Cottoning on

Tuesday was Amanda and my second wedding anniversary. It was actually a bit of a ratty day because I had quite a bad chesty cough which was playing havoc with my asthma so Amanda was taking all of my classes. This meant that she had to take the Grade 2s out to PE. I must admit that I was a little worried about it as they can be very crazy once they get into the gym but it seemed that Amanda had more than enough control over them. I shouldn't have worried as she does have them for English, but PE can be more insane than English at times. Anyway, it all worked out well and Amanda actually had a good day of teaching while I was a home coughing rainbows. Fun.

We weren't going to let a bit of bad health get in the way of our celebration however so we jumped into our car and headed off for our favorite restaurant in Nyiregyhaza. It was a nice evening. I got Amanda a massage voucher that she can use once she gets back to Melbourne, and she got me a whip that I can use anytime. We actually tried to use it when we got back home, but either we were out of practice from when we were learning to use Will's whip, or possibly this whip is harder to crack. Unfortunately, Amanda got the sales lady to try it out before she bought it so we have no excuse.

On Wednesday we headed into Budapest. The school has organised for the kids to go to on trips over the next week. The older kids went with us to Budapest and the younger kids, Grade One and Two, will go to Nyiregyhaza and Grade Three and Four will go to Eger. Anyway, as the older kids were going anyway, so we thought we would tag along and get a free trip to Budapest!

Once we arrived in Budapest, we quickly dumped the kids with their form teachers and struck out on our own. We had a mission. Last year, we attached a lock of love to a rail in Miskolc for our anniversary, and we wanted to continue this tradition by attaching one in  Budapest. We already had the lock, all that we needed to do was find someone to engrave it and make our way to the lock of love fence and then throw the key into the Danube. It was 10am by the time we arrived and we had to meet up with the others by 1pm so we had plenty of time.

Or... not so much. It is shocking how difficult it was to find a locksmith/keycutter in Pest. We eventually went to a tourism info center and they told us about one hidden under the stairwell of a local apartment building. We spent around half an hour finding it, only to be told by the man that he didn't engrave. The only place was across town. So we jumped on the underground Metro, coasted across town, got lost a bit, eventually found it... only to be told that he couldn't engrave, but he could fax the request to his colleague and then if we waited an hour we could pick it up from another nearby location. By this stage it was almost a quarter past twelve and we knew that we'd run out of time so we had to scurry back to meet up with the others. Some adventures aren't rewarded, I suppose.

Anyway, we were happy that rushed to get back to the others because they were just about to embark on a boat ride on the Danube. It was a big ferry type vessel that was more than able to accommodate the sixty or so children that we'd brought with us. We were also very happy because we weren't the last to arrive. Laima had also gotten lost and basically arrived about the same time we did. It's okay being late when you have company.

The boat ride was really relaxing and fun after the stress of scouring the streets of Pest. It was a nice slow enjoyable ride up and down the river. Amanda and I had not been on a boat on the Danube so it was new and exciting. We got to see the city from a new angle and look at many of the beautiful buildings. It was awesome.

The slow part of the boat ride did cause an issue however as Pisti (Science teacher), Laima, Amanda and I had a tour of Budapest Parliament to get to. We were really looking forward to it, but by the time we got off the boat we were already late. So we raced off down backstreets to get to there as quickly as possible. Aaand we missed it by maybe 5 minutes. Sucks. As much as Pisti attempted to coax the scary looking security people to let us in, we were not budging. In fact, all tours had closed for the day and no one else was allowed to come in. It was only 2pm. Crazy.

Anyway, in the absence of our Parliament, we all jumped back on the Metro and joined up with the kids at the House of Terror. This place is called so without exaggeration as it contains exhibits relating to the fascist Hungarian Arrow Cross party that led the Hungarian government from 15 October 1944 to 28 March 1945. Although the party was not in power for very long, their legacy includes over ten thousand racially motivated executions and over 80,000 Jews and Gypsies sent to German concentration camps. The leaders of this party were themselves tried and executed by the Soviet occupiers of Hungary after the war. The House of Terror details not only the actions of the Arrow Cross, but also of the horrific forty years that followed under soviet rule.

It is a sad place, but I think it affected the adults more than the children who were more than happy to leave and go to a nearby park to wait for the bus. Overall, despite not getting everything completed, it was a good trip.

- Daniel.

