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.