Tuesday Trifecta

In the spirit of good weather, classes being canceled, and being talked into happy hour between classes (my arm was twisted), I give you three completely unrelated tidbits:

1) False Friends...

...(also called false cognates) are a topic close to my heart - I once forged an entire thesis’s worth of research about false friends in German and English. If you don’t want to click the link, the short explanation is that false friends are two words in two languages which look or sound the same, but have different meanings. Like, how ‘kuki’ does not mean ‘cookie.’

Today I discovered that the Hungarian word ‘harmonika’ means... what do you think? It means ‘accordion.’ Of course it does!

2) Kind Colleagues

Typical situation at my school: I go to teach a class, and only one girl is there. I know that I should just send her home, but trying to be professional (and save myself from a scolding later), I look for one of the other English teachers to confirm it. They’ve all gone home.

After I stood in the teacher’s room for a while, clutching my books and looking forlorn, one of the older teacher/administrator/secretary ladies took pity and tried to help me. It was interesting, because our only common language is German, despite the fact that we both speak German at about a 4th-grade level.

Not only did she give me official permission to go home, as I was leaving, she explained to me that on Thursday there’ll be a fire drill. This is the type of thing that people (ahem, contact teacher) never tell me... and which inevitable leads to me looking incompetent. So I really appreciated her making the effort.

3) and Ten Little Geniuses

Today I had a realization about my 6b class. Not only can they put sentences together (the 6a can’t even do ‘There is...’ ‘There are...’ yet), but for some reason these ten kids have near-perfect accents. Really, it’s amazing; they’re better than any other class, any other grade - better than some of the English teachers. I have no idea how this came about. But I plan on studying the phenomenon further.

And having a class I look forward to always makes the week better.

Weekend Debris

My flat looks like a tornado hit it. My body feels the same. The living room is covered with blankets, clothes, dishes, food, misplaced furniture, CDs, papers, ATC-making supplies and ephemera. Do I have a floor? My kitchen is filled with food, but all of it half-eaten and/or been sitting out overnight (or longer). The dirty dishes make such a pile that it escapes the sink. There’s bags of trash behind the door. The only cold drink in my fridge is an overlooked half-can of beer. I feel like I just ran a marathon (which is some sort of twisted karmic irony, considering I spent the majority of the weekend in bed). I’m dirty, I’m bruised, my hair looks like straw, my skin is blotchy, my throat is swollen, and I’m so tired I can barely stay upright.

It was a good weekend.

Great Minds ...

Or maybe it would be better to forgo the claim to greatness and say, Like minds think greatly. Here’s what happened: imagine me sitting in my flat, yesterday afternoon, pondering what I was going to do with myself on a lonely Friday night. I figured everyone already had plans, but on whim I sent off an email to John and Donna asking if they wanted to come to Szolnok for dinner.

Five minutes later John smsed me, “Dinner?” and we made plans from there. We ended up, them plus me plus Larry (the new teacher in Varga), in some trendy-ish place by the creepy communist ‘water tower’ (if you’ve been to Szolnok you know what I mean). All around, a fun evening. After much squabbling, they finally let me pay them back for their hospitality last weekend.

But here’s the catch - it wasn’t until John and Donna got back home later that evening that they even got my email. Like I said, great minds.

Freedom's Fury

The only people who read my blog are those who already have some sort of vested interest in Hungary. So no doubt y’all are up on the latest Hungarian political scandal, and there’s no need for me to recount here how beloved Prime Minister Feri G was caught on tape talking about how his government has absolutely nothing for the past four years, unless you count the difficult job of lying to the public ‘morning, noon, and night.’ Oooh, savory.

And you’ve probably already heard about the riots and protests which resulted Monday night in Budapest, when several thousand right-wingers converged on Parliament, and proceeded to harass police, flip and burn cars, and take over and loot the MTV building before finally being ‘subdued’ by the police (read: they ran out of booze and matches, got tired, and went home). On the plus side, they did desecrate that hideous Soviet statue on Szabadság tér... so there’s some good in everything.

And I’m sure you’ve already heard about the newest movie commemorating the 1956 revolution: Freedom’s Fury, A szabadság vihara. It’s the story behind the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games’ ‘Blood in the Water’ water polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union.

So I guess I can’t tell you anything new. Except to say that last night, as I was sitting in the cinema watching Freedom’s Fury, protesters were gathering on Szolnok’s main square. As we left, the street was being blocked off and the mist in the air made it look smokey. We sat some blocks away at an outdoor cafe and had a long conversation about politics in our loud English-speaking voices. It was surreal. Unique, and just a little unsettling.

Self-Description

This week, I should do a lesson about adjectives. Specifically, adjectives to describe people. How many ways can one person be described? Well, let’s see - recently, I’ve been called all of the following:
kimért
ügyes
aranyos
discredited
heartless
crazy
kurva
ribanc
naïve
But my favorite description came from John, who said I was like a “soft-spoken sponge.” Meaning, I look sweet and innocent... until I soak up all your beer.

Excuses, excuses

So I do have a couple excuses why I haven’t been posting lately. Please choose from the following list the ones you would like to believe:

- I got busy spending my days planning out every single lesson for the remainder of the school year. Complete with charts and worksheets, and everything together neatly in a binder arranged by month and grade level.
- Having never properly registered with the police, I was technically an illegal worker. Therefore, I was trying to lay low and not call attention to myself.
- I became drunken with such frequency that even ‘sober’ moments were still hazy. No drunken blogging allowed.
- I was on vacation somewhere sunny and warm.
- After a very minor ‘incident’ with a student, I was forced into the Hungarian version of community service.
- I got really sick, to the point where I couldn’t eat for days, which of course led to further sickness and weakness and other unwellness.
- I got really lazy.
- The pipes in my wall finally exploded, and I got to spend the week in a hotel while they fixed it. Nice, but unfortunately a hotel without internet.

So which are true? Let’s just say, about half.

First Day Teaching

This morning at 7:30, still schedule-less but armed with lesson plans for any eventuality, I reported to school. My schedule (see entry below) was sitting on my desk, and it turned out I had two classes, first and second hours.

