Sümeg Folk Music Competition

On Thursday this week, the grade 3s and 4s had a Skype conversation with a school in France. The kids learnt four or five different questions and answers. They then stood shyly in front of the camera and mumbled to a French person who mumbled back a response. It was interesting this time to see how the French kids had gotten significantly better than last time we chatted. I think they were more relaxed and just a little bit closer to a natural conversation.

On Friday, I took the day off work to go with Zoli, my citera teacher, and his music group from Nagykálló as they went to the intermediate folk music competition in Sümeg. There was only one more space in the van, so Amanda stayed behind with Iago in Máriapócs. I hear that she had some awesome adventures with Laima

Although the bus trip was long, I spent the time talking to Zoli, his wife and doing my best to communicate to the others with hand signals. They are all students of Zoli's from his Nagykálló school, so the youngest is only thirteen years old and the oldest is eighteen years old. All in all, it was a pretty easy trip. The only thing was that it was very hot. Winter is well and truly over with temperatures hitting the low thirties so being stuck in a van with eight other people was kind of unpleasant.

It was a great relief to get to Tihany, a small town on Lake Balaton, where we stopped for a while, let our feet soak in the water and had a beer.  It was a fantastic way to cool down after the long hot drive.  Before long we were back on the road however to our destination in Sümeg.

In Sümeg, we were all staying in the second storey of a house, where the owners lived in the bottom storey.  There wasn't a lot of room, but we all managed to find a place to lay down our bags and get to the business of cooking dinner, drinking and playing music. It's kind of awesome how much the kids in the band really enjoy folk music, give them half a chance and they'll be taking out their instruments and before long they'll be playing, dancing and singing. It was really a great night.

The next morning, after breakfast and a quick rehearsal, we all headed off to the first performance of the day. The town's music center/concert hall was packed with people awaiting their turn to perform. I'm not too sure when it started, but by the time we got there at 10am it seemed like it had already been going on for hours. The doors were closed for each performance, sometimes it was a single child singing a folk song and at other times it was a fully complemented choir, when they were finished, the doors open to allow people to enter and exit the concert hall and then the next performance came on.

I sat in the hall for half an hour watching the performances waiting for Zoli's band to play.  There were perhaps 15 to 20 different acts that played in that time, each time there was a second or two where the judges conferred and then the next act came on. It was a very smooth and efficient process that continued throughout the day until they finished at around 6pm. There must have been hundreds a performances during the day. It was a massive organisational effort.

After the Zoli's band had played we went back to the house for lunch then went to check out the Sümegi castle. The kids weren't interested so they stayed at the car while we climbed the hill. The castle was quite awesome, with many walls to climb over and plenty of equipment to play with, but it just wasn't the same without Amanda and Iago.  We've had a lot of fun exploring the various European castles and between the three of us we've gotten pretty good at it. Can't complain though, it was a fairly awesome castle.

One of the kids performed again at 3pm, then we waited around unit 7:30pm for the final decision as to who would go through to the national competition.  It was a long day, but it paid off as both the group and the individual performance won a place in the next round.  Awesome stuff!

We were all exhausted by this stage so it was a sleepy five hour drive back to Nagykálló, where Amanda picked me up at around 1am.  A great weekend!

- Daniel.

Lake Tisza

Yesterday, while Daniel was off exploring Sümeg with a band of motley teens, Laima and I decided to go on a daytrip of our own to Lake Tisza. On the way we stopped in the town of Hortobágy to check out a market and watch some folk dancing, as well as visiting the Máta horse stud (Mátai Ménes). Laima absolutely loves horses so we spent some time wandering the stables and meeting all the cute new foals. Since it was such a hot day, many of the horses were being treated to a cold hose down outside and it was pretty hilarious watching them react to the water.

After the horses, we set off on the 45-minute drive to Lake Tisza, Hungary's largest artifical lake. According to Wiki, Lake Tisza was created as part of flood controls for the Tisza River and it took approximately 20 years to complete the 127 square kilometre project. I must admit I didn't realise that it was an artificial lake until today, so I guess that says something about what an authentic job the Hungarians did in creating it. 

