Pictures from graduation Saturday:


The ceremony was in the courtyard of the school, like every year. It started half an hour late, and it was ridiculously boring, mostly because the sound system wasn't working and no one could hear anything.


So instead of listening to the ceremony, everyone just talked with their neighbors. Here's Petra and Chad chatting it up.


When the boring, who-knows-what's-happening-now courtyard ceremony was finally over, the students all walked out with their classes. These are pictures of my favorite class, the 13.A.


Carrying their flowers and graduation bags, they left the school behind to start their walk through the city. Varga and the other 4 high schools in Szolnok (I mean the "secondary grammar schools" high schools, not the "technical schools" high schools) somehow concocted the idea that the 5 of them together should parade through the streets and all meet up at a center point.


Meanwhile, all the students from the lower grades, and all the teachers, hold hands and form a cordon to keep back parents and well-wishers, and allow the school-leavers to march down the streets unmolested. Holding hands in a chain while walking isn't as simple a job as you might think; look at that above picture, how the girls are being pulled along, and you'll understand why my hands and arms hurt for a couple days afterward.


Finally we reached the end of the line, and all the school-leavers stood together in a circle, counted down from ten... (environmentalists, turn away now...)


... and released their balloons to float away on the breeze. It was lovely, as always. But when it was finished, I still had to walk halfway across town in my heels and dress to another high school, to congratulate my little someday-brother-in-law Gabi, who was also graduating. Here's a very cranky picture of him and girlfriend:

With Szolnok's spectacular "water tower" in the background.

So that's it. The weird thing in Hungary is, they've graduated but they haven't left the school yet; in fact their major final exam (the "érettségi") has it's written part this week, and the oral exams are going on almost til the end of June. More on that later...