With my lesson plans in hand, the classes were relatively successful. There was the usual first-week confusions about who should be in which class, with which teacher, in which classroom. There was the problem of me forgetting to speak Hunglish (“What did you do this summer?... I mean, what you do this summer? You go to Balaton?”).

But overall, a good first day. It’s hard to think of the students as one year older. In my mind, 6.ab still means the class with Hella and Krisztina and all those loud boys, not this new 6.ab with Akos and Virág and the Vikis. It’s funny how the class changed, or didn’t. Today’s 6.ab is exactly the same loud, clever, not-so-bright but well-intentioned group that they were as 5.ab last year. On the other hand, the former 4.a - 26 munchkins running around the classroom, jumping on desks, shouting and playing football - has transformed into a 5.a of diligent, notebook-and-pencil-carrying, attention-paying students. I can’t wait to see how / if the other classes have changed.

Wait, did I just say I’m looking forward to teaching? Wow, maybe I’ve changed too.

My Schedule

I got my teaching schedule today. It’s, um, interesting. They made some changes from last year:


First, I’m not teaching fourth grade (unless they’re going to spring that on me later). I’m a little disappointed, because I was looking forward to a fresh crop of kids, a group I can start from scratch with. But I guess it’s for the best. I did spend all of last year wondering out loud what possible good it was for me to teach 4th grade... who knew someone was listening?

Another change: you can see on the plan red lessons (“compulsory lessons”) and blue lessons (“voluntary lessons”). These voluntary lessons sound like a great idea: kids sign up for an extra hour, and we do something fun (movies, field trips, etc). In reality, I’m afraid they will turn out just like last year: remedial classes for the kids whose parents decided they needed extra English. And this year I have a lot of these lessons.

And the worst change: starting every day at 7:30 and finishing everyday at 2. I don’t care about the times, I understand that life in the real world often includes less-than-perfect work hours. But the gaps in the middle of the day always feel like wasted time.

But because I’m being positive this week, I’ll end with the upsides: First, I don’t have to teach the “voluntary lessons” until next week. And second, most importantly, this won’t be the final schedule. Far from it - last year they made three or four versions. So there’s always room for change.

First Day of School

As it is everywhere in Hungary, September 1st was the beginning of classes at Kassai Úti Általános Iskola (Kassai Street Primary School). You can see this is a short entry; that’s because it was a short day, especially for me: I went to the school. My schedule wasn’t ready. I chatted with the other English teachers. I mentioned that I’m planning on leaving in October. They asked who would replace me, but not why I was leaving, or where I was going, or with who. Hm, priorities.

Then they left to go teach their osztályfõnök classes (the only classes of the day), and I went home.

A Lesson in Conditional

After I wrote this, I hesitated to publish it because it’s so complaining and whiney. But I promise I won’t complain anymore after this... for at least a week or two.

Things I would like to do:

- I would like to spend some time outside. But I’ve been kept in by the nasty, cold, rain-spitting weather. Apparently, autumn has decided to come hatefully early to Szolnok.

- I would like to take a hot bath. But I can’t, because of the viscous orange goo dripping from the ceiling pipes into my tub.

- I would like to watch some TV. Part of my Hungarian-learning plan was to watch an hour a day of Hungarian TV. But I can’t, because the TV has sound but no picture.

- I would like to do laundry. Actually, that’s not true - I’ve gotten so used to the washer being broken, that I’ve accepted the fact that laundry involves either hand-washing in the sink, or a trip to Juli’s flat.

- I would like to know who in Szolnok reads my blog.

- I would like to vacuum up all the spiders in my bathroom. For that matter, I’d like to vacuum the entire flat, it sorely needs it. But I can’t, because the vacuum has no suction.

- Alternatively, I would like to squash-and-flush all the spiders in my bathroom. But I can’t, because my toilet doesn’t flush, at least not without plunging and poking.

- I would like there to not be puddles on my bathroom floor. Unfortunately, they occur every time I use the sink. Which I kind of need.

- I would like to know my class schedule. It’s kind of difficult to spend the weekend planning for classes on Monday, when I have almost no idea what or who I’ll be teaching.

- I would have liked to go to my school’s opening ceremony. But I only learned when it was one hour after it happened. And only then because I had to ask my contact teacher to tell me when it was. Kind of her.

- I would like to leave this cold, dreary city. I would like to finish. I would like to pack my things, orient a new teacher to Szolnok, and then get on a plane. I would like to start anew on a sunny Mediterranean island.

2 Weeks, 200 Words

It’s been two weeks since I posted. I could write in detail about all the wondrous adventures I’ve had since then; about meeting up with the old teachers who were brave enough to stay a second year (even if they copped out and moved to Budapest); about how my Balaton trip failed but I had a great holiday anyway; about how Laura and I ran all over Budapest helping Hajni with the 37 new amcsi teachers, plus two dogs, plus one three-year-old-child; about how great and diverse the new group is; about orientation, both the official one and the after-hours one; about the drama which led to me being the only American teacher in Szolnok, as well as allowing me to raid Chad’s old flat and steal most of the books he left behind; about how I came back here to find my flat in disarray (new shower head installed, but TV, internet, pipes and toilet not working); about my reunion with Juli and the Oxford school, in it’s fabulous new location.

I could write about any of these things in detail. But I’m lazy, so I won’t.

Woke Up This Morning...

...and got myself a gun.

No, not really. But it’s a good song anyway.

I woke up this morning at 11, after sleeping terribly since about 4 am. I’m still trying to fight my body into submission on the jet-lag thing. It’s not working. I kept dreaming that strangers were in my flat.

I walked (stumbled) into the bathroom. Orange water was dripping down the wall from the pipes above the tub. I stumbled into the living room. I tripped and hit my head on the door. I turned the TV on. Sound, but no picture.

Here’s what still does work in my flat: My cell, my computer. My backpack, my legs, and my front door. So my plan is: I’m running away*. I’m packing some clothes and hopping the next train to Pest. And godwilling, I won’t be back until the end of the month.

*And if you think I’m irresponsible for going away and leaving the dripping pipe? Too bad. I hope it does explode, and the flat floods until water flows out under the front door and the neighbors complain. Because if someone else complained, maybe it would actually get fixed.

