School Opening Ceremony

Today we had the official opening of the school.  We got to see all our kids from last year (who we really missed) and we got to meet all the new little ones.  There are two grade one classes this year, each with 23 students, so we're going to be busy.

The ceremony started with a rendition of the Hungarian anthem, which Amanda and I were really excited about as we'd practiced it over the course of the last 3 months.  We stood up with the rest of the school and as the music started Amanda and I belted out the first couple of lines.  It was much slower than we were used to but that didn't seem to be the problem.  It took until the second line of the song before I noticed what it was:  Nobody else was singing.  That's right, we'd practiced day in day out for 3 months and it seemed that no one else sang it.  Eventually our colleague, Ili, and our principal joined us so we weren't singing by ourselves but we got through to the end of it.  The rest of the ceremony went without a hitch.  There were a few long speeches, we had to stand up at one point and wave our hands at the parents but other than that it was all pretty cruisey.

We are actually a little confused as to what we are doing this year.  It seemed like things were settled, as per Amanda's last post, however things seem to have changed a number of times since then and there have been several discussions with the principal to sort things out.  In one version, Amanda and I are teaching almost no English and rather spending all of our time teaching PE, art, singing and science.  Ili wasn't too happy with this, so we rearranged the classes so that there was a more even load but it still hasn't really been settled.  We've been told that we are looking after the Grade 2's tomorrow afternoon for 3 hours, then the Grade 3's and 4's on Friday but other than that we've got no idea what subjects we are going to be teaching for the year.  Amanda keeps on asking Ili for a timetable only to have Ili laugh wryly.

- Daniel.

Back to work

This week all of the teachers in Hungary, including Daniel and I, have returned to work. The new school year officially begins on the 1st of September, and there is a lot to do between now and then.

As mentioned in our last post, Monday morning began with a staff meeting. The school principal, Sanyi, used the meeting to outline all of the major changes in store for the 2011-2012 school year. And boy, was the news ever depressing! Apparently a representative from the Hungarian Government performed some kind of audit of the school during the Summer holidays and dictated that a number of changes had to be made. Sanyi was forced to cut back on staff, as well as the number of classes that particular students can take. For example, our Grade 3 and 4 students will now finish school at 1:30pm instead of 4pm. This creates a bit of a dilemma for those students (and their parents) because the school bus doesn't come until 4pm, so any student who doesn't live locally will be forced to just wait around. At the moment, the plan is to create some kind of free after school club for the students who want to stay at school, but how many students will take this up is a bit of a mystery.

In addition, our colleague Gabriel who previously taught PE to Grades 1-8 is no longer working at the school. A part-time replacement teacher has been found, but as he doesn't speak much English he is unable to teach the lower grades. Fortunately an existing staff member is available to pick up the slack...and that lucky person is Daniel! From the middle of September, he will teach eight PE lessons a week. At first I don't think he was too thrilled with the idea, but now he seems fairly excited about it, so hopefully things work out.

Daniel has also been tasked with leading one of the new Grade 1 classes. This is a big ask as these kids are new to school, as well as new to learning English. At the beginning of the school year their attention spans are approximately five seconds long and by the end of the year they can last about two minutes. So teaching them is tough. Really tough.

As for me, I'm pretty happy with how my teaching schedule is looking so far. It looks like I'll be teaching some English in every grade, but my main focus will be leading Grades 2 and 3. I've also managed to retain the drawing lessons that I enjoy so much. And I've avoided singing lessons - yippee!

I've also agreed to take on a part-time teaching position (1 hour per week) at another primary school in the nearby town of Mátészalka. The school is commencing the same English program that we offer in Máriapócs but they didn't have a native English speaker until they hired me yesterday. Since having a native speaker is an essential component of the program, I think they were getting a little desperate and they seemed thrilled that I've agreed to help out. I'm not sure if it really counts as being headhunted, but the principal of the school in Mátészalka heard about Daniel and I through his wife who owns a baby goods store. Apparently she was talking to someone in Máriapócs who also owns a baby goods store and they suggested us for the job. We're famous!

Finally, here is a photograph of the official 2011 staff and graduating class photo (sorry about the crappy quality). Don't you just love how happy everyone looks?