Teacher's Day

Last Friday the kids at school were supposed to have a learning-free day in celebration of Gyereknap (Children's Day). Like last year, we were all going to trundle off to Pope Square, play some games and let things get a little crazy. But unfortunately, it wasn't to be. The weather forecast signalled rain and so the festivities were postponed :(

Naturally, Daniel and I were a little miffed by this turn of events. Suddenly we had a bunch of emergency lessons to plan, as well as dozens of disappointed kids to contend with. Fun, fun!! 

Anyway, all of this is backstory to explain why I was not particularly surprised when the kids started giving all the teachers flowers on Friday morning. I just kind of assumed that our students were somehow attuned to the tough day we teachers were about to have and wanted to let us know they cared (wow, that seems even dumber now that I've typed it out than it did in my head!!)

Obviously, there was a more sensible explanation for the flowers. It turns out that the first Sunday in June is always Teacher's Day in Hungary. So the kids gave us a whole bunch of little presents - mostly flowers and chocolates - on Friday in recognition of our stellar teaching efforts, and then we got even more loot when we turned up to work today. The parents of the kids in 1B even prepared a special ceremony which involved the kids reading a poem aloud and then very formally presenting us with our gifts. As you can see from the photo of Daniel and I with the rest of the 1B teachers, I got a little bit teary during the ceremony. I can only imagine how much crying I'm going to do in two weeks' time when we say our final goodbyes. It makes me sad just thinking about it.

In happier news, today was also special because next year's Grade 1s came to visit the school and get acquainted with their teachers. I remembered some of the kids from when I taught in the nursery last year and it was great to see that they all seemed confident and excited about learning English. This afternoon, Ili and I gave two short English lessons to the new kids - mostly songs and games - and we even roped the principal, Sanyi, into playing as well. Overall, I think the lessons were a big success. I haven't taught much with Ili this year but she just never ceases to amaze me when we do work together and today was no exception. Perhaps I should have bought her some flowers today to show my appreciation, as she has certainly been as much of a teacher to Daniel and I as she has been to the kids.

Oh great, now I'm all teary again!

- Amanda

Big mouths!

Daniel and I both had great days today. Mine started out well with my Grade 1 class in Mátészalka. I only see this class once a week so I usually test out my lesson plans on the kids here in Máriapócs first. Anyway, today I had a flash of inspiration in the middle of my lesson and decided to abandon the script and try out the new game I'd just thought of...and it worked brilliantly! On the down side, I feel like I'm finally becoming comfortable teaching the kids in Mátészalka and now I only have one lesson left with them next week. I can't believe it.

My afternoon classes were also a lot of fun. Usually I'm a frazzled wreck after teaching back-to-back drawing lessons, but today was much more relaxed than usual. I think it was because neither of today's lessons involved any kind of paint or glue. Don't get me wrong, I love doing art with the kids, but things can (and do) tend to get explosively messy at times! Today the 1A kids did a terrific job drawing big mouths and moustaches which they then cut out and held in place in front of their faces with lollypops. It was an overload of adorableness.

As for Daniel, the highlight of his day was going for a walk to Pope Square with Iago and our dogsitter extraordinaire, Panni. Iago was also pleased because he got to swim in the lake, run around off leash and play fetch with a big stick that Panni found for him. He'll be flying back home to Australia in less than two weeks' time so hopefully we can squeeze in at least another couple of walks with Panni before then.

- Amanda

PS. Here are more pics - I thought they were too cute not to share!

 

Strudli Festival

This weekend we have three days off as Monday is... well, we're not sure why we have Monday off but we suspect that it's something to do with religion. Anyway, we get a day off. If I remember correctly, this happened last year. It seems that every couple of weeks there is some event that requires no classes. It will be Children's Day in a week or two, then the kids will go on class trips, and then basically all classes will be over. It's a good thing that Amanda and I have finished all of the set work for each of our classes or we'd be rushing.

Today we went to Vállaj, a town near the border on the way to Romania. One of our students told us that there was a Strudli festival there, so went with our friend and colleague from school, Laima. We weren't too sure what a Strudli was, but we were damn sure that we were going to find out. When we got there, we had a look at the timetable and found out that we were an hour or two late for a dog show, but we were only an hour or two early for the horse and cart races. It was either very poorly, or very perfectly, timed. Either way, we had enough time to check out the Strudli.

