthday cake then went dancing with the locals at a small festival behind the Church.

Fun fun fun.

Interesting Hungarian word #1 = Sajt

Daniel and I just got back from a quick walk around Máriapócs. The primary purpose of our stroll was to take some pictures of the famous church which looks particularly gorgeous at night.

This weekend a large number of pilgrims will arrive in Máriapócs after having walked for up to a week to get here from nearby cities and towns. There will be a large mass performed at the Church on Sunday and presumably lots of other religious activities will occur as well.

So far I have not noticed a huge amount of preparation going on around the town - in fact, the only noticeable difference is that a large stage has been erected in front of the church.

Otherwise, all is normal.

For now.....

The second picture above shows the view from behind the church. This is also the view of the church that we see from our front doorstep!

The third photo was also taken today in our front yard. Yes, it's our new car!

We finally picked it up today from Nyíregyháza and Daniel successfully managed to drive it home. I haven't had the chance to try driving on the right/wrong side of the road yet but even as the passenger, today's trip felt pretty weird.

I'm so glad that we have a car again - I can't wait to go exploring!

Speaking of exploring, we did a bit of wandering around in Nyíregyháza today while we were waiting for the car.

The fourth picture shows part of Nyíregyháza's main square. It's entirely paved, completely free of traffic (except for those damn bicycles) and ringed by lots of historic buildings and quirky shops. In the middle of the square there are little cafes, shady trees, lots of statues and sculptures, and a really cool water fountain. There were a lot of kids splashing around in it today because it was so hot.

Daniel and I had lunch in a little pizzeria on the edge of the square and amused ourselves by people-watching and trying to read the menu. We deduced that the word "sajt" was Hungarian for "cheese", but we had no idea how to pronounce it.

So we asked our friendly waitress.

And that was how we discovered that the correct pronunciation is actually "shite".

Excellent. I think we'll remember that one from now on!

Finally, the last photo is for my dad and Danni.

I saw this in the supermarket in Nyírbátor the other day and thought of you both.

Granted, it doesn't look quite like the Letscho that I know and love, but it was a pretty cool (literally) reminder of home anyway.

Okay, that's it from me for now.

Hopefully we'll be able to post news of some car-fuelled adventures soon....

Our house in Mariapocs!

Charming details

I have been meaning to write a blog entry for a few days now, but this past week has been a bit of a whirlwind. In hindsight, I think I was jetlagged for two days after we arrived in Hungary. I was lethargic, achey, had headaches, couldn't sleep, etc. But then I "woke up" on Wednesday and I felt about a billion times better.

Awesome.

Or maybe not. By Wednesday afternoon both Daniel and I had developed very sore stomachs and we are still not feeling 100%. I won't go into details, but I'm just glad that our new house has two bathrooms. Enough said.

Anyway, since we arrived in Hungary we seem to have spent the majority of our time dealing with bureacracy - being a Hungarian citizen, I need to obtain an address card as well as an identity card. Apparently there was some kind of magic number missing from my Hungarian birth notice and the local government office here in Máriapócs was unable to issue my ID without it. So we had to travel into the main town Nyíregyháza on Wednesday to sort things out. All good. I was also supposed to get a tax file number. But we discovered that no one from the tax department works during the afternoon. Needless to say I am now desperately trying to secure employment in the Hungarian public service!

Our trip to Nyíregyháza on Wednesday also served another purpose as we met up with Gabriel - one of Daniel's colleagues - who helped us to buy a car. He took us to quite a few car yards and happily we think we found one that suits our needs. We're going back to Nyíregyháza later today to have it checked out by a mechanic and if it's all okay, we should be mobile by early next week. Yippee.

Of course, if Daniel has his way, we will be boycotting the car and travelling everywhere by bicycle instead. He has fallen in love with the ricketty old bikes that nearly everyone in small towns like Máriapócs seems to use to get around. I must admit that it's actually quite charming to walk out our front gate and see people rolling slowly by on their bicycles.

Also quite charming is the almost constant ringing of bells from the two churches that are nearby to our house. At least one of them chimes every 15 minutes between about 6am and 8pm. One chime for quarter past the hour, two at half past, three at quarter to and then four on the hour, plus another kind of chime to convey the exact time. So at 8am, there are four standard chimes, plus eight alternative chimes. So far, so good. But at 12pm the pattern seems to deviate and both churches go into some kind of smackdown mode and basically spend the next ten minutes trying to outdo each other. Oddly, this also happened yesterday at 4:17pm.

