Illegal Alien

Well, it seems that we have an alien amongst us...yes, it turns out that our dear, sweet pooch Iago is actually in Hungary illegally.

Yesterday, after dropping Dave at the airport for his trip to France, we proceeded into central Budapest to start the epic process involved in sending Iago back to Australia. We're not planning on sending him until mid-June, but as it's a six month process, we really need to get the ball rolling now.

Unfortunately, we met a hurdle almost immediately. Our Hungarian vet was unable to locate Iago's microchip (which was implanted in Australia way back in 2002). According to the vet, if his scanner couldn't find the microchip, then it simply didn't meet Hungarian/EU standards. The vet was pretty baffled as to how/why Iago had even been allowed into Hungary without a compliant microchip. Eeeek!!

Anyway, after learning that our dog was essentially an illegal immigrant, Daniel and I made some calls to the Australian authorities to work out how to proceed. Without going into all the boring details, we eventually decided to get Iago implanted with a new microchip and revaccinated against rabies on the new chip. He also got a new passport after the vet told us to burn the old one (which should never have been issued). Double eeeek!!

We have to go back to Budapest in two weeks for more tests and vaccinations.

In other news, Dave arrived safely in France and seems to be having a great time so far.

- Amanda

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from all of us here in Máriapócs!

We've had a pretty cruisey Christmas so far. Last night we ventured out into the snow - yes, it finally snowed!! - to see the annual Christmas play put on in front of the church. Like last year, the church forecourt was packed with people, as well as a noisy pen full of sheep. The play itself was a little boring, but it was so great to be outside amongst all the twinkling lights that I don't think any of us really minded that much.

Today we awoke to more snow and thus our first ever White Christmas. Dave quickly appointed himself as the household's Head Chef and diligently and expertly set about preparing our Christmas lunch - roast pork, potatoes, carrots, onions, brocolli and gravy. It was divine. After stuffing ourselves silly, we took Iago out for a run, and Daniel had his first opportunity to legitimately wear his Christmas present - a new hat! 

After the walk, we came home to finish cooking our Christmas pudding. Alas, it seems that I have yet to master this recipe as it was only mildly more successful than last year when I was missing a key ingredient. Methinks that perhaps my idea of 'steaming' isn't quite right. Oh well, it still tasted bloody good. And I'm proud to report that my eyelashes remain wholly intact in spite of a close call while igniting the palinka. Who knew that stuff was so flammable?

Anyway, I hope everyone else's Christmas was as awesome as ours.

- Amanda

Marketing in Vienna

Late Saturday morning the four of us (Daniel, Dave, Iago and I) set off for a mini-break in Vienna, Austria. The drive from Máriapócs took us about five and a half hours, so we arrived in Vienna just after dark – the perfect time to check out the city’s famous Christmas markets. En route to the largest market outside the Rathaus, we encountered many other smaller markets surrounding the university near our hotel, as well as along several side streets. There were lots of people out and about, and in spite of the cold weather and rain, the atmosphere was definitely festive.

We explored the markets for several hours, stopping only to chow down on yummy food and hot glue wine from some of the stalls. Even Iago got to taste some of the local fare, with many passers by stopping to feed him tidbits and give him pats. Eventually it started raining so we all made our way back to the hotel. It took a while as the bright lights and twisty turny streets were rather disorientating.

On Sunday morning we set off to explore more of the city. At Stephansplatz we visited Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral), Vienna's largest church and one of its most recognisable symbols. While Dave and Iago waited outside, Daniel and I checked out the cathedral's interior. Even though there was a Sunday morning service in progress, there were still throngs of tourists wandering about, taking photos and buying items from the giftshop. In my opinion it was a little disrespectful. But that opinion didn't stop me from taking my own photos of a familiar work of art that Daniel spotted inside the church. It was the original Black Madonna icon from Máriapócs! As previously mentioned, the famous weeping icon was taken to Austria in 1696 and I guess it's been hanging in Stephansdom ever since. Until a few days ago I assumed that it was removed from Máriapócs just because the Austrian Emperor coveted it for himself, but I have since learned that it was actually transferred so that it would be safe from the Muslim armies that still controlled much of Hungary at the time. I guess this means that I should remove Emperor Leopold I from my 'Dead people who I'd like to kill again' hitlist.