Somehow Laima and I found ourselves parked outside a building in the lakeside town of Poroszló. There seemed to be a lot of people milling about and we figured that it was worth checking out what was inside. Happily, we had discovered the Lake Tisza Ecocentre (Tisza-tavi Ökocentrum), a brand new building dedicated to showcasing the rich flora and fauna of the lake and its surroundings. As well as a 3D movie theatre, lake lookout balcony and education zone, the Ecocentre also featured the largest freshwater acquarium system in Europe, filled with almost 1 million litres of water and a variety of local fish species. There was even a special tank set aside for otters...but they hadn't arrived yet :(

Outside the Ecocentre, a path led down to the lake and Laima and I were able to catch a boat across the water to some islands where a series of boardwalks had been constructed. The boardwalks allowed us to explore the wildlife on the islands without getting our feet wet and we spent several hours actively listening and looking for frogs, fish and birds. It was amazing to see and hear just how much life was going on around us when we took the time to stop and observe it.

- Amanda

Paper Crisis 2012

Last Monday our school ran out of paper. While annoying, it's actually a pretty common event. At least once every couple of months something seems to jam up in the supply chain and the entire school is left without paper for a day or two while things sort themselves out. This time, however, it's been a lot longer than two days - we're up to seven school days without paper so far...and counting.

To non-teachers this probably doesn't sound like a big deal, but paper is a pretty basic and necessary resource in the classroom, and not having it makes life difficult. It means no photocopying is possible, no worksheets can be provided for the kids, no newsletters or correspondence can be sent out, etc. It's especially annoying for me as I teach drawing classes five times a week. Obviously, it's kinda difficult to do that with no paper. Craziness. 

 

Anyway, in spite of everything I just said, Daniel and I have been relatively unaffected by this latest paper crisis. We have a stash of paper at home for these situations, and so we have been able to avoid any major inconvenience. Today, however, I forgot to bring some extra paper to school with  me. This was annoying as I wanted my Grade 2s to draw a river so they could act out a story with some figurines they made yesterday. In a flash of inspiration I decided to get them to use their actual pencils and markers to form the river instead of drawing it. It worked really well. The kids loved the idea and got really creative in making additional props for the story from stuff in their pencil cases. It was also a great reminder to me of the importance of thinking outside the box, and how adversity can lead to enlightenment (okay, that's probably a bit dramatic, but the basic gist is the same).

On an entirely unrelated note, here is a picture I took of Iago cuddling up to Daniel on the couch over the weekend. 

- Amanda

Ceramic class

Back in February, we posted about our visit to the workshop of a ceramic artist in the nearby town of Nyírbátor. I really loved the unique method involved in creating the ceramic artwork and I decided to take some lessons to learn the process myself. This morning I attended my third lesson so I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of my work-in-progress.

Basically, my first artwork using the ceramic technique is a name sign for the kennel of my sister's new puppy, Jasmine. I thought this would be a relatively simple project to begin with, but it's turned out to be more difficult than I imagined.

Anyway, the first part of the project was easy. Basically I just had to come up with a design, trace it on to some paper and Zsuzsa (the teacher) cut out a suitable piece of copper.

Next, I had to furiously sand and file the copper piece. I'm not sure exactly why this was necessary. Perhaps copper gets dirty over time and this might cause problems for the ceramic paint? I just don't know. Anyway, after sanding the copper, I also washed and scrubbed it some more in the sink.

Finally my copper was deemed ready to paint. The first layer of ceramic paint was applied to the back side of the copper. Zsuzsa applied big globs of paint onto the surface and I tried to smoothe them out with a pointy needle-like tool. Occasionally I also got to slap the copper against the table to encourage the paint to settle. That was fun.

Once the surface was completely covered with paint, the copper piece was placed onto a heater to dry for a few minutes. When the paint is first applied, it has a wet, glossy appearance, but once it dries, it looks very dull and chalky.