Hmm, I've just noticed that I can hear faint chanting. Yup, the churches are so close to our house that we can actually hear the singing/chanting from right here in our loungeroom.

Anyway, it's time to get ready to go to Nyíregyháza. Sure, it's early - only 8am - but we do need to be sure that we can catch the tax office staff while they're still at work!

Another entry soon - hopefully with pictures of our house and the town.

- Amanda

At risk of tl;dr, but doin' it anyway.

Saturday was quite emotional, awfully difficult, but amazingly still quite surreal.

We said goodbye to a crowd of our friends and family then went through the gate onto a trip that we'd been waiting for for so long. But even as we were into our fifth hour of the flight to Bangkok, as we were lying awkwardly together in the empty seat between us watching a movie, it was really still feeling like we were embarking on a holiday, not undertaking an act of immigration.

The first trial of the journey that we had to overcome was met even before we got on the flight - ensuring that our currently overweight luggage made it onto the plane. We were around 4kg over weight between the two bags, and with a "back of the airline ticket" calculation it would have cost us up to $160 extra (something that we were eager to avoid). The lady at the check-in counter had no issues whatsoever with our luggage however and booked them quickly in. We walked quickly away like cream covered kittens.

The stay in Bangkok was really just a leisurely walk to the next gate, no time for distraction nor relaxation. It was very nice to be able to stand up for a while though.

The second trail of the journey was to survive the EgyptAir flight to Cairo, which was most probably the longest and most boring step of our journey. There were no more movies, no more extra seats, just a jam packed flying metal box with a crew armed with cattle prods. We'd prepared for this however by ensuring that we were entering the point of exhaustion by the time we squeezed into our chairs. So the flight was not too bad in the end.

The next trial was expertly handled. We avoided spending 8 hours in the check-in lounge in Cairo by entering ourselves into a tour. We were a little concerned because we weren't to sure how far away the pyramids were and we wanted to ensure that we got back in time. The other thing is that they wanted to take our passports (which was basically a deal-breaker for suspicious people like myself and Amanda). This was okay though because we were able to purchase our own visa and keep our passports.

Cairo was awesome, with fantastic mosques, castles and slums. We traveled through the busy streets to hear that Cairo has a population of 20 million (compared to Australia's 22 million), but that it's a relatively safe place to live. Although the main proportion of the population is Muslim, there is a Christian region (Coptic Cairo est. ~6bc) that boasts of Churches, Mosques and Synagogues. Our guide boasted of his city's religious freedom and acceptance. There was also very little unemployment and homelessness (although we suspected there might have been some patriotism at play here).

Before too long we were out of the bus and walking amongst the pyramids. They're so close to each other and indeed close to Giza. You basically pull out of mid-town traffic, drive up a hill and you are there.

What an amazing thing to do. What an amazing place to be. Our guide turned out to be an ex-egyptologist and was involved is the discovery of the Giza Workers Village in 1991, so we had an awesome insight into the construction, layout and the archeological history of the sites. He took us up to a great viewing platform to see all three pyramids of giza, for the three pharaohs Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, which were accompanied by some smaller pyramids for their wives.

He then took us into one of the smaller pyramids, down a steep slanted ladder and into a number of small chambers which were simply amazing.

The last area that he showed us was the Sphinx, which considering it's history was pretty amazing to see.

All in all we spent maybe a couple of hours looking at the Pyramids and supporting structures, took a whole heap of photos (including the one above that looks awfully photoshopped). Our guide then took us on our way to the next thing in the city that he wanted to show us - the shopping.

It didn't look like much, but our guide had built up enough of our trust to lead us into the dingy shop front, which luckily lead into a beautiful display of glass cases containing the most delicate and intricate glasswear that I've ever seen - including those seen in my organic chemistry pracs.

We were sat down, fed tea, and explained the wonders of perfume essences. It was obviously a pitch, but we were in a pretty good mood by this stage, and Amanda had to throw out all her perfumes before she left so we purchased a few bottles and went on our way.

The last trial of our journey turned out to not be a trial at all. After the remaining three hour leg of our flight, we hopped off the plane and were sent through passport control without an issue. Amanda is a citizen, so that wasn't a problem, but they didn't even mention the 90 day visa that I was hoping to attain. He just looked up at me, grunted stamped it twice then sent me on.

Good stuff.

Anyway, I would love to describe the house, or the two churches that are basically next door, or the idyllic country side, or or or. But I think I've spent my reader patience to it's limits.

We'll have to show you some more pictures next time.

Bye!

- Daniel