ID Withheld

Generally, when my phone rings and displays “ID Withheld,” I don’t answer it. There are only three possibilities who might be calling, only one of them good:

1) It might be family calling from America. But this happens pretty infrequently.
2) It might be a wrong number, which inevitably leads to me having to explain in broken Hungarian. Although now I’ve just started using English. Hey, if you can’t dial a number properly, I don’t have to attempt your language.
3) It might be my contact teacher Kati. Which is who it was this morning. Three times.

The first time she called, it was to remind me that I needed to go reregister with the police. Actually, I was supposed to do it within 2 days of returning, oops. She’s leaving on holiday today and suggested I go alone, reminding me that the man at the foreigners’ registration desk spoke English. Diplomatically (especially considering that I hadn’t had coffee yet), I refrained from pointing out that before getting to the kind English-speaking foreigners’ registration desk, one has to navigate á la Indiana Jones The Seven Terrifyingly Brusque Hungarian-Speaking Gates of Entry into the police facility. Instead, I mildly said that I’d rather not go without a Hungarian speaker. She sighed and said she was going to call the school.

The second time she called, it was to tell me that her husband would accompany me to the police, tomorrow. I said (truthfully) that tomorrow I’m going to Pest. We decided to forget the whole thing until later.

The third time she called, it was to tell me to gather up my passport and papers and run over to the school, so that the secretary (Secretary Ági) could take me to the police, right now. I gathered, and ran. After loitering in the hallways and making stilted Hungarian conversation with the principal and the portás for fifteen minutes, Secretary Ági burst around the corner and greeted me with, “Ma nem tudom meg menni. Szia.” (I can’t go today. Hi)

She and Principal Éva suggested we go later; I haltingly explained that I’m leaving Szolnok tomorrow and not coming back until the 28th. They sighed dramatically, and asked me if this was a Hajni-program or my own program. Not that it’s any of their business, but I answered yes and yes. They stared at me and made me write down where I planned to be for the next two weeks. I wrote it (Balaton, my program; then Budapest, Hajni program), along with my phone number. And then I scurried away home.

So I don’t know what the plan is, although I suspect it will involve me ditching the Hajni-program for a day, training to Szolnok on my own forint, going to the police with whoever gets stuck taking me, and then training back to Pest again. Love-er-ly.

I’d almost forgotten about Hungarian bureaucracy. Oh, I missed it, I really did. It makes life so troublesome for my school but so interesting for me.

What Kassai Did, part II

So I spent Thursday and Friday pestering my contact teacher via sms, until she called the school and sent over Pali, the school’s handyman. I like him because when he talks to me (in Hungarian, of course), he doesn’t really expect me to understand anything, but he still slows down and repeats things, and acts like a proud father if I do catch on to something.

In about two minutes, he had the gas and the boiler turned on, and everything up and running. I mean, as ‘running’ as anything gets in this flat. Then he launched into a long description about why the shower doesn’t work, of which I caught about every third word. This is a classic example of my understanding of Hungarian:

What I did understand: “Kassai... Lucza... pénz... mint a bojler... fal... régi bérház... komplett rossz. Azt érted?”

Which translates as: “Kassai school and Lucza (I think she’s the owner of the flat) are fighting about who’s going to pay for the repairs, just like they fought for months before someone gave in and paid to have the boiler replaced (and only then after I was almost gassed to death) but it probably can’t be fixed anyway because the problem is inside the wall which is made of concrete block, and these flats are just too old, the whole thing is bad. Understand?”

So I’m back to where I left the flat last June: almost everything impossibly broken. But fun to struggle against. Home sweet home.

What Kassai Did

It’s pretty easy to explain what I did this summer: nothing. On the other hand, it takes a whole blog entry to describe what Kassai (the school where I ‘teach’) was up to these past two months:

* They did clean my flat. They cleaned almost everything, so I can’t complain about that.

* They didn’t come meet me at the airport and help with my massively heavy suitcases. Suitcases which were made massively heavy by being filled with teaching materials. Teaching materials I had to bring from home because Kassai provides me with neither materials nor money to buy them with.

* They did turn my gas off. I guess I can understand their logic, it might be dangerous to have it on all summer in an unoccupied flat. But...

* They didn’t turn my gas back on. Thus, I have no hot water and no stove.

* They didn’t fix any of the following: the coffee maker, the vacuum, the oven, the ‘washing machine,’ the crappy paint job, the peeling wallpaper, the shower, nor the leaky bathroom sink.

* They did unplug my fridge for me, and they did clean it, but they didn’t remove the various condiments nor the food in the freezer (the reason I’d left the fridge on). And they didn’t clean up the explosion of mold left by the thawed and decaying freezer-food.

* They didn’t pay my bills, neither the ones they pay normally (like gas, water and cable) nor the ones that I normally pay for (internet). In June, I gave them 6000 forint to pay the internet over the summer... and yet today I got a bill for more than 11,000 forint to because the bill wasn’t paid last month.

What I’m going to do about it:
* I’m going to whine about it on this blog.
* I’m going to whine about it to anyone I corner face to face.
* And I’m going to hope for a short school year.

I'm Back

That’s right - after 24 hours of travel by car, plane, foot and bus, I made it safely from one home to the other (it took 36 hors going the other direction in June. But I only had three flights this time instead of four).

It wasn’t a happy homecoming. Instead of trying to describe it, I’ll encourage you to read Kat’s post about the happiness of returning. And then imagine it’s opposite. And that was me, yesterday afternoon and evening. For the first time ever since I’ve been in Hungary, I would gladly have hopped on a plane and left.

But it passed. After wallowing in depression for a couple hours, I got up, went shopping (possibly hunger was adding to my general crankiness), re-messed-up my flat where the cleaning ladies had organized it, enjoyed having MTV and high-speed internet again, skyped and sms-ed with people who cheered me up, and then slept for almost 12 hours.

But it really hit me this morning, as I was washing my hair in ice water (the gas isn’t turned on, and my contact teacher isn’t answering my smses) and drinking my cup of lukewarm instant coffee (coffee maker is still broken): yup, for better or worse, mostly the latter, I’m home.