After carefully removing the copper from the heater, I painted the other side in the same way only this time I used a teal colour which would form the background of my artwork. Once both sides had been painted, the copper piece was ready for the kiln. It was placed inside for about five minutes at 800 degrees.

Zsuzsa removed my masterpiece from the oven and let it cool. This is what I saw once it was ready. Ugh, so blotchy and ugly! It seems that my smoothing technique needs A LOT of work! Zsuzsa assured me that it wasn't a problem though as I would be able to add another layer of teal paint later. Awesome, I love that about this process. You can always go back and easily fix mistakes.

Next, I transferred my design onto the copper piece using a felt-tip pen. 

And then it was time to paint again. Hooray! Zsuzsa provides the ceramic paints ready-mixed with water in little jars, but apparently she orders them off the internet in powder form. The paint is quite easy to use but it's important to apply quite a thick layer. I didn't understand this at first, and so while these yellow letters look okay in the photo, they didn't look as good after being through the kiln. After finishing with each colour of paint, the copper piece is returned to the heater so the paint can dry. Once the paint is dry, it's possible to scratch away at it with the needle tool so any painting mistakes can be corrected.

This next photo shows how my artwork was looking earlier today. I wasn't very happy with it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I disliked the cracks in the red paint (a result of putting the piece into the kiln before the temperature reached 800 degrees) and secondly, I thought that the yellow and orange colours were too similar (even though they looked really different on the sample I was shown!). 

I think I can fix the cracks by applying another layer of red paint, but the only way to fix the second problem was to go over the yellow paint with a different colour. I chose a very light mint green. It looked awesome when I was painting it and after it had dried, but unfortunately once it came out of the kiln the green colour was completely different to this photo. In fact, the green colour is actually now very similar to the teal background so it looks like I will have to change it again. This is turning into a very time-consuming and frustrating endeavour!

Anyway, that's where things are at now. I hope to post some more pictures once the project is finally finished.

- Amanda

Interesting Hungarian word #7 = Cserebogár

So today I learnt what a cockchafer is. The kids showed me. In fact, they asked me to help them find more. It was fun.

Okay, I'll explain. A cockchafer is a type of large beetle that is found in Europe. The Hungarian word for them is cserebogár, and they are more commonly known in English as May bugs. From what I understand, they start off as little eggs which are laid around June/July, then they hatch into grubs which live underground for up to five years before pupating and finally emerging as adult beetles in Spring. 

At the moment, there are cockchafers everywhere, and the kids are really enjoying finding them and adopting them as pets during their outside breaks. All good. The kids have fun and the bugs get some respite from all the attention when the kids go inside. Today, however, the Grade 2s took things to the next level and started bringing their little friends inside the classroom. I was okay with this so long as the kids weren't playing with them during their lessons, but Ili wasn't such a fan and so the cockchafers had to go. After school today I brought lots of plastic bottles filled with the kids' cockchafers home and Daniel helped me release them into our garden. Hopefully they have enough sense not to make their way back to the schoolyard again.

The emergence of the cockchafers over the last few days has coincided nicely with my decision to teach the Grade 1s the names of lots of insects. Unfortunately, now they're obsessed with collecting various spiders and ants and bugs and bringing them up to me. I'm not exactly the best with creepy crawlies so this has really been testing my nerves!

 

Anyway, here are some of the awesome insect-themed art projects that the kids have completed recently.

 - Amanda

Easter Poetry

Today we had a relaxing day at home.  I was working on my assignment and Amanda was web junking and playing computer games. It's been a good, relaxing day.  Which is why it will be more upsetting when I have to yell at the Grade 3s at school tomorrow.  They don't know what's coming to them.

It is a tradition in Hungary for the boys to go around the town and visit all the girls.  They go from house to house and sprinkle the girls with perfume and then say a short poem.  The boys are then fed cakes and small treats.