The Strudli, we soon learned, is a type of pastry cooked with either potato or jam inside. That pastry can either be fried or baked, and is best served hot. There was a huge tent full of matronly women in traditional dresses preparing the Strudli, so of course we had to have some (strudli that is, not matronly women). After purchasing some tickets and collecting our different Strudli, we sat down to enjoy. They were nice!

 

It wasn't too long before the horses came out and started to race around the track. It was a time-trial type race where the horses had to pull their carts as quickly as possible through various gates marked out by witches hats. We didn't exactly know the rules, but it seemed that if they knocked one or more of the hats then there was a time penalty imposed. The first team to race around the circuit was a team of two ponies. Although they were smaller and less able to pull their cart to full speed, the ponies definitely seemed more agile with the sharp turns.

It was a good day.

- Daniel.

Hungarian Honey Biscuits

Today Ili arranged for Daniel and I to swap classes so I could help the Grade 3 and 4 girls to bake biscuits in the school canteen. While I thought this was a little sexist, I was too excited by the idea of cooking and eating biscuits to protest much. 

Ili had worded the kids up on the recipe in advance, as well as coached them on a few descriptive sentences to describe various parts of the cooking process, so all I really had to do was stand next to the girls while they cooked and make observational remarks in English every now and again. The whole thing was filmed by one of our colleagues and will eventually be sent to France and Finland as part of the ongoing e-Twinning language exchange program.

The biscuits were quite yummy, so for anyone who's interested, here is the recipe.

Ingredients

1kg plain flour

300g butter

200g sugar

300g honey

2 eggs

2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

50g cocoa powder

2 tablespoons of water

2 teaspoons honey spicemixture

Method

Heat the butter, honey and sugar together. Let the mixture cool.

Put the flour in a large bowl and add the rest of the ingredients slowly (including the cooled mixture).

Combine well and leave to rest for several hours.

Roll out the dough to approximately 1cm thickness. Cut out bicuit shapes and place them on a greased tray.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes at medium temperature until the biscuits are light brown.

Okay, this photo doesn't have anything to do with cooking, but I thought it was too cute not to share. During the week Iago napped with Daniel and I on our bed, and when we got up he pretty much refused to follow us. Not even covering him with the doona would budge him - he just wriggled his head out and then went back to sleep. This kind of lazy behaviour makes me feel a little better about sending him back to Australia in three weeks' time via an epic 40-hour journey. I'm hoping that he'll sleep through most of it and emerge at the other end without being traumatised.

- Amanda

Mariazell to Máriapócs

On Saturday morning we continued our pilgrimage, leaving gorgeous Pannonhalma behind and setting off for the Austrian alps. After a night of heavy drinking, the bus was pretty quiet and no one was paying much attention to where we were going...including the bus driver who was blindly following the GPS. Unfortunately, about two hours into the journey the bus came to a sudden halt as the road before us tapered off into a dirt path leading straight into a dense forest. There was nothing to do but turn around and head back the other way. Needless to say, it took a very, very long time to reach our next destination.
 

Finally, in the late afternoon, we arrived in the city of Mariazell, Austria's most important pilgrimage site. The city's main building is a large church which was erected in 1644, but the real reason why Mariazell is so special is because the church houses a small, miracle-working image of the virgin Mary carved in lime-tree wood. According to Wiki, the image was brought to Mariazell in 1157 and it now resides in a lavish chapel inside the church. Unfortunately, as there was a service in progress when we arrived, I couldn't take any photos of the icon but I did manage to take some other pictures of the church's interior. It was very impressive and definitely one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen anywhere.

After checking out the church, we wandered around the main square for a bit and after finding ourselves confused by a very cryptic sign on the footpath, decided to wash away our troubles with a few glasses of nice, cold Austrian beer. Then it was off to dinner at a nearby restaurant where we were presented with the most enormous meat platter I've ever seen. Even our table of five famished travellers couldn't manage to finish everything on the plate.

On Sunday morning, while the other pilgrims attended a mass in the church, Daniel, Laima and I ventured out on our own and took an awesome gondola ride up to the top of the nearby Bürger Alps. While the gondola service now uses an overhead cable system, it was originally a funicular, and the first of its kind in Austria when it was built in 1928. Travelling up the mountain in the gondola allowed us to take in some lovely views of Mariazell and the surrounding area, and we enjoyed a quick look around the summit before rushing back down to meet up with the rest of our group and the bus. Of course, we needn't have rushed as we were amongst the first to arrive even though we were 25 minutes late. Hungarian timekeeping (or lack of) drives me crazy at times!