Anyway, after Stephansplatz, we walked around many of Vienna's most picturesque streets, marvelling at the wonderful architecture and checking out various museums, statues and yet more Christmas markets. After a few hours of this, our feet were starting to get tired, so we navigated our way back to the hotel and recharged our batteries before heading out into the city again for dinner. It was a rather enlightening meal as we discovered Dave's penchant for young animals, as well as his obsession with a particular type of beer glass (for Deb's sanity I'm going to add here that Dave did NOT learn about the beer glass by drinking out of one). Daniel and I were also devastated to discover that the waiter at the restaurant thought we were Dave's parents. Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

 

The next morning - Monday - we all set off for Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. The day started out strangely when we had some difficulty ordering breakfast at a roadside diner. Our Austrian waitress, who spoke both German and English, seemed amazed that we were unable to read the menu (which was printed in German only) and was very insistent that the languages were similar enough that we ought to have no difficulty at all. In spite of this, however, she then had great difficulty comprehending Dave's order and he wound up receiving only a small dish of jam as his breakfast! It was particularly funny as Daniel and I had both managed to order individual frypans full of ham and eggs, as well as bread rolls, freshly squeezed orange juice and tea and coffee. 

Once in Bratislava we made a beeline for the city's castle. After a harrowing drive up a series of tight, steep and windy streets we eventually found it...and discovered that it was closed on Mondays (along with basically every other building or museum of interest in Bratislava!) In spite of this setback, we were determined to keep exploring so we changed our plans and headed off towards the city's Old Town. This involved a lovely walk along a path running next to the castle. Since Bratislava Castle is located at the top of a steep cliff, the walk provided some great views of  the city.

In the Old Town we discovered many old buildings (what a surprise!) as well as - you guessed it - another Christmas market! This one seemed to be predominantly a food market so we took the opportunity to sample some fine Slovakian dishes. I was particularly impressed with something called Zemiakove Sulance which is basically potato dumplings covered in ground poppyseeds. Very sweet and really delicious (although Iago and I seemed to be the only ones who thought so). From the Old Town, we made our way back to the castle and drove around for a while trying to find a mysterious attraction signposted only as Slavín. Then we travelled back to Austria, stopping along the way to check out a massive factory outlet shopping centre where Dave impressed us all with his shopping stamina. Even Daniel was inspired to finally replace his disintegrating, holey runners.

Yesterday was the last day of our mini-break. While we were all a little sad to say goodbye to Vienna, I think Iago was actually pretty devastated. During the trip he had somehow decided that being away from home meant that usual sleeping arrangements did not apply and so he spent the last two nights sleeping with Daniel and I on our hotel bed. And not even the prospect of going jogging with Dave or for an early morning walk with me was enough to entice him off the bed yesterday morning. 

On the way home from Vienna we detoured to visit the town of Sopron. I've been looking forward to visiting Sopron since even before we arrived in Hungary (because my dad was born there) so it was fantastic to finally have the chance to check it out. The central part of the city was really pretty and seemed to be in much better condition than many other Hungarian towns of a similar size. I attribute this to its close proximity to the Austrian border and to the steady flow of tourists and Euros which this attracts. Wiki also tells me that Sopron attracts tourists from other parts of the world due to its excellent low-cost dental services. In fact, the city is known as 'The Dental Capital of the World'. Awesome.

Sopron is also home to the Goat Church. As you can see from the picture, it looks like an ordinary church, but it got its unusual nickname because the funds to build it were allegedly unearthed by a treasure-seeking goat. Alternatively, a more plausible explanation for the name is that the family who commissioned the church had a goat on their coat of arms and this symbol was then incorporated into the design of the new church's tower (which features wreaths and a goat). Either way, I think it's a cool name for a church.

One of Sopron's other major attractions - the Firewatch Tower - is currently being restored. It's due to be completed in June 2012, so perhaps Daniel and I will need to squeeze in another visit to the town before we leave Hungary. I'd certainly be interested in having a longer look around.

After Sopron, we set the GPS for home and arrived back in Máriapócs just after 10pm last night.

- Amanda

The Week Before Christmas

This last week has been the last before the Christmas break, and so it has been impossible to get anything done.  The kids are crazy, the timetable is crazy, and there is the constant interruption caused by the Christmas ceremony that has been planned for tomorrow afternoon.  It is not uncommon to lose 16 of 18 kids in grade 2 to choir, and while it is awesome that so many of the kids are getting involved it kind of makes it difficult to plan a lesson when you have kids wandering in and out of it.  This is especially true because we're trying to ensure that the kids have enough homework to last them over the unprecedented 3 week holiday.  Ugh, it's all good, it's just another hurdle.

Dave has managed to acclimatise himself to both the weather, time difference and the style of living.  The thermostat has slowly worked its way out of the high thirties, he's going to bed and waking up at a decent hour and has ensconced himself fairly securely to the couch.  It's actually been a little boring for him, I think.  I mean, it's great to have him around, but we feel a little bad that we haven't really been able to travel every day.  Anyway, he says that it's okay and that he's entertaining himself with movies and computer games that he's availing himself of through our unlimited internet connection.