- Amanda

Berlin to Prague to home

The journey across Germany had exhausted Amanda and I.  Not so much from the amount of time driving, but rather from the boringness of the highways.  I had been excited to try out the (in)famous autobahns but in the end they turned out to be much like any other highway in the world.  Yes, there were sections that seemed to have no speed limit, but I wasn't too enthusiastic to go faster than the 130km/h found on every other highway in Europe.  Besides which, with the 82 million people living in Germany it seemed that every hundred kilometres or so was inhibited by a half-hour traffic jam.  More on that later.

We knew that we had plenty of time to spend in Berlin on Saturday morning, as the only other thing we'd planned was a  tour of the Volkswagon factory in Dresden at 5pm.  Dresden, according to our GPS, was only 2 hours away so we spent the morning wandering down to the old remains of  the Berlin Wall.  The walk was interesting, as there were any number of different memorials, statues and historical plaques that go into the technical and emotional details of Germany's involvement in the second World War.  This wasn't a culture that was determined to sweep an ugly moment of their history under the table.

The first memorial that we saw was called the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe".  We found it interesting, but we didn't really understand it.  The slabs (called stelae), were of varying heights and sizes and all arrayed in rows.  It was impressive, but it we couldn't figure out if it represented anything, or was symbolic of anything so it didn't really... touch us in any real way.  Wikipedia tells us that the stelae were designed to "produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole scuplutre aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason."  Well, I guess you could say that.

The next memorial was next to a section of the Berlin wall that is relatively untouched.  Here, there is a step by step account of how the Nazi party rose to power.  It was a very interesting read as it completely detailed the time from when Nazi meetings were banned and members arrested, to how they got their first few seats in parliment, to Hitler becoming Chancellor and the forthcoming war.  It also went into the post war detail, regarding compensation, the horrors involved with the Berlin wall itself and its eventual fall.  It was very sobering, and definitely put ourselves in an interesting light to head towards the Volkwagon factory in Dresden.

Unfortunately, the traffic caught up with us.  We knew that it was going to be bad, so we left 5 hours to travel the 2 hour journey from Berlin to Dresden.  It took us an hour to get out of Berlin alone, then we hit three different "stop-dead-and-get-out-of-your-car" traffic jams.  In the end we missed the tour by half an hour so we had no choice but to keep going to our hotel in Prague.

Prague was nice, but by this stage Amanda and I were getting travel tired.  Germany's never ending concrete had sapped us of all energy and it was difficult to look at another European city, even one as beautiful as Prague, with distracted attention.  Still, we mustered up some enthusiasm and set out to do some exploring. The plan was to walk from our hotel to nearby Wenceslas Square, then meander our way through Prague's pretty streets until we reached the Old Town Square and the famous Charles Bridge (Karluv Most). Unfortunately, however, Prague's cobblestone footpaths got the best of Amanda and she managed to resprain her ankle just as we reached the Square. There was nothing we could do except make our way slowly back to our hotel.

This morning we decided to view the rest of Prague from the safety of our car and we drove through the streets for a while before setting off for our next destination, Bratislava in Slovakia. On the way there we decided to detour to check out a creepy church known as the Sedlec Ossuary or more commonly as The Bone Church.  For reasons we still don't fully understand, the church somehow came to be decorated with human skeletal remains including an impressive chandelier that contains at least one of every bone in the human body. It was strange.

After the Church we recommenced our drive to Bratislava and and at some point along the way decided that we would save the Botel Marina for another time, and drove straight back to Máriapócs instead.  The first thing that we discovered when we got home this evening was that we actually start work at 9am tomorrow morning, so it's a good thing we're back earlier than planned.

- Daniel.

Baden-Baden to Berlin

Yesterday morning we set off from the town of Baden-Baden to explore a nearby castle.  Though our GPS got lost at the last minute, we still managed to find Hohenbaden Castle at the top of a massive hill. It was built in 1102 and is known locally as the Altes Schloss (Old Castle). The views from the top of the castle were quite spectacular and I was very jealous of the couple who were having a private champagne breakfast at a table that had been set up along the castle walls.