Would You Rather... ?

I think we’ve all played this game at some point in your life. The questions range from the culinary “Would you rather eat a dead snake or a live bug?” to the romantic “Would you rather kiss a frog or be kissed by creepy Mr. Dovin?” to the morbid “Would you rather die in a car crash or by drowning?” to the philosophical “Would you rather be happy for a lifetime or rich for a lifetime?”

Last night I had a dream, and in my dream someone had published a book with the following title: “Would you rather live without a soul for one year or live in Budapest for the rest of your life?”

What does this mean? It means I’ve been lazing around my parents’ house too long, am bored out of my skull, and am having weird dreams.

School's Out For Summer

... which means I'm at my parents' home in Minnesota, and since life here is dull and not part of the Hungarian Experiement, I prob'ly won't be updating. See you in August.

Good-byes, Round Two (and the paperwork of leaving)

Thursday was the last day of school. Or I should say, the last day of teaching. Therefore, Thursday night seemed like the perfect opportunity to go out and celebrate. Under the guise of celebrating, it was also a good-bye party, because it’s the last time we’ll all be together.

It was an excellent night, and not only because I didn’t have to pay for drinks. The night started with just Geri and I at Tisza-mozi (although the two of us had both started the night by ourselves, earlier. Much earlier). Ági joined us, and we moved to Jazz. We sat down with Nancy and Ann, two former CETP teachers who are back for a visit. Mike and Cori came over from Jazz 2. Juli and Chad finally showed up, so it was a complete group. We ate, we drank, I received presents (funny to me, because I’m coming back in less than 2 months). We stayed until Jazz closed, then drove two blocks up the street to Irish, where we met two former students of Nancy (or Ann). When exactly we left is a bit hazy in my mind. Or why we left. Or the ride home.

What I know is that when my alarm went off at 8:30 this morning (I had the foresight to set it yesterday before the drinking commenced), I thought I might die. But I got up, took some steps, and realized that by some miracle, not only was I not hungover, I felt okay. No headache or nothing, just tired.

I walked over to the school for what I assumed was a short meeting at 9 o’clock. Actually, it was a short meeting. I thought I was going to get yelled at for the debacle with the marks and the naplós, but no. Now that school’s out, everyone’s relaxed, so they just kindly reminded me to be more thoughtful about the marks next year.

The meeting lasted 10 minutes. Then my director announced that I needed to go to the police station. Why? To register me. For next year. It had to be done today, because I’m leaving super-early morning Monday. Long story short, I did not get to go home and go back to bed. Instead, I spent the next six hours (yes, six) following my contact teacher around to the police, to get passport photos taken, back to the police, waiting for the police, filling out oodles of paperwork, and making copies of my keys (in theory to clean my flat while I’m gone and take care of my mail, but I half think they’re going to rent out the flat while I’m gone. They mentioned wanting to). And then back to the school to drop off the keys and sign another bajillion forms. I couldn’t tell you what, probably they’re selling me into slavery next year.

Boycott

It finally happened. I’ve been waiting all year, just dreaming and wishing and hoping. Today my prayers were finally answered: my 8b boycotted class.

Okay, I could be less dramatic. First of all, it’s a small class - ten students officially, usually around 7 show up. And this afternoon, 3 or 4 of them had a legitimate reason for not coming to class (they were at some awards ceremony to which I was neither invited nor informed of beforehand. Typical). But still - that means that somewhere between 3 and 7 students, individually or as a group, decided NOT to come to my class.

This is a victory for me. It shouldn’t be. But, let’s face facts, any day when I get out of teaching 8b (or 8a, or the other 8a, or several other classes), it makes my day a little better.

First Round of Goodbyes

My second-to-last weekend in Szolnok was remarkably similar to the first weekend I invited people here, way back in September. Gaines came, as did others. There was lots of good cooking, drinking, going out, and way too much TV. It’s funny, I went back and read what I wrote in my journal about that first weekend, and mostly it was complaining. Things didn’t go right, I had no money, I was stressed from teaching, it wasn’t like “home” at Beloit.

Which is about right opposite from today. The weekend was sad, but nice. I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend my last full weekend than with some of my favorite people (plus one complete stranger).

But it was hard to say good-bye. Luckily, I’ve avoided saying good-bye to most of the leaving Americans. But having to see Gaines off at the train station did bring tears to my eyes.

It also made me realize that, 8 days from now, I’ll be back in America. And frankly I’m a little bit terrified. I don’t want to go. I want to stay here. Better or worse, this is my home. There are dozens of things I’m looking forward to in America: shopping, books in English, driving my car, granola bars, nice weather, mum’s cooking, seeing friends, and the most important, seeing my family. But what I’m also looking forward to is August 8th, when I fly back to Hungary. In fact, if it weren’t for family, I wouldn’t go back at all.

Teacher's Day

So, I’ve had a pretty miserable week. Although, maybe “week” isn’t the best word; in reality it’s only been about 48 hours I’ve been home. Yuck, it feels like forever.

Anyway. There was one good thing this “week,” one thing that made Tuesday almost bearable. Teacher’s Day! The official holiday was actually Sunday (because every teacher wants to celebrate a day without teaching) and on Monday was no school. So on Tuesday, all the teachers got showered with gifts and bouquets of flowers. My own loot included flowers, chocolate, food, candles, and a kitchen canister. I received something from all of the grades I teach, surprising because I know the 8th grade hates me. The fifth grade was especially nice and generous. Lucky for them, Tuesday was the day I wrote their final grades in the napló.

After getting it wrong at Women’s Day, this time around I knew the procedure: after the students presented me with their gift and mumbled something like, “very love... for you we teacher... boldog teacher’s day,” I thanked them and gave them each the kiss-kiss (puszi). I love this tradition, but it’s still strange for me to kiss a student. Maybe it’s strange for them too - it was funny watching three 7th grade boys and one girl giggle and and push each other as they argued about who would present their gift to me.

Anyway. Kids: you drove me nuts for 10 months now. So it’s nice that one day a year you can show your appreciation for me. Thank you.