This weekend should be more exciting.  We're headed off to Vienna for a couple of days, so we'll have a look at the Vienna Christmas market, walk through the old town, and see what we can see.  Last time we were there, the city seemed pretty alive with things to do, so I'm sure it'll be a fun weekend.

- Daniel.

Professor Dave

On Thursday morning, Dave and I went with Amanda to her class in Mátészalka.  We had been invited to teach an upper class that morning, but we weren't too sure what we were walking into. These kids were older than I was used to, they were around 12 years old, but it seemed unlikely that they would have had as many English lessons as our kids have had.  This meant that we really didn't know their level, so we basically had to go in there and wing it.

David was awesome.  We set up a couple of activities, gave the kids a structure around which to ask questions then he and I went up and down the class and just talked to the kids.  He spoke slowly and kept the idioms to a minimum which really helped the kids understand what he was saying.  Speaking slowly and clearly sounds like a simple thing to do, but you really don't understand how many odd turns of phrase we use in everyday language until you meet someone who doesn't know them.  Dave was able to remove these from his speech and yet maintain the feeling that he was speaking naturally to the kids.  That's what this lesson was all about, giving the kids the confidence to speak.  It was great fun.


On Friday night, we went out for dinner in Nyiregyháza at that awesome restaurant that our friend Christie showed us.  It's always a good night at this place, but even more so when we get the meat platter.  This meal is a testament to everything that it is possible to kill and put on a plate.  There is chicken, beef, pork, liver, veal, chips and rice - that's right ladies and gentlemen, we kill from both the plant and animal kingdoms.  Dave and I made pretty short work of it then rolled our way into the car and had Amanda drive us home.  It was really nice just to spend a meal chatting about this or that.  It's something we don't tend to do when we are just bumming out at home.  Good times.

On Saturday, Amanda, Dave and I jumped into the car and went to Eger. Eger is my favorite city in Hungary and I always make sure to take anyone who comes to visit us to see it.  There is so much history and wonderful buildings that I think it is a must see for anyone visiting Hungary.  We were lucky on Saturday as there was a Christmas market in the main square, so we had some big Hungarian sausages and some piping hot stew with a couple of slabs of bread between us.  It was awesome winter food.  When we'd finished we indulged in a kürtőskalács, which is a cylindrical Hungarian pastry around 30-40cm long covered in sugar and either nuts, cinnamon or chocolate powder.  It's freshly cooked on a fire in front of you and it's awesome, so we were pretty happy that we found that.  After sating ourselves, Dave and I climbed the Minaret, which is a tower constructed by the Ottomans in late 16th century to celebrate the fall of the Hungarians in the area.  I was reading on the sign, that when the Hungarians took the town back 90 or so years later they tried to pull the tower down with 400 oxen but it was too stable so they left it be.  From there the three of us explored the castle, saw the sights then made our way home.

It's been a great couple of days.

- Daniel.

eTwinning

After coming down from the heady heights of finishing the last of her coursework for her masters, Amanda had a hard week.  In addition to the additional classes that the new timetable has given her, she had to take all of my classes on Monday and Tuesday as I was sick.  This left Dave and I at home watching movies and Amanda  going out into the cold to provide for us.  Other than the fact that I felt pretty damn ratty, it could have actually been quite a good situation.  I could have gotten used to that.  Unfortunately, surely enough, I felt better today and had to go to work.

During my first period today, the Grade 3 and 4s had a Skype conference with some students from Finland.  This is all part of a program that our colleague, Ili, has been involved with called eTwinning (as in electronically making two or more schools twins).  In our case, we are now twinned with a school in Finland and a school in France.  Ili and the students have been hard at work creating posters about their environment, the town and their lives so they can be sent to the twin schools.  It is very exciting for the kids and a lot of them are really getting into it.  This was especially true today as they were going to actually get to talk to the kids that they'd previously been writing to.

It was quite good.  One kid from each country went up to the camera, asked some prearranged questions, then when the answers were given the rest of the class tried to take notes.  As our kids were a bit more advanced, they did most of the talking.  It was actually a little funny. When Roosa, one of the Finnish girls, came up  to talk she gave the typical one or two word answers but (un)fortunately she was paired with Kitti, one on the more chatty girl in our class.  When Roosa said her name, Kitti quickly gushed "Oh, what a beautiful name", "Do you have brothers or sisters?" "What are their names?" "Do you have pets?".  Kitti then started wonderfully chatting about her siblings and her pets leaving poor Roosa a little left behind.

Still, it was an awesome experience for all the kids as it was an opportunity to have a real conversation with different people.  We are having another Skype call tomorrow, this time with the twin school from France.

- Daniel.