Knowing that we were going to Ili's house today, I asked the Grade 3s the teach me a rhyme.  After some discussion and laughter they taught me the following:

Zöld a moha

Zöld a páfrány

Meglocsollak

Házisárkány

It's simple, relatively easy to say and and pretty short.  It was so good that I got them to write it down for me. Unfortunately, when I said it to Ili today, her family burst out laughing.  Apparently it translates as:

Green moss

Green fern

I will sprinkle the

House Dragon

Which basically means that I'm calling Ili a stubborn old dragon.  Her husband agreed with a big smile and a laugh.

Ili might be displaying her dragon-like qualities to the Grade 3s tomorrow, methinks.

- Daniel.

Two Castles and a Festival

We woke up early today with a view to return to the castle Visegrád which had escaped us so effectively yesterday. We were a little scared as we didn't know if our car would survive being pushed into another vertical climb until smoke poured out of the engine. Yeah, we really didn't want to do that twice in two days.  Our mechanic tells us that it's not good when we do that.

We thought it'd be worth trying again, however, as the owner of the hotel in which we were staying in Szentendre assured us that we had been on the wrong road yesterday and the correct road was actually a two-way paved road and was quite safe. Anyway, after breakfast and getting lost only one more time we found ourselves at Visegrádi vár, the castle of Visegrád.

 

The castle in Visegrád was first constructed at the behest of King Béla IV in the 1240s after a particularly brutal invasion at the hands of the mongols. It has been lived in and upgraded by a number of Hungarian kings over the centuries and as such it has a great importance to the Hungarian people.

Anyway, we got to the castle really early as we wanted plenty of time to explore. The castle was a lot of fun, and it had plenty of equipment and ruinous battlements for Amanda,  Iago and I to play on. We've really come to enjoy playing in castles, so much in fact that sometimes we forget that there are things with which we might not be allowed to play. When we first saw the catapults, the throne and the medieval torture cage, we just had to climb all over them. It wasn't until later, when the rest of the tourists arrived, that we saw that a rope had been erected in front of those exhibits. Woops. :)

Anyway, we made a quick exit from the castle and began our journey to the Hollókő Húsvéti Fesztivál, the Easter Festival in Hollókő. Hollókő is a small town about an hour and a half from Visegrád, it has an old village at the bottom of a hill where the festival is held and a castle at the top. Surrounding the old town are farms and the more modern town, but overall it only has a population of about 400. The town has an interesting history with a really cool story. The name Hollókő is a conjunction between the words Holló, meaning Raven, and kő, meaning stone, so the the castle is literally named Castle Ravenstone. How cool is that?

The legend goes that a rich landowner kidnapped the beautiful wife of one his neighbours. Unfortunately for the landowner, the wife's handmaiden was a witch who had an alliance with the devil.  At the witch's request, the devil transformed himself into a thousand ravens who tore the landowner's castle into ruins stone by stone and allowed the wife to escape.  The ravens then rebuilt the current castle on top of the hill. This is apparently a pseudo-etymology as the name likely has more to do with an ancient poet who wrote about ravens who hunted down on the rocks at the bottom of the hill. Whatever, I like the witch story.

The festival was already in full swing by the time we got there at half past twelve. The folk music was playing at the entrance but we were welcome to wander the old town and see what the residents had to offer. The first place that we stopped at was a traditional weaving craft exhibit where Amanda and I made rabbit dolls out of dried corn leaves, cotton wool and some strange palm tree grass. It was awesome fun although by the end we did feel like the kids that were hovering nearby also wanted a go. Oh well, they could wait.

After that, we continued down the street and pushed some more kids out of the way to have a go at decorating some Easter eggs. The technique involved applying beeswax in a particular pattern and then soaking the egg in food dye. Once the dye is dry you warm up the egg and rub off the wax to reveal your pattern. This was also quite a lot of fun, although I must admit that Amanda made a much better egg pattern than I did.