Holiday

[palm tree picture]

So I’m sure that none of my three regular readers noticed my absence last week. After all, 5 days is barely a long time to go without posting. Five days is actually a very short time. And it seems unbelievably too short when I spent those five days on holiday in a sun-drenched island paradise.

Imagine this: it’s Wednesday afternoon. Szolnok is cold and rainy. I hate this place when it rains; it emphasizes the ugliness, the concrete flats, the unending pavement, the garbage, the miasma of unpleasant smells. So I finish teaching, and get to Budapest. At midnight, I hop onto a plane, and within three hours the scene has completely changed: I’m standing on a beach, the sand still warm from the previous day. Waves crashing. Palm trees, orange trees, lemon trees. As we leave the airport, the sun is just starting to make streaks in the sky. We drive along the coast. On the right, distant lights from small villages in the hills; on the left, the dark emptiness of the ocean. We arrive at the flat and sit out on the balcony. As the sun comes up, the ocean changes color - from pale gray, it begins at the horizon to become bluer and richer. By the time the sun comes above the buildings, the entire ocean is deep blue, streaked with sky blue and green. The sky is clear but not yet blue, it’s still white from the sunrise, and the first breezes of the day are already warm. We talk for a long time before going inside to nap. When we wake up, it’s like a whole new day beginning.

But that was only the first few hours.

In the interest of discretion, I’m not going into all the details. Enough to say each day was better then the one before. We drove all over the island, saw the cities, got lost in the villages, took short-cuts and long-cuts, ate in restaurants and at home, drank on the beach and on the balcony, swam in the ocean and sunbathed on the beach. It was amazing, in every possible way. Even the things that went wrong resolved themselves eventually.

With one exception. There’s still one problem that I can’t fix: there’s no happy ending. How can there be? The holiday ends, we go back to normal lives, and real life is just weaker and colder and emptier and more boring and more colorless by comparison. There’s nothing now to look forward to; even going ‘home’ (back to America) in two weeks isn’t exciting. I don’t know what to do. I’m hoping the post-holiday lethargy will wear off soon. Otherwise, it’s going to a long, long summer.

Stories

Due to various class trips, sicknesses, and lethargy, some of my classes have been small this week. One class of eighth-graders had only three students. This is a class that is unmotivated at their best, and knowing that they were the only three stuck in class wasn’t exactly firing them up. Grasping at straws, I sat down with them at two tables and we wrote circulating stories. We each started with one piece of paper and wrote the first sentence before passing them on. Quick and simple. And I let them go ten minutes early.

We ended up with four stories of varying quality and interest. They voted the following one as the best. The stars are where the writer changed (all grammar and spelling are original):

Noémi and Pusi’re love each other. They went to the cinema. * After the cinema they went to a park and * sat on a bench next to the Tisza river. The night was very dark, and * boring, because they * didn’t find us. * It was very hot, so they decided to go swimming in the Tisza, * but Pusi don’t want take down his clothes. * And when Pusi saw Noémi, Pusi is, * and then they went swimming. But the water was very cold. When they stopped swimming, their clothes were gone! * And Pusi said: I want to go home. * But Noémi don’t want so. * So they walked to a pub. * And they drink alkohol. After they’re go to the hotel. * And, * they went into a room. * And Pusi said Noémi - I haven’t got any many [money].

And, thankgod, that’s when it ended.

Just a side note - Noémi was one of the students missing from the class. The 8th-grade class. And I believe Pusi is her 20-some year-old boyfriend. I love Hungary.

The Great England Experiment (Take Two)

My History: one previous trip to London for two days, two years ago. It was interesting, but too short and too expensive for us to see and do much.

The General Plan, this time around: an 8-day field trip to England with 38 Kassai students (5th through 8th grades), the four other English teachers, myself, one guide (Anna), and two bus drivers. And one really big bus.

The Details:
Day 1 - leave Szolnok at 3 am. Drive all day. Sleep in Belgium in a cheap hotel.
Day 2 - cross the Channel (by Chunnel). Arrive in London. Walk around the city, go up the London Eye, and visit the British Museum. Meet out host families.
Day 3 - excursions to Shakespeareville, aka Stratford-upon-Avon, and Warwick Castle.
Day 4 - excursions to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Hampton Court.
Day 5 - visit London Tower, Westminster Abbey, and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.
Day 6 - bid farewell to host families. Visit Leeds Castle and Canterbury before hopping on the ferry to France. Sleeping in another cheap hotel.
Day 7 - Disneyland Europe, all day. In the evening, back on the bus. And driving all night.
Day 8 - another day of driving. Arrived back to Szolnok about 3:30.

Things I Learned:
- that Kati, my awesomely fierce contact teacher, is still awesomely fierce at 3am. And during the whole vacation.
- that 38 kids, 5 adults, 1 guide, and 2 bus drivers actually can pile off the bus, use a crowded bathroom, goof around, buy snacks, take photos, and be back on the road in the allotted 20 minutes.
- that despite being surrounded by one of the world’s richest histories, in a country filled with castles and museums and gardens, kids will inevitably head straight for the Labyrinth, the Ghost Tower, or the mummy exhibit.
- that I’ve become used to being in Hungary. So much so that I try to speak Hungarian to shopkeepers and people on the street, and that I imagine I hear people speaking it all around me in London. I wonder if the same thing will happen in America, and if so, for how long?
- that the word “hypermarket” isn’t some sort of weird Hunglish - it’s British. It’s a real word, who knew?
- that if you take loud, obnoxious students out of the classroom, away from their friends and partners-in-crime, they’re just kids. Cute, funny, insecure, normal teenage kids.

The Family Stay:
In theory, this sounded like the coolest part of the trip: in groups of two, three, or four, the students spend nights living with English families. They eat breakfast and dinner together, and the families give them a packed lunch for the day. Having only our family stays in Romania to compare, I expected the best.
In reality, this might have been the worst part for many of the kids. The 2 Edits and I lucked out and stayed with a wonderful woman named Sandra who stuffed us full of food, gave us two plush rooms to stay in, and sent us off every day with lunch bags bigger than my head. Unfortunately, no one else’s experience was similar. There were problems with all aspects of the stay: the rooms were small or unclean; the food was terrible or scant; they didn’t get a lunch bag; they didn’t get anything to drink; they didn’t understand each other; the families were unfriendly. There were also problems getting between the bus and the houses, because after the first day the students were expected to walk alone to and from our drop-off point to their families’ houses. Yikes - some of them are in 5th grade! If I had a child that old, I wouldn’t let them walk a mile though London traffic alone.
Long story short, the family stays were less than perfect. I hope the kids got something out of them.