Master of the Universe

Well, uni results were officially released today and I am pleased and proud to announce that Daniel and I both successfully passed all of our subjects. It was such a huge relief. This semester was really tough for both of us and I personally had a lot of trouble keeping myself motivated. This was especially true in early November when I seemed to be doing very little apart from sleeping, eating, teaching and writing long essays. After a while I lost all ability to judge the quality of my work and I had just about convinced myself that I was going to fail. Fortunately, I worried about nothing.

While Daniel still has another year of study to go in his Bachelor of Letters, my own course is now complete and I'm planning to graduate when I return to Australia. Seeing as I never attended a graduation ceremony when I finished my undergradutate degrees, I'm quite excited about the idea of donning a robe and silly hat to collect my Masters.

At this stage I have no plans to undertake any further university-level study...although Daniel seems pretty convinced that I will. I guess time will tell.

- Amanda

The Biker Bar and the Ball

Well, the weekend finally rolled around and so we decided to show Dave that there is more to Hungary than just our tiny little town. The three of us set off on Saturday morning for Tokaj, Hungary's premier white wine region. Daniel and I were hoping to replenish our white wine supply, while Dave just seemed pleased to be leaving the house :)

On the way to Tokaj we passed through Nyíregyháza and stopped to check out a large wholesale flea market on the outskirts of the city. I must admit that I was a little hesitant to stop because the place was absolutely crawling with people and well, it looked like some kind of crazy ghetto shanty town, but it turned out to be absolutely awesome. There were heaps of stalls and a large variety of cheap items for sale. We spent some time wandering around buying a bunch of stuff we didn't really need (well, except for Dave who was really disciplined), then decided to continue on to Tokaj.

In hindsight, I wish we'd spent more time at the market because Tokaj was like a ghost town by comparison. All of the wine cellars were closed, none of the shops were open and most of the streets were deserted. We couldn't even get a good look at the gorgeous river running by the town because a heavy cloud of fog made it impossible to see much at all. Still, we wandered around for a bit, then decided to grab a drink at the one place that was open - the local biker bar. Again, I was a little apprehensive, but the lure of hot chocolate on such a cold day eventually triumphed over my fear of running afoul of a vicious gang of leather-clad bikies. I needn't have worried. The biker bar was completely empty and we were able to sip our hot chocolates in comfort while watching the Disney Channel on TV. It was strange.

After Tokaj we headed home and began preparations for our attendance at a school fundraising ball in Mátészalka (at the school where I teach once a week). Dave ironed his first shirt EVER and Daniel and I reluctantly scoured the back of our closet for our formal clothes. We've gotten so used to wearing cargo pants and trackies to work that it was rather shocking to have to don something else. Still, we eventually managed to make ourselves presentable and we headed off to the ball. 

It turned out to be a great night. The evening started with modern dance performances from some of the younger students, but the real highlight was the traditional Hungarian folk dancing routines performed by a troupe of past pupils. I've seen similar dances before in Hungary, of course, but they never cease to impress me. The male dancers are particularly awesome. They seem to get all the good moves and they make a hell of a lot of noise stamping their feet and slapping their boots and thighs. I took a video of one of the dances. It's a little long (5ish minutes) but I just didn't have the heart to edit it.

 

The rest of the evening was also enjoyable. There are many English speaking teachers at the school in Mátészalka so we were able to converse with a number of my colleagues, and of course the palinka and Unicum were flowing freely all night. Egészségedre!

- Amanda

Dave the Heartthrob

Well, it seems as if Dave has really made quite a positive impression on the Grade 3 girls. As Daniel mentioned in his previous entry, Dave already had at least one admirer after his first visit to the class on Monday, so I was not at all surprised to learn that his second visit to the classroom yesterday further consolidated his status as somewhat of a heartthrob. In fact, Dave has proven to be so popular that one of the girls even asked him to create an entry in her memory book. 

I'm not sure if we've mentioned memory books before on this blog, but basically they're fancy little notebooks or journals that many of the students tote around. The idea is to pass your memory book onto your friends, or family members, or teachers, and for them to each decorate a page in the book in your honour. Usually the entries consist of cute handdrawn pictures, poems or motivational quotes. When we first arrived in Hungary, Daniel and I were really excited about drawing in the kids' memory books, but now it's just kind of painful. This is because one of the other teachers at the school always seems to be invited to draw in the books before us and her entries are so well-crafted and so beautiful that we feel like a pair of hacks by comparison. 

Anyway, Dave was asked to draw in a memory book yesterday, and since I also had a couple of entries to complete in other books, we both sat down together this afternoon for a full on colouring in session. I won't go so far as to say that Dave enjoyed it, but he did do a pretty decent job. As you can see from the photo, he drew a cute little cat. I'm not so keen on its evil red eyes though....