After we finished our eggs, we had some lunch and then made our way up the mountain on a small electric-powered train. I think the train was designed for kids but as the kids were still lining up to do the eggs and rabbit dolls we had it to ourselves. Even Iago enjoyed the train ride, methinks.

Castle Ravenstone was awesome fun as everyone was out in full regalia for the tourists who had come for the festival. There were ponies and horses and carts out the front of the castle and inside there was a guy who was giving axe throwing and archery lessons. Now I've wanted to fire a bow since I once squandered my chance at a Life Be In It camp back when I was a teenager so I jumped at the chance. My axe throwing skills were  fairly mediocre, but I slowly got the hang of it. The archery, however, was awesome fun. I'm so happy that I did it, and if you have a look at the video you'll see how pleased I was to give it a try. Awesome stuff.

The rest of Castle Ravenstone, I love that name, was just as good as the castle in Visegrád, so it was just an awesome afternoon. Iago really enjoyed climbing all the stairs and checking out all the nooks and dark corners. He's become quite the castle explorer!

- Daniel.

Szentendre and Esztergom

Seeing as we scored a 5-day long weekend, we thought we’d make the most of it by going on a bit of a road trip. The main plan is to venture to the Hungarian town of Hollókő tomorrow to check out its famous Easter festival, but we thought we’d get things rolling today by visiting some nearbyish towns. I say nearbyish because the closest accommodation we could find to Hollókő was in the town of Szentendre, approximately 1.5 hours drive from Hollókő and only 20km outside Budapest. 

 

Because Szentendre is so close to Budapest, it’s a popular daytrip destination for tourists and when we arrived this afternoon, we found the town full of people. Daniel, Iago and I checked into our awesome hotel right across the road from the Danube river, then enjoyed a lazy couple of hours strolling Szentendre’s gorgeous cobbled streets and riverside paths. We also visited a marzipan museum featuring large edible versions of icons such as Michael Jackson, Mickey Mouse and the Hungarian Parliament. 

 

After taking a break to allow Iago to swim in the river, we set off for our next destination - another Hungarian town called Esztergom. I must admit that I hadn’t heard of Esztergom until recently when of one Daniel’s Grade 4 students did a project on it, but it turns out that Esztergom is actually one of Hungary’s oldest cities and its history is closely intertwined with that of the Magyar people. Hungary’s first kings lived in Esztergom and it served as the capital of Hungary from the 10th to the mid-13th century. 

Today we visited Esztergom’s most significant building, Esztergom Basilica, an enormous cathedral dedicated to St. Adalbert which looms large over the city. It is apparently the biggest church in Hungary, the 18th largest church in the world, and also the highest building in Hungary. In spite of this, on approach I was a little disappointed by its size. I mean, sure, it was big, but it wasn’t THAT big. Then Daniel did a little demo for me by standing next to one of the entrance columns. As you can see from the photo, he looks pretty darn tiny in comparison.

While Iago waited not-so-patiently outside, Daniel and I took a look around the Basilica, including climbing many, many, many, many stairs to get to the cupola (dome) viewing platform. The views over the city of Esztergom were very impressive. Daniel also climbed the bell tower, then we explored the crypts under the building. 

Finally, we finished our visit to the church by walking through the Dark Gate, a large tunnel which runs through the 90m hill on which the Basilica stands. Since the name Dark Gate sounds very ominous and mysterious, I was hoping for a cool story which would explain the origins of the name. Perhaps something involving a portal to Hell or even some unexplained howling sounds. But no. Apparently the Dark Gate got its name because when it first opened there was inadequate lighting installed. Ugh, so boring!

On the way home from Esztergom, Daniel and I attempted to visit an awesome-looking hilltop castle in the nearby city of Visegrád. Unfortunately, while our car put up with near vertical roads for awhile, it eventually ran out of enthusiasm and we had to make a harrowing backward slide down the mountain. We’re going to try again tomorrow though....as we’ve since learned about a much more appropriate route. Oh, the joys of GPS-directed driving!

- Amanda