The Hungarian and the English:
Overall, I think I spoke and heard more Hungarian than English the whole week. I’m not sure how much English any of the kids actually spoke outside their families, although it was gratifying to hear a few of them mumbling English phrases to themselves to practice, or having stilted conversations with each other.
Some of the students decided to spend the week teaching me Hungarian. Walking around castle after castle, we played endless rounds of “Tree?” “Fa.” “Yes. Bird?” “Madár.” “Good. Castle?” “Kastély.” “Good. Um... grass?” “Fü.” “Yes! Oh, you is very clever. Camera?” “Um... fény-something-gép?” And then giggling. They also tried to explain some grammar, but that stopped when they got to '-ban, -ben' and the concept of vowel harmony.

The Conclusion:
As I was talking to Jeremy yesterday afternoon, he asked me, “So, was it worth it?” For a second, I didn’t know what he meant, because I had completely forgotten about all the griping I did about the expensive. So, yeah, I guess it was worth it.
Money aside: I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I hope I can.
I’ve got a couple more stories, which I’ll post if I have time. I’ll be kinda busy, you know, between the Oxford party tonight, the Beer Festival this weekend, and my next vacation starting next Wednesday. Oh, I love my life right now.

Field Trip!

I know I griped a couple of entries ago about how terribly expensive London is... specifically, how my school semi-conned me into being a fee-paying chaperone on their trip to London. So I won’t bitch anymore about the money, other than to say after paying the 40,000ft down-payment, the 47,000ft remaining fee, plus 2000ft for insurance, plus 100 pounds, plus 25 euro... I am now broke. And ready to go to London.

We leave tomorrow. At 3 in the morning, actually, so I plan on scraping together my remaining change and going out tonight. There’s no point of trying for 8 hours of sleep anyway, so why bother.

I’ll be back next weekend, hopefully with stories. I mean, good ones.

Life in the Real World

My sweet alma mater, Beloit College, was both very small (my graduating class: 296 people) and very insular. Against the ongoing animosity between Beloit-the-College and Beloit-the-City, we developed the “Beloit Bubble.” The Bubble kept us together, kept us safe, kept us isolated.

Then there was graduation. I’m sure you can see the metaphor coming: the Bubble burst.

I don’t know how other people feel about their graduations, but I feel like at Beloit, it was made out to be this big scary thing. We had spent the last four years preparing, in theory, to leave and face the Real World, but everyone seemed to have doubts about our ability to do so. Even the speakers at graduation played this up: our student president gave a speech about our “characteristically uncharacteristic” students, focusing on how Beloit was the only thing in the world tying us together. The commencement was given by Alain Destexhe, former Secretary General of Doctors Without Borders, who delivered a terrifying speech on the topic of genocide. I’m not kidding. It was half an hour of what an awful, frightening place the world is... and how we were about to enter it.

My point: one year ago today I graduated. I entered the Real World. And despite Beloit’s best efforts to alarm me, it turned out that the Real World isn’t so bad a place. It’s doable. It’s livable. I like it.

It's Over, All Over

... basketball, that is. More precisely, Szolnoki Olaj basketball.

Both of my regular readers know that since my first game, I’ve developed a small obsession with Szolnok’s basketball team, to the point where I ended up hanging around in Szolnok on my precious weekends, just to go to the games. But what can I do, the games are spectacular. And if regular games are like this, I assumed the play-off games would be even better. They didn’t let me down.

But first, a recap of the situation, for those of you as unenlightened about Hungarian basketball as I was two months ago. The Szolnoki Olaj are one of 14 teams. Having managed to win an entire 50% of their games played in the regular season, Olaj was granted one of 8 spots in the championship. Namely, the 8th place. And only barely. But never mind, they got in.

In the first round of the championship, the quarterfinals, the 8 teams are paired up and play for the best of 5 games, so until one team wins 3 games. The Olaj, being in last place, were matched against Paks, in first place. The first game was in Paks; we lost by 6 points. The second game was in Szolnok and we won by 2 points. The third game was in Paks, and we lost by 20 points. The fourth game was in Szolnok and we won by 5 points. Maybe you see a pattern here? Which brings me to the sad conclusion of tonight: we played in Paks. We lost. By 36 points. That’s just painful.

So it’s over. No more basketball. But I hate to finish on a sad note, so here’s something I’ve been meaning to post for a while: some of the chants that are routinely screamed at the games. Plus translation. All courtesy of one of my also-basketball-obsessed private students, thank you:

The cheers:
Hajrá Olaj! Olajbányász! {go, Olaj!}
Gyerünk, gyerünk, Olajka! {let’s go, Olaj!}
Mindent bele! {also like go, Olaj!}
Mindenki, szolnoki! {everyone szolnoki}
Álljatok fel! {stand up!}

The insults:
Cigányok, cigányok! {“gypsy” isn’t a good insult in my book}
Fasszopó, fasszopó! {but “cocksucker” is}

The taunts:
to the refs: Mennyibe kerül? Mennyibe kerül? {what did it cost? (the bribe)}
to the losing opposing fans: Indul a busz! Indul a busz! {your bus is leaving}
to Paks in particular: Paksi Atom, szopd ki a faszom! {Paks Atom (the team name), blow me!}

And the songs:
Favilla, fakanál, fatányér, {wooden fork, wooden spoon, wooden plate}
Meghalok a, meghalok az Olajért! {I will die for the Olaj}
Ha meghalok majd eltemetnek, {if I die, to the funeral}
Oda is csak Olaj-szurkolók jöhetnek. {only Olaj fans are invited}

Ha meghalok, a mennybe jutok, {if I die, I’ll go to Heaven}
Nevetnek rám az angyalok, {the angels will smile on me}
Szent Péter mondja: “Hajrá Olaj!” {St Peter will say “Go, Olaj!”}
És mi vígan szopatunk! {and we’ll happily get sucked off}
(clap x3) Szopatunk! (clap x3) {yes, sucked off}
Mi leszünk a bajnokok! {we will be the champions}
(and start again from Szent Peter)

...because nothing goes together like basketball, death, and oral sex. I’m gonna miss it.