In other news, we took Dave to the Sárkány Fürdő (Dragon Spa) in Nyírbátor this afternoon. After swimming laps in the indoor pool, we all ventured outside where the air temperature was a rather chilly negative two degrees celcius. Fortunately the water in the outdoor thermal pool was considerably warmer (about 38 degrees). It was awesome.

- Amanda

David goes back to primary school

David's first couple of days here have been pretty quiet.  The first night out, we walked to the pizza place in the zero something degree weather.  David quickly realised that the single sweater and the thin coat that he brought with him would not be sufficient.  This gave Amanda the excuse to go shopping!  The next day, we headed off to Nyiregyháza to go to the nearest mega-store where David found a snow-jacket to his liking.

The weather has actually improved over the last couple of days and now we're unlikely to get snow, so Amanda and I are kind of sad.  Dave is still pretty cold however, and is constantly turning the heater up and putting on an extra layer (he just turned to thermostat up to 27degC).  We can't blame him however as he did just come from the Australian summer.

What I can blame him for however, is his insistence on going for "runs".  On Sunday afternoon, he and I ran to the nearby town of Pócspetri, which is around 1.8kms away.  I still believe it almost killed me.  We used to go running together a couple of years ago, and I was significantly fitter than he was, but now this is just not true.  David was definitely slowing down for me and had to sprint off towards home to avoid getting cold.  Even at those low temperatures, there was no chance of me getting cold as I gasped and wheezed for breath.  We're going again tomorrow apparently.

David came with me to school today and met the Grade 4s and Grade 3s.  It was all fairly good and the kids behaved well.  Ili turned it into an educational experience with the kids having to interrogate Dave and then write a paragraph in English.  I think the kids really like him.  Actually, Kitti, one on the Grade 3s ran up to me in the playground and informed me that "Eszti likes David".  She then ran off giggling.  I thought she was just teasing but when I went back to class later Eszti was asking where David was.  So despite only being in the town for 72 hours or so he's already got admirers.

The school is in full Christmas mode at the moment because Santa is coming next week.  In Hungary, Santa brings presents on Saint Nicholas's name day (December 6) then Jesus brings presents on Christmas Eve.  With that in mind, and as a way of fulfilling the cultural requirements of some freetime lessons, Amanda had the Grade 1B kids make Santa masks today.  The Grade 2s also posed for a photo with some paper flowers that they made.

- Daniel.

He's here

Daniel and I drove to Budapest today to collect Dave from the airport. We were a little anxious about the trip as we'd received multiple warnings from our Hungarian colleagues about the slippery and dangerous road conditions that we were likely to face, but the journey was entirely uneventful. Hooray! 

We arrived at the airport arrivals gate at 11:57am, and Dave's plane landed at 11:58am. Not bad, eh? After waiting around for about half an hour, Dave emerged from the gate looking pretty good for having spent such a long time in transit. Many hugs and insults were traded, and then we set off for the long drive home. 

Dave hasn't seemed at all phased by the cold weather so far. That's probably a good thing as we think that it's likely to snow over here at some point during the next week. Excellent.

- Amanda

Crafty chameleons

We're having a pretty lazy weekend so far. Yesterday we enjoyed our first exam, assignment and work-free Saturday in months. We spent it avoiding doing anything even remotely productive - mainly webjunking, cooking and relaxing at the thermal baths in Nyírbátor. We arrived home just after 5pm and it was pitch black outside. Here is a picture I took of the church from our backyard.

Last night was also pretty relaxing. We cracked open some wine from the Hungarian town of Villány and set about trying out a craft project I'd seen online - paper chameleons. Can you believe that each of these little guys was made with only a single sheet of A4 paper? I think they look awesome.

Only a week until Dave arrives. Hopefully there'll be some snow to greet him when he gets here.

- Amanda

From the Silence

The last week and a half have been busy only with things not worth putting on the blog.  Specifically, Amanda and I were finishing off the last of our studies for this semester.  I had a few exams last week which I think I went fairly well in (but you can never be sure), while Amanda had to complete assignments for basically all of her subjects.  In the space of a week she wrote around 10,000 words on a variety of topics from government policy to a retrospective essay on "what I have learned".  It was rather painful and nearly all contact with the outside world had to be shut down in order to get it done.  We won't find out our results until the 5th of December, so here's hoping that we passed.  Once I'm done with this semester, I've got another year next year of uni and I'll have completed my major in philosophy and my minors in English and Writing.  Then we'll see where I go from there.

