Waiting for the train

Last weekend Daniel and I were stopped at a train crossing and I decided to take a quick video of one of the local trains as it passed by. We both think that these little red trains are super cute and we always get a kick out of seeing them as they rumble along. Yeah....village life is such fun!

- Amanda

Meanwhile, in Chile...

I know that this isn't what this blog is about, but I just wanted to take a sec to point towards the first of the Chilean miners that have been freed after two months underground.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/world/americas/14chile.html

Just to give you an idea of how much of a feat this was, the depth of the rescue tunnel was almost 600 metres, which if you dug the tunnel out wide enough, you could drop two Eureka Towers into and still have enough room to fit an average two-storey house.

- Daniel.

Our first Hungarian lesson - oh boy!

This afternoon our colleague Orsi gave Daniel and I our first Hungarian language lesson. We started with some basic stuff.

szia = hello to one person

sziasztok = hello to two or more people

Then we learnt greetings for various times of the day.

jó reggelt = good morning

jó napot = good afternoon

jó estét = good evening

jó éjszakát = good night

And then we attempted to learn the Hungarian alphabet. It's now four and a half hours later and my head is still spinning!

To get an idea of what we're up against, check out this quick video that I found online.

Citera

On Friday, I had my first lesson on the citera which is basically the Hungarian word for a zither.

Here's the song I've been practicing all weekend. I think it has something to do with trying to swat a mosquito the size of a horse. I don't think it's supposed to be as depressing as it sounds when I play it.

And here is Amanda just jam'n after zero lessons. She's like a genius.

- Daniel

Oh cruel fate, why do you mock me?

Yesterday Daniel and I received a package from my dad containing all our mail that he has kindly been collecting for us since we left Australia. While most of it was fairly mundane stuff, there was one letter that was a bit special. In fact, it was such a special letter that I had been eagerly awaiting its arrival for the last 12 years! And possibly even longer.

Yes, as you may have guessed (or maybe not), it was a letter from the Juries Commissioner's Office advising me that I had been selected for jury service.

I have wanted to be on a jury for as long as I can remember. I know that lots of people think it's a pain and try to get out of it, but I have been willing them to pick me for jury duty ever since I first enrolled to vote in 1998. But now that the good people at the JCO have finally decided to pluck my name off the electoral role, I can't do it because I am not even in the country anymore. SO ANNOYING!!!

Anyway, after sobbing myself to sleep last night, I have decided to contact the JCO tomorrow morning to find out if there is any way that I can defer my jury service until I return to Australia. Hopefully they will say yes and my dream will remain intact.

Until then, I must distract myself by taking even more photos of Iago. Here is one I took today of him curled up in his armchair.

It's starting to get pretty cold over here - I suspect that we will need to start using the heating at home soon. I'm actually a bit scared to do so because I'm worried that I might somehow blow the place up. After all, we seem to have slightly dodgy wiring and there are about 12 heating units scattered about the place. Not exactly a good combination!

Thankfully the school is going to send someone over to help us with the heaters when we are ready - which means that I won't be the person standing closest to the explosion when things go bad. Yay!!

- Amanda

The train to Kecskemét

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This weekend we headed off with our friend Christie to a party organised by a number of other teachers within the CETP Hungarian English program of which we are a part. The party was located in Kecskemét which is around 3 hours from Nyiregyhaza by train or around 2 and a half hours by car. We chose to take the train so we could drink. It's always nice to be able to have a beer or two (or perhaps a shot or two of Palinka) without worrying about the upcoming drive home.

Of course, we did end up having to drive from Nyiregyhaza back to Mariapocs after the party, but we figured that after 3 hours on the return trip we had cleared enough alcohol from the blood to risk the quick flight back through the deserted country roads. Before anyone gives us crap about this, we were well and truly clear by the time we got back (well, Amanda was - that Palinka really goes to my head), besides the Mariapocs train terminates in the middle what is basically a field around an hours walk from our house, and it then bubbles along at 20km/h turning a 20-30 minute drive into a two and a half hour train trip (including walk-time). So anyway, we decided to drive at least that far.

Once we got on the train at Nyiregyhaza is was really cool. It was our first time on an intercity train in Hungary, and we were happy to see that it was all cabins like something out of a Harry Potter movie. Christie flexed her Hungarian skills and quickly chatted to the locals in our cabin. Amanda and I in our less social mien pulled out our books and read for the duration.

We arrived a little later than we expected (around 4pm) then had to leave a little earlier than expected due to the train timetable (around 6:40) but overall it was definitely worthwhile. The trainride was quite fun, and catching up with the other teachers was good. Both Amanda and I are in agreeance that we should host such a party ourselves in the not too distant future.

- Daniel.

Guess who?

Here are some pics taken in the classroom last week of Daniel playing a homemade version of "Guess Who?" with some of the kids. The class seemed to really enjoy the activity and some of the kids even wanted to make extra copies of the gameboard so they could play at home with their siblings.