After the castle we set off to check out the two German towns where my grandparents and mother were born. First we went to Ellingshausen, an absolutely tiny village in the middle of Germany. My grandmother grew up on a farm in Ellingshausen, so I was expecting a fairly rural setting. Instead it was just half a dozen streets full of normal houses. We walked around for a bit and let Iago swim in the stream that runs next to the town.

Our next stop was the town of Coburg where my grandfather used to live and where my mother was born. Coburg was quite a bit bigger than Ellingshausen and really rather pretty. It was quite late when we arrived so we didn’t have much time to explore but we did manage to check out the main square. The two most impressive buildings in the square were the Rathaus and the Stadthaus. If you look closely at the picture of the Rathaus (the building with the flagpoles in front) you can see a small statue in the centre of the roof of a man holding a bratwurst. This is a very important reference point in Coburg because the local delicacy – a sausage known as the Coburger Bratwurst – is always made exactly the same size as the one being held in the statue.  In other trivia, the Coburger Bratwurst also claims to be the only sausage in Germany made with raw eggs. 

Anyway, we spent a lot of time driving around yesterday so it was good to get to our hotel in Erfurt. We had a bit of a sleep in this morning, then set off for Berlin. We arrived late this afternoon and decided to go for a bit of a walk with Iago near our hotel. We quickly came across the Reichstag, a beautiful old building which houses Germany’s parliament, as well as Brandenburg Gate, a famous gateway into Berlin which has played a central role in the city’s history for almost 300 years. Walking through the Gate this afternoon I was struck again by how amazing it is to be able to see these kinds of historical monuments in person, rather than just reading about them in books. 

As we were walking back to our hotel I also noticed another famous icon of Berlin – the Ampelmännchen. For those who don’t know, the Ampelmännchen is the unique little pedestrian crossing symbol that is used in many former areas of East Germany, including Berlin. After German reunification in 1990, many pedestrian crossings across the country were standardised and the Ampelmännchen began to disappear. Fortunately, not everyone was happy about this and people banded together to save the funny little guy. Hooray! Speaking of funny little guys, here is Daniel enjoying a beer.

- Amanda

Schwarzwald

Yesterday morning Daniel and I set off from our hotel in Munich to a small town in the Black Forest called Schönwald. We didn't have much time to spend in Munich, so we decided to check out the city's most famous tourist spectacle and just ignore everything else. This led to us standing in Marienplatz just before 11am to watch the Rathaus Glockenspiel. While the Rathaus (Town Hall) which houses the Glockenspiel looks extremely old, it actually dates from 1908 and the Glockenspiel is the same age.

Three times every day the Glockenspiel chimes for about ten minutes while two sets of life size figures move about to tell a couple of historical stories. The top figures relay the tale of a noble wedding, and the bottom figures commemorate a special dance invented to celebrate the end of the plague in Munich.

Marienplatz was full of tourists who had gathered excitedly to watch the Glockenspiel and I really enjoyed the fact that 100-year old technology was still able to elicit so many excited gasps and cheers.

From Munich, Daniel and I set off for Stuttgart, but lengthy delays on two separate autobahns meant that we didn't have any time to stop. It was a shame as Stuttgart was very pretty, with lots of vineyards covering the nearby hills. Eventually we made it to our next destination - Germany's famous Black Forest.

Our hotel last night was in the town of Schönwald which lays claim to have been the birthplace of the cuckoo clock in 1737. As you can imagine there were lots of local shops selling cuckoo clocks, but Daniel and I set off this morning with one particular shop in mind - the home of a really, really gigantic cuckoo clock. Sounds awesome, right? Unfortunately, despite some searching, we couldn't find it. I guess it mustn't have been as big as we were thinking, and in hindsight having an address would have been helpful!

Anyway, no matter, we quickly adjusted our GPS and headed for our next exciting activity - going for a walk in a Barefoot Park. For those who don't know, Barefoot Parks are basically just what the name suggests...parks where you walk around barefoot. I found one of these in the Black Forest and thought it sounded like fun. You get to slosh through mud, walk on moss, paddle across streams, navigate rolling logs, etc. Unfortunately, the employee of the Barefoot Park took one look at me hobbling up to the ticket counter from the carpark with my sore ankle and suggested that the Park probably wasn't suitable for me. It was pretty crushing :( He then suggested that Daniel and I check out another nearby attraction instead - Vogtsbauernhof, the Black Forest Open Air Museum.