I was talking to the Principal of our school today as he's introduced a new schedule of timetimes.  Basically, we're getting two extra weeks of holidays at Christmas, and as such we have to make up those classes over the next month.  We will be doing this by shortening all the class times and breaks and squeezing in an additional lesson before lunchtime.  That will make 9 lessons per day for each class instead of 8.  To make things even more complicated there will be a different timetable each week to decide what goes into this additional lesson.  More timetabling fun and games - it seems to be the year for it.  So, what is the reason for this latest change? Well, it seems that because the local council received 30 million forints (~$130k AUD)  less than requested for the month of December, there just isn't enough money to pay to heat the school over Christmas.  In fact, the town council was only given a little more than wages, so it's going to have to default on the 65 or so million forints that it is currently in debt.  Amanda and I think that the council should have a serious "downsize" of government employees rather than close the school for two extra weeks but I don't think that's the way things are done around here.

In other news, the temperature has been steadily dropping over the last few weeks. It's often negative 5 degrees or so in the morning, and for the last couple of days it hasn't hit much more than 6 degrees Celsius at the hottest during the day.  The principal told us that it might actually snow next week, but maybe he was trying to cheer us up.  Even if everyone else thinks that the snow is annoying, Amanda and I still love it.

Our classes have been going well.  We've been getting a handle on the kids and (for the most part) have them under control, although there are still a few spats every now and then.  In my Grade 4 class, they're still obsessed with going outside or going to the computer room.  It's annoying to have to work through the objections every lesson but it can be a funny conversation.

"Hi Balint, how are you?"

"ANGRY!"

"Why?"

"Daniel!"

"Why?"

"No outside! No számítógépes terem!" 

At this point they're usually desperately trying hard to act as angry as they're pretending to be. I find it interesting that although the kids know the words "computer" and "room", they haven't managed to connect them yet.  I might fix that on Monday actually. If they're going to be angry with me, they might as well do it in English.

Amanda has also been having fun with her classes. She was teaching the Grade 1s about winter clothes today, so she brought in some of our coats, scarves, gloves, hats, pullovers and boots.  The clothes were piled messily in the back of the classroom and a pair of kids were chosen to act as mannequins. Then two different students had to listen to Amanda say one of the new clothes words and race to collect the right item from the pile to dress their mannequin. She said that although it got a bit noisy at times, it was awesome fun and the photos of the kids dressed in our oversized clothes look pretty adorable.

- Daniel.

Dog in a nest

A few months ago  family moved into the house next to ours. For the most part it's been awesome having neighbours. Their kids love playing with Iago, they are always giving us gifts (mostly food, but sometimes I score fantastic homemade jewellery too!) and they help out with other random stuff - like assisting us to fill in the Hungarian census and telling us when we've left our car headlights on.

Unfortunately there has been one smallish downside to having neighbours. They make us feel guilty about not cleaning our house and the yard enough :( I don't know how they find the time with three kids and full-time jobs, but they always seem to be cleaning. If they're not washing their car, they're sweeping the driveway, and it feels like we hear their vaccuum cleaner through the walls every second day. Normally this wouldn't really bother us, but as we share a yard with our neighbours, we feel like grotty slobs every time we step outside and discover that they've been cleaning again while we've been inside doing nothing more productive than playing computer games and doing the occasional load of  laundry. Also, we feel guilty that our leaf strewn driveway is somehow dragging down their well-kept path.

So, in the spirit of neighbourlyness, we've tried to do more to keep things tidy. It's difficult as I don't really understand the Hungarian obsession with sweeping and raking everything ALL THE TIME. Honestly, even if all people have out the front of their homes is a small patch of dirt, you can bet money that it will be the most pristine dirt ever, full of rake lines and completely free of leaves and other clutter. I don't get it. What's the big problem with letting the leaves stay where they fall? 

Anyway, in spite of this objection, Daniel and I spent some time this weekend raking up the leaves in our yard (well, really only half the yard as our neighbours already took care of most of the work). It seems like every tree in Hungary has decided to shed its leaves over the past week so raking up was a pretty big job. But we managed it. The only issue was what to do with the big pile of leaves at the end. Seeing as we don't really understand why we gathered the leaves in the first place, we weren't entirely sure what the protocol was for getting rid of them...so we just made a big pile and shoved them under a tree.

Which brings me finally to the point of this post. I came home from work today to find Iago sound asleep in the middle of the pile of leaves. It was the cutest thing ever :) He reminded me of a little bird hanging out in its nest. Awwwww. It kinda made the whole raking thing worthwhile.

- Amanda

I judge you...awesome

Happy Halloween everyone!

On Friday afternoon, Daniel and I attended another Halloween party - this time it was in the nearby town of Mátészalka at the school where I teach an extra hour of English each week. The school has just implemented the same program that we are running in Máriapócs for their Grade One class and I am providing the students with the requisite contact with a native English speaker.