From Mariazell, we headed straight for Vienna and one of its most famous attractions, Schönbrunn Palace. Since Daniel and I had been there before and were pretty unimpressed by it, we both groaned a little when we discovered we had 45 minutes to kill there. As it turned out, however, 45 minutes wasn't even close to long enough! Last time we visited the Palace, we took an audio tour inside, but this time we roamed around the forecourt for a bit before discovering that it was possible to go around the building too. And so now we know that Schönbrunn Palace also has some amazing gardens, full of cool sculptures and impressive fountains.

Back on the bus again, and this time we were deposited close to the city centre so we could all walk to Stephansdom. I felt like a real pilgrim as our group charged through Vienna's streets, following behind a priest holding aloft a big wooden cross. Anyway, we eventually made it to Stephansdom and our fellow pilgrims gathered together to pay their respects to another religious icon (this time, an original painting of Mary and Jesus, the copy of which is currently in the church here in Máriapócs). While they prayed, Daniel, Laima and I admired the rest of Stephansdom. Again, we'd been there before, but it looked absolutely amazing this time around as the entire interior was bathed in bright colours by the stained glass windows.

After a quick trip back to the bus, we set off for the Hungarian town of Győr, enjoyed a traditional gulyás for dinner, and then arrived home at about 1am yesterday morning. Iago was very pleased to see us and even deigned to vacate his freshly-dug sleeping hole to welcome us home. 

- Amanda

Pilgrimage to Pannonhalma

This weekend we went on a bus trip with some of the other teachers from school. Actually, it seemed to be an event that was sponsored by either the Máriapócs town council or the local church, we weren't too sure. In any case, we did know that there would be a lot of Máriapócsans coming on the trip and we would be visiting a number of churches on our journey. We were a bit wary about this plan as we've seen quite a number of churches in our time here in Hungary and to our eyes they all look much the same as one another. But still, it would be fun to travel with our friend and colleagues so we agreed to be pilgrims for the weekend.

One important factor that we had to take into account before we left was that we couldn't take Iago on the trip with us, so we had to find someone who would be willing to feed him while we were away. Luckily, one of our students in Grade 3 was more than happy to come around and feed and walk our poor lonely dog. Actually, I think she was so excited to do it that Iago might have been all walked out by the time we got home late Sunday night.

We all piled onto the bus at 5am on Friday morning. There were many familiar faces including Sanyi, Zoli, and Laima. We were all pretty tired from waking up early but pretty upbeat about going on an exciting journey! The drive to Budapest was fairly painless, I caught up on some reading, and chatted to Amanda and Laima. Once we got to Budapest, we had our first stop of the day at Heroes Square. We've been to Heroes Square a few times in the past, but it's always very impressive. We wandered around, listened to some interesting history and took our photos with the statues.

The highlight of the day was Pannonhalma. This town has been the site of a Benedictine abbey for over a thousand years, with the first Christian king of Hungary endorsing the site himself. There were records of the site also being used as a holy place in Roman times so its seemed certainly worth seeing. We were staying in what seemed to be accommodation for pilgrims, so although it had a very prison-like entrance way it was actually quite comfortable.
 
We arrived at the accommodation early in the afternoon so we had time to head over to the abbey. Once we got there, we assembled for a short introductory video then went on a guided tour. The abbey grounds were simply beautiful. It was all very well tended and yet with a sense of unrestrained growth that gave them a clean, green and peaceful feeling. The abbey itself was also really impressive with plenty of interesting history. The main tower was really quite stunning, and had an interesting challenge in its crypt. According to our guide, the crypt was home to a special alcove that supposedly once held St Stephan's throne. The guide told us that anyone who could sit in this alcove with their feet touching the floor would be the next king of Hungary. Now,  Amanda may or may not have been sitting very firmly on the alcove, but there is now a real chance that Hungary may be having a royal coronation some time soon.

The other area that was quite neat was the library. The abbey is home to many students who are taught by the monks. The attached school is considered to be one of the best high schools in Hungary and the library certainly holds up to this standard with many impressive works and features. One of the more impressive sights was a copy of the first ever official Hungarian-language document. It didn't live up to the standard of the more modern beaurocratic documents that we've seen however, as it only required on signature (albeit King Stephan's) and was only two pages long.

We ended our first night away with a meal at a local restaurant and then went back to the pilgrim accomodation for beer, palinka and whiskey. Good times.

- Daniel.