Taking his advice, we set off for the Museum and soon found ourselves stepping back into history at a preserved homestead. While it was okay overall, the experience was tinged with disappointment as Daniel was unable to pat a calf because its mother had pooped on it, and I was unable to pose with a wooden frog because a bunch of Japanese teenagers were too busy taking photos of themselves violating it. In addition, there was no loom.

So far our day in the Black Forest wasn't going so well, but we decided to soldier on and made our way to the town of Freudenstadt, famous for its marketplace which is the largest in Germany. Well, I'm no expert but the marketplace really didn't look that big to me. Still, it was rather pretty and we stuck around to have lunch and purchase a couple of souveniers. I really wanted to buy a replica bollenhut (a funky hat made from 14 pom poms which is native to the Black Forest), but I knew I would never, ever wear it again so we just settled for pictures instead.

After lunch, we hopped on the B500 road - also known as the Schwarzwaldhochstraße - and cruised along checking out some amazing views of the Black Forest. We detoured a little bit to visit the ruins of an abandoned monastery known as All Saints' Abbey (Kloster Allerheiligen) and some nearby waterfalls. According to Wiki the location of the Abbey was determined by a donkey who dropped a sack of money there in 1192. I think that donkey must have really had an eye for real estate because the ruins were absolutely gorgeous. There were tall trees and lush green grass all around, and a little stream surrounded by moss and wildflowers flowed close by. It was lovely, and provided the perfect close to a busy day.

- Amanda

Through Austria and into Germany

We didn't have any internet on the second and third day of our trip, so we are posting them all at once.  This entry occurred today!

Still recovering from the awesomeness that was yesterday, we woke up a bit late this morning before we prepared for the long drive to Munich.   We gave Iago a quick wash and had a relaxing breakfast down at the hotel lounge.  On the way back, we saw Iago's doppelganger.  We see a lot of black labs, but this dog was basically the same!  So we had to take a few photos and without any more preamble we packed the car and left.

Today was a long day of driving for me. With Amanda's ankle injury it was thought best that she do no driving so as to give it the best chances of recovery.  Unfortunately, this left me with a seven and a half hour drive including the famous Glossglockner High Alpine Road which is a windy road up the tallest mountain in the Austrian alps.  Considering the drive, but also considering how much we wanted to see this road, we had to flip a coin in order to decide.  (Un)fortunately, the coin dictated that we avoid the alpine road and turn the trip into a five hour drive.

After a quick accidental detour into Italy, we turned back around and made our way to the Karawanken Tunnel, an awesome ~8km tunnel from Slovenia to Austria.   It was really awesome, in fact the highways in Austria were generally fantastic.  They are all well paved, generally have a good camber and led us through the fantastic scenery that is the alps.  The Austrians seem to love straight lines and basically built bridges and tunnels that cut their way straight through stone and straight across valleys.  It was impressive to the extreme for those of us who are used to Hungarian and Romanian "roads".

I'm really tired after the drive and all this furious blogging so I'll leave a few photos here and call it a night.  I've loved what we've done so far and can't wait for what comes next!

- Daniel.

A birthday in Venice

We didn't have any internet on the second and third day of our trip, so we are posting them all at once. This entry occurred on the third day.

Yesterday was awesome. It was my birthday and Daniel decided that we ought to spend it in style. So we did what savvy travellers have been doing for centuries...we went to Venice!

The day started early. A 6am wake up call in order to give ourselves time to get from Izola, Slovenia to Italy. Of course, as we were doing things in style, an ordinary car drive across to Venice simply wasn't going to cut it. Instead we boarded the Prince of Venice - an Australian-made catamaran - which took the three of us across the Adriatic and Meditteranean Seas. The trip took about two and a half hours. Daniel spent his time hanging out on the terrace looking sexy, Iago spent his time trying not to get stepped on by the other passengers, and I spent my time stressing about whether or not Iago was going to be allowed into Italy.