Everyone in Mátészalka has been super nice to me right from the beginning and so I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to attend the Halloween Party. But by the time Friday afternoon rolled around, I was feeling a little less enthused about going. I was tired. It was such a long way to drive. And besides, they wouldn't miss me anyway, right?

Wrong! 

It's lucky that we decided to go to the party - even if we did arrive 7 minutes late - because I had a special seat reserved just for me at the Judges Table. I even got to wear an awesome witch's hat. After I got over my initial embarrassment at being so late (and my relief at going at all), the party was actually a lot of fun. My Grade One class performed to a number of English songs, including the funkiest version of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes that I've ever heard. They also did a cool streamer routine that I am totally stealing for the next school ball in Máriapócs.

After the singing, each class at the school paraded in front of the judges (myself, the school principal and the two vice-principals) and were awarded scores for their Halloween costumes. This took quite a while as about 600 students attend the school. Then two students took to the stage and provided a bunch of information in English and Hungarian about the history of Halloween. Each class was then quizzed to see how much they remembered and the scores were added to their total. Finally, each class was awarded points for either their Halloween artwork (Grades 1-4) or their Halloween videos (Grades 5-8). 

I must admit that the videos were my favourite part of the party. While some of the classes had just slapped together a bunch of Halloween clipart pictures and overlayed them with spooky music, other classes had gone to the effort of acting out short stories and dances. There was one in particular that everyone, including Daniel and I, thought was awesome. In fact, it was so awesome that I wanted to post it to this blog.

Unfortunately, the only way I could access the video is via the school's Facebook page. So I finally bit the bullet and signed up....only to discover that I can't embed the video on this blog anyway. Still, I have managed to save it to my Facebook "wall" thing, so if anyone's interested you can check it out there.

Daniel and I both have this week off from teaching, though I doubt we'll be relaxing much. Daniel has uni exams to sit and I have a bunch of assignments to plough through. So looking forward to the semester being over!

- Amanda

Halloween Party 2011

This week we had the Halloween party at school.  Amanda, our colleague Ili, and I had organised it for Wednesday afternoon and all the kids were excited to try out their costumes.  We have been teaching the kids Halloween vocabulary and songs for the last two weeks so even the little grade ones knew how to say ghost, witch, vampire, skeleton etc.  Unfortunately, Amanda and I have been a little busy with everything lately so we made some last minute costumes the night before.  Amanda was a black cat and I was a ghost (taken from Amanda's costume last year).  We also had to carve new pumpkins as the ones that we carved with Danni were getting a little mouldy.

The party went pretty well, we had the hall decorated with the kids' artwork and a white sheet then brought the 150-odd kids into the room.  It was a little crazy.  There were ghosts and knights and witches and vampires and spiders and pumpkins and black cats.  Most of the kids got dressed up which we were pretty happy about.  It was a little funny, we teach the kids a song that goes "knock, knock, trick or treat who are you?  I'm a ghost, I'm a little ghost."  We then brought all the witches up then sang it again while replacing the word ghost with witch.  This continued as we went through all the various costumes that the kids had put together until we got to one little girl who was dressed as the wife of Frankenstein.  So here were 150 kids and various adults happily singing "knock, knock, trick or treat, who are you? I'm the wife, I'm the little wife!" Actually, now that I think of it I think I was the only one laughing.  Oh well, I found it funny.

So after the songs and speeches we played the toilet paper mummy game.  We had each class line up, each with their own mummy candidate, then one by one had a turn wrapping them in the paper.  Ili manned the microphone and yelled "CHANGE!" every 20 or 30 seconds, while the kids screamed and threw toilet paper around the room.  It was messy, crazy, but it was a lot of fun.

The last game that we played was the corner game.  Each corner had a picture of either a witch, ghost, pumpkin and black cat.  The kids ran to a corner then Amanda stood in the middle of the hall and spun a spinning wheel which determined which of the corners was out.  The kids from that corner then had to sit down.  It was simple, but fun (mainly because the kids got to run from corner to corner between spins).

Anyway, another Halloween finished.  Awesome fun.

- Daniel.

More guests!

This weekend has been rather awesome. My dad and my sister Danni arrived in Máriapócs to visit us on Thursday afternoon, so we have had the pleasure of their company for the last few days. Things got off to a great start when they opened their suitcases and began loading us up with lots of presents from home. There were lots of goodies for next year's Australia Day party, new stickers for the kids, as well as several items of clothing for both of us. Score!

But I think the happiest Máriapócian of all was Iago. Not only did Danni bring over an entire bag of new toys for him, but he also scored a fantastic handmade blanket from Anthea, Daniel's sister. As you can see from the picture, Iago wasted absolutely no time at all in making use of his new possession. He loves it :)

Anyway, the rest of the weekend has flown by pretty quickly. We've spent a lot of time just hanging out together at home - playing cards, cooking up a storm, and carving up our very first Halloween jack-o-lanterns. I think they turned out really well! The initial plan was to bring them to school next Wednesday for the annual Halloween costume party, but unfortunately they are looking a little droopy already so I don't think they're going to last.