Three Yellow Flowers

As I was walking back from school this morning, still a bit dazed after the first round of teaching without coffee, I walked past the back of apartment building, where my windows face, and I noticed something funny. On the windowsill outside my bedroom window, someone had left three yellow flowers.

On Mondays, I walk back and forth to and from my school 6 times. The flowers didn’t move. They were still there when I made my last trip home this afternoon, so I brought them inside and put them in water. They’re small, yellow, like a tulip but more wild looking. They were cut, not plucked. They looked like they had been arranged on the windowsill.

So, I see three possibilities:
- it’s something really sweet, like a secret admirer
- it’s something really creepy, like a stalker
- it’s something absolutely coincidental and I’m a drama queen.

Anyone want to offer any other theories?

Graduation

Yet another weekend spent in Szolnok, but that’s hardly worth mentioning anymore, it’s become typical. What was atypical about this weekend was the barbecue-cum-graduation party on Friday. That afternoon, Chad and Mike bought a grill at Cora. They parked it out in the Varga courtyard and invited everyone we knew, which boiled down to Juli, Tamás (Oxford teacher), Dóri (his wife), Tami (their adorable son), Zoli and Kati briefly, and a large bunch of Varga students. Many of whom were graduating the following day, early-ish. I had intentions of getting up and going to watch the ceremony, but I slept too late.

Great food, great company. Good booze, too. I of course had been keeping my Friday afternoon ritual of sitting at home with my bottle of wine since about 3. Then there was beer at the barbecue. Then there was champagne, because we were celebrating. A surprising number of Vargans did the prudent thing and stayed soberish, but there were enough who weren’t worrying about a hungover graduation to make for a good time.

The whole evening had a bit of a poignant tinge to it though. Chad’s 12C class showed up and sang to him, as departing classes do for teachers here. It was sad. They sang some Hungarian tunes; I was waiting for “Graduation (Friends Forever),” or something similar, but their English selection was “Come As You Are.”

But all-in-all, a fun night. Although I’ll only be here a few more weeks, I’m anticipating more barbecues as weather permits. Not to mention, I suspect at the end of the week, when Varga and other gymnasium students finish their finals week, the city will explode in a riot of parties. I have absolutely no evidence to support this suspicion.... I’m just really optimistic.

More Eger Pictures

The following pictures are brought to you by:
-Mike, by whom and on whose camera they were taken
-myself, who had the infinite patience to upload them to blogger.
Enjoy.

I think this picture is funny because of where Chad and Juli are looking at me. Actually, we were discussing the color of my shirt.

Us in the castle of Eger. All three of us look so uncomfortable and akwardly posed.

Juli at the minaret. I think her expression says "Let's just get the hell away from this evil place."

Us on the balcony of the Lyceum. The black spot is not a cloud of doom following us around Eger. Actually, it's the Spot of Doom that's been following Mike since he dropped his camera.

Although this is a un-posed shot, it could be a perfect situation photo: The Waiting Room.

After seeing the camera obscura and the miracle combination of art and science, I think Mike and Chad decided to take some glamour shots on the stairs. That explains the shot of Chad; the ones of Juli and I are candid. Together, they make the following sequence which I'm calling "Lyceum Staircase Triptych:"

Eger az amikkal (Eger with the Americans)

Actually, there were three Americans (myself, Chad and Mike) and one Hungarian (that would be Juli). But people were easily confused by such a multi-national group of young people, because 1) everyone thought Juli was American; 2) our landlady Zsuzsa (pictured below) thought I was Hungarian; 3) a ticket-taker thought Mike was Hungarian because he has a perfect “igen.”

So the original plan was to leave Saturday, early afternoon. Due to some serious hangovers from the night before (not me this time), we didn’t leave until quarter after 5. We made it to Eger in good time and headed to Egerszalok, to the Kohári Pincészet where the Americans stayed last February. Unfortunately, they and everywhere else in Egerszalok were full, so we headed back down the road to Demjén. We ended up at the Pap Vendégház, which was 10 times better than Kohári. For 7000 Ft each, we stayed in our own house for two nights. Two bedrooms, a bathroom and a second toilet, a small but full kitchen, big dining room, two porches (indoor and outdoor), amazing breakfast both days, wine and snacks both evenings, and wine and food for the road. I highly recommend it.


Sunday morning, we headed to Eger. After looking around the Cathedral (above), we walked up to the Castle. Our 1000 Ft all-entrance tickets turned out to not include entrance to some of the best places, like the archery or the wax museum. So we contented ourselves with walking the walls, taking lots of photos, eating gyros, visiting some of the smaller exhibitions (including the Torture Museum, gruesome) and sitting in the sun (below).


Our third and final stop in Eger was the Minaret. I like this picture (below) because Mike looks like he’s having fun and I look terrified. Hm, tastes like irony. Chad took the photo, and Juli had already abandoned us and gone back down.


After the Minaret, we were all ready to sit down and relax somewhere. What better place than Szépasszonyvölgy, the Valley of the Beautiful Women. At the beginning of the night (still afternoon), I got out my green notebook and decided that I was going to keep a list of things to blog about. Well, you can imagine how that went: as the night went on, I got drunker, the list got less understandable, the handwriting got less readable. I may have drunk-dialed or drunk-sms-ed people... sorry. Anyway, the list ended up with 14 entries, which are in italic in the paragraph after the picture.