Fortunately, I worried about nothing. The Italian border control people could not have cared less about letting him into Venice, and we all passed through the checkpoints without even showing our passports.

While the operators of the catamaran had also arranged various tours and activities in Venice, Daniel and I decided to set off on our own and explore the city. And my god, it was fantastic. We wandered along the main promenade for a while, saw a little offshoot alleyway and decided to follow it. One hundred metres later we came to some steps leading straight down into a canal. Okay then. So we turned around and walked back. At the next alleyway we tried again and this time we found a little bridge over the canal. So we kept going, just randomly taking turns that looked interesting and backtracking whenever we came to dead ends. It was like a massive maze.

Eventually we stopped at a little bistro and had lunch (pasta for both of us, of course). It was a great location and we were able to watch a constant parade of speedboats and gondolas passing by. I took this video from our table. 

After lunch we continued our exploration of the city, eventually coming across Venice's most famous public square, the Piazza San Marco. The place was crawling with tourists, but we managed to check out such iconic sights as the Doge's Palace, the clock tower, St Mark's Basilica and the Campanile (which was surrounded by boarding due to reinforcement works necessitated by ongoing water damage). Daniel and I had lots of fun playing with the flocks of pigeons in the Piazza. I like to think that the strange pigeon at the top of the picture on the left is the same evil pigeon swooping in to kill its rival in the picture on the right.

From the Piazza, we continued our exploration of the city, stopping approximately every five metres to ooh and ahh over different things - Daniel liked the strange electric street lighting and ornate buildings, I loved the colourful balconies and the secluded little spots by the canals where people could sit and just soak up the atmosphere. We found ourselves sitting in one of these very spots late in the afternoon after I managed to trip over and badly sprain my ankle. While it still hurts like buggery more than 24 hours later, my injury provided an awesome excuse to sit on some steps by the water and just relax for a while. By that stage Iago was absolutely dying to go swimming, and despite warnings from the locals about the poor quality of the canal water, there was no stopping him from taking a dip. He loved it and I'm sure that he would have swum around the entire city if we had dared to let him off his leash.

Rejuventaed, we made our way back to the Piazza, purchased a map of the city and then negotiated even more laneways to get the the Rialto Bridge, the first dry crossing point of the Grand Canal. While there has been a bridge in the location since the 12th century, the current Rialto Bridge dates from 1591. It was absolutely packed with people, but since it has almost always been a market site, I suppose that made the experience quite authentic. 

By now we were worried about missing the boat back to Slovenia, so with Daniel navigating and me hobbling along behind with our wet, smelly dog, we set off across the city to the port. In spite of the twisty, turny alleyways, distracting shops and hoardes of tourists, we made it back with about ten minutes to spare. Again, Iago was able to pass through the Italian border checkpoint without any issues and we were soon back on board and heading across the sea to Izola.

It was such a wonderful way to spend my birthday.

- Amanda

Slovenia to the coast

We didn't have any internet on the second and third day of our trip, so we are posting them all at once.  This entry occurred on the second day.

After leaving Maribor, we set off for a small town on the Slovenian coast called Izola.  Izola was deemed to be a beach holiday location so we were excited to see the ocean again. We had a nice relaxing day planned so we slept in a bit and ended up leaving at 10am instead of 9am.  Slovenia isn't a very big country and the GPS told us that we could reach Izola within 3 hours so we decided to make a few stops on the way.

The first stop was an old castle in Celje which was called Stari Grad Celje which is Sloven for "old castle in Celje".  Early references to this castle places its construction in the early 14th century.  Over the centuries, the castle was destroyed and renovated over and over again in the tradition of European castles.  The most recent renovation occurred just after World War 2.  

This castle was awesome.  It was just the right combination of restored and authentic.  There is nothing like climbing over castle rock in order to get onto the wall of a castle and look over the countryside.  It was also completely open to exploration so you could go anywhere that you like, which is unlike some castles which demand that you go to Point A, see the thing that they want you to see, then head off to Point B. In this castle, you go where you want, see what you want and spend as much time there as you want.  