Yesterday we ventured out to Hungary's famous Tokaj wine district and stumbled across a neat little outdoor food festival. We also checked out a bunch of the local cellars and bought lots of white wine, much of it wonderfully packaged in recycled coke bottles. But while it may not have looked particularly classy, it certainly tasted great.

Today was a public holiday in Hungary so basically the entire country shut down. Absolutely nothing was open, so we all enjoyed another cruisey day in Máriapócs. It looks like Dad and Danni will be setting off on the next leg of their trip tomorrow which is a little sad as it seems like they just got here. Still, it's been fun having them around and I've really enjoyed seeing them both. It's been quite educational too, as I've been able to quiz Dad about his childhood in Hungary and learn a bit more about our family's Hungarian roots.

- Amanda

AMANDA HAS NOT WATCHED ALIENS!

I just found out something shocking about my wife.

She has never seen the James Cameron classic movie: Aliens.

That is all.

- Daniel.

A week in review

Gosh, is it Sunday night already? Where did our weekend go? In fact, where did the last week go? It seems like time is just flying by at the moment. Anyway, here are some highlights from the last week....

On Monday, the principal sent a handyman over to our house to turn on the heating system after a pretty chilly weekend. Daniel and I had tried to do it ourselves but hadn't had much success. It turns out that we just needed to turn the thermostat above zero. Oops! I'm sure that the principal thinks that we are complete morons as this is just the latest in a series of embarrassing incidents. Only a few weeks ago the same handyman came over to our house as we had been having some issues locking our front door. He took one look at the situation, moved our front doormat and locked the door on the first try. Yes, the mat had gotten itself wedged between the frame and the door and neither Daniel or I had noticed it during our many, many, many attempts at getting the door to lock. Pretty embarrassing. Worse still is that we left our car headlights on overnight this weekend, so tomorrow morning we are going to have to ask the principal to help us solve yet another silly problem.

Halloween is rapidly approaching, so last week I used most of my freetime and art lessons with the Grade 1s to introduce some Halloween words. I'm absolutely amazed at how spongelike these little kids are. They picked up the new words really fast and were soon drawing some absolutely amazing Halloween themed pictures. I like to think it's my skill as an art teacher, but really I think that this year's Grade 1s are just incredibly talented.

On Thursday morning I drove to Mátészalka (a town about 30 kms away) where I teach an extra English class each week to some Grade 1 students. The first couple of times I taught the class, the school arranged for one other teacher to sit in on the lesson in case something happened. They'd never employed a native speaker to teach English before, so I think they were a little nervous about how it was going to work, especially with such young students. But everything went really well and the kids very quickly adapted to my teaching methods. In fact things are working out so well with the class that more and more teachers - and now the parents - want to sit in on the lessons and see how the class operates. Last week there were eight adults sitting up the back watching the class. The week before the principal and three teachers attended the lesson. The week before that the vice principal, two upper class English teachers and a photographer were present. It's actually getting a little weird and I'm starting to get really nervous before the class because I don't want to stuff up in front of so many important people. Hopefully my novelty value will wear off soon and I can go back to just enjoying being silly with a bunch of great kids.

Speaking of silliness, on Friday I was back teaching in Máriapócs and had just taken one of the Grade 1 classes to lunch. After lunch I took the kids outside to play and some of the kids to decided to hang around me and practice their English. Mostly this involved them repeating the few English sentences they know over and over again. For example, they just love telling me their names and asking what my name is. They then extended this to pointing at objects that they know, like an apple, and saying "My name is apple". Sure, it's not perfect English but the meaning of their sentences is pretty clear. Anyway, on Friday one of the students decided to insert an adjective into the sentence as well. She pointed at my jumper which was decorated with a rhinestone butterfly and said "My name is Amanda beautiful pullover". I just think that's an amazing linguistic accomplishment for a 6 year old who has been learning English for only a few weeks. They are so brave. I love it.

Of course, after that things got a little weird as all the kids started touching the butterfly on my jumper. As you can see from the photo, the butterfly is right on my chest, so it was a pretty awkward experience having all these tiny hands groping me. Luckily I'm a lot taller than the kids, so standing up soon put an end to the impromptu patdown :)

As for this weekend, it was pretty uneventful. Our Saturday morning class in Nyírbátor is winding down, so Daniel and I were able to devote most of our time to working on uni assignments. I also found some time to put the finishing touches on my toilet paper roll mummy. I love this little guy and am hoping to get some of the kids to make their own this week.

- Amanda