The castle has a number of baileys with many structures that are still standing.  The second most impressive feature of the castle was Fredrick's Tower. Iago didn't particular like the tower as there were many stairs, but he took them like a champ.  Amanda complained a bit however.  

The most impressive feature of the castle was the scion of the oldest vine in the world.  That's right, Maribor's oldest vine in the world had kids and they took up residence in a 14th century castle.  This vine is bad-arse and I love it.  Anyway, we had a great time and it certainly hits my "top 3" castles in Europe (that we've seen so far).

From Celje, we got back in the car and made our way to the Slovenian capital of Ljubjana.  Ljubjana was a very pretty city with the Ljubljanica river running through the center.  We didn't really know what we were looking for, but we were still on a high from seeing the scion of the oldest vine in the world so we took a risk and just parked somewhere pretty.  It turned out well however, as we ended up having lunch in this really nice restaurant by the river then continued on our walk to see the famous triple bridge.  

Good times were had so we were in an excellent mood when we arrived in the small beach town of Izola, and were ready for our next day of adventures.

- Daniel

An exciting beginning

Today Daniel and I set off on a 12-day road trip. We've planned a vague circle-like route that will take in parts of Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

This morning we left Máriapócs at about 10am (not quite the 8am start we were hoping for) and made our way into Budapest. Of course we've both been to Budapest before but I really wanted to stop and check out Heroes Square (Hősök tere). It seems that every single time we drive through Budapest, we drive right past this impressive place, but we'd never actually stopped to see it properly...so today we were determined to do things differently.

Hősök tere is a massive public square located at one end of Budapest. It was built in 1896 to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Magyar people arriving in present-day Hungary. In the centre of the square the seven leaders of the Magyar tribes are depicted on horseback. They surround a large column which is topped by the archangel Gabriel holding two important national symbols - the Hungarian crown and a double cross. Behind this centrepiece are two curved colonnades, each home to statues of seven important Hungarian historical figures (all male, hmpf). Daniel and I know the names of most of these figures as every second street in Hungary seems to be named in their honor. 

Behind Heroes Square is Városliget (City Park), a large area full of parkland and public buildings. Like the square, City Park also played an important role in Hungary's millenium celebrations and one of its most beautiful buildings, Vajdahunyad Castle, was actually built especially for the event. The original castle seems to have been intended as a temporary addition to the park as it was made from cardboard and wood, but it was soon rebuilt in stronger materials owing to its immense popularity. This afternoon there were lots of people rowing boats around the castle's moat, and checking out the weird objects floating in the water. That looked like fun but I'm more excited about coming back in Wintertime to try iceskating when the lake is frozen! 

  

Unfortunately when Daniel and I arrived back at our car we discovered that we had received a parking ticket. We were pretty bewildered by the ticket, so we approached a nearby parking inspector to ask what the problem was. He advised that we were in a no parking zone and pointed about 50 metres down the road to a small sign depicting an outline of a red circle on a white background (kind of like a speed limit sign minus the number in the middle). Neither Daniel or I had ever seen that type of sign anywhere else in Hungary before so we were pretty confused. I then motioned to the approximately 200 cars that were parked in the same area as our car and asked if they were all parked illegally too...and the parking inspector said YES! So it seems likely that every single day many, many hundreds of people get fined because they don't see, or don't understand, ONE tiny sign on the side of a road in an area that completely looks as if it has been set aside for parking. Dodgy, dodgy, dodgy! Sorry about the rant, but I was seriously pissed off!

Anyway, after the excitement of Budapest, Daniel and I made our way to the south west corner of Hungary and crossed the border into Slovenia. Tonight we're staying in Maribor, the second largest city in the country. Last week, while I was researching what to do in Maribor, I kept coming up with the usual list of sights - churches, town hall, statues, etc. I love all that stuff, but I wanted to see something that was unique to Maribor. Thankfully my dedication paid off and I found out about the Old Vine. 

What is the Old Vine, you ask? Well, it's a really old vine. More specifically, it's the world's oldest noble grape vine (as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records). The Old Vine has been growing in Maribor for over 400 years. And it still produces grapes! It was truly an awesome spectacle. 

Day 2 of the road trip has a lot to live up to...

- Amanda