Confronted with dozens of wine cellars, each with a number, we asked each other if we had any lucky numbers: 22, 8, 7, and 5. No dice - we were already past the single digits, and 22 was closed, sad. We settled at #20, Marci Pincéje, where we sampled some wine while being entertained by loud Brits taking photos, and a parade made up of two drunken men who hired the house band to walk behind them and play music. After following the parade a bit, we tried #14, the Kiss cellar, but it was smelly, so we left. At #31, Sándor Pincéje, we had a private performance by the house band there. After they played Jacques Offenbach’s Galop Infernal (Can-Can), Mike and I had a long discussion about Moulin Rouge; to downplay his knowledge of it, he proclaimed, “I drank myself gay.” At dinner, Juli spent a good time on the phone with her brother Csaba, during which time Chad cut up her food for her, and stole the phone to tell Csaba how we’d “had some wine, eating some food, feeding some cats...” The final entry on the list, nearly illegible, is “That guy’s due for an eclision.” I don’t really remember what this means. Maybe we almost hit a pedestrian?

I do remember the drive back to Demjén, and how we subsequently sat around our rooms watching MTV and trying to make a dent in the jug of wine we bought. Not successfully.

This morning, Monday, we all slept late and took a long time getting ready. Zsuzsa, our hostess/landlady, stopped by hourly to see if we had left yet. Shortly before noon, we made it back to Eger and visited the Lyceum, where we saw the Specula Observatory and it’s camera obscura, which is basically a series of mirrors which project a live image of Eger onto a white table in a darkened room. Trust me, it’s amazing. We also visited the Lyceum’s Library, which was equally impressive.

And that’s about it. After a brief McDonalds stop (disgusting waste of money), we were on the road home. We made it back to Szolnok in the rain about 4. And here I am. Home sweet home. Next entry: the House Wars.

ps- thanks to Mike for being our photographer this weekend. Nice job.

Feri G.

One of my small successes at Kassai this week was introducing to my students “Feri G” as a nickname for the unpronounceable PM Gyurcsány Ferenc. They loved it, and found a variety of reasons to talk about politics just so they could use it. (The vaguely porn-starrish “Viki O” for Orbán Viktor was also well-received.)

So I was amused to see this article today on Pesticide, which explains the circumstances under which Feri G. used the word “cool” to describe how young people feel about being Socialist. I understand completely. I mean, I think I look pretty damn 'cool' in red. Or maybe 'hot'. But of course that means something different in Hungarian.

I love Kati... and music

I’m also a great fan of Scrubs, so I hope y’all can appreciate both my love of the show and my ability to work quotes from it into my my everyday life:

JD: Dr Cox?
Cox: Yeah, Newbie, whaddaya got?
JD: That guy looks fantastic. What do you think he’s dying of, a case of the Handsomes?

Because today my contact teacher Kati was back at school and looking better than ever after her still-unidentified illness. And just like when I see my real mother after a long time, Kati proceeded to notice my new hair cut, ask when I did it, compliment it nicely, smooth it out at the back of my neck, and point out the two pieces that weren’t exactly the right length. Oh, I’m so glad she’s back. Seriously, school has been so boring without her.

After Scrubs and Kati, for some reason today I’m also in love with music. Maybe because MTV keeps playing one awesome song after another. Maybe because I finally discovered the easy way to create playlists in iTunes. Whatever, nem fontos. Gaines and I have been working on a CETP/Hungary Soundtrack, so allow me to publish it first here:

Another Brick In the Wall; Pink Floyd
Teach Your Children; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Don't Stand So Close To Me; The Police
Sex and Beer; Pat McCurdy
Kids; Robbie Williams & Kylie Minogue
Eye of the Tiger; Survivor
Magyarország; Oláh Ibolya
Should I Stay Or Should I Go; The Clash
Hot For Teacher; Van Halen
Smoking In The Boys Room; Motley Crue
Fight For Your Right To Party; Beastie Boys
Fridays I'm in Love; The Cure
Working for the Weekend; Loverboy
Schools Out For Summer; Alice Cooper
Two Way Monologue; Sondre Lerche
Midnight Train; Journey
Lazy Days; Robbie Williams
Represent, Cuba; Orishas
Cash Machine; Hard Fi

You might notice a bit of a theme. Keep in mind that this is a rough draft only, and please give me any suggestions, additions, or subtractions you can think of. As added incentive: anyone who comments, I’ll burn you a copy of the Soundtrack when it’s finished.

Happy Birthday

I realize I’ve been lazy about posting recently, and will be working to fix that. My new goal: 5 posts a week. Somehow I was managing it back in the winter... and writing interesting things, even. God knows I have enough free time to maintain three or four blogs.

Anyway, for today: the song Happy Birthday, by Flipsyde. Normally I would feel that simply posting lyrics as an entry is a bit of a cop-out, but... but what? But this song deserves it. The lyrics alone don’t do it justice, so if you can download the song, or better yet watch the video, I encourage you to do so.

Happy Birthday...so make a wish
Verse 1:
Please accept my apologies, wonder what would have been
Would you've been a little angel or an angel of sin?
Tom-boy running around, hanging with all the guys.
Or a little tough boy with beautiful brown eyes?
I payed for the murder before they determined the sex
Choosing our life over your life meant your death
And you never got a chance to even open your eyes
Sometimes I wonder as a fetus if you fought for your life?
Would you have been a little genius in love with math?
Would you have played in your school clothes and made me mad?
Would you have been a little rapper like your papa da Piper?
Would you have made me quit smokin' by finding one of my lighters?
I wonder about your skin tone and shape of your nose?
And the way you would have laughed and talked fast or slow?
Think about it every year, so I picked up a pen
Happy birthday, love you whoever you woulda been
Happy birthday...
Chorus:
All I thought was a dream (make a wish)
Was as real as it seemed (happy birthday)
All I thought was a dream (make a wish)
Was as real as it seemed
I made a mistake!
Verse 2:
I've got a million excuses to why you died
Bet the people got their own reasons for homicide
Who's to say it woulda worked, and who's to say it wouldn't have?
I was young and strugglin' but old enough to be your dad
The fear of being a father has never disappeared
Pondering frequently while I'm zippin' on my beer
My vision of a family was artificial and fake
So when it came time to create I made a mistake
Now you've got a little brother maybe he's really you?
Maybe you really forgave us knowin' we was confused?
Maybe every time that he smiles it's you proudly knowin' that your father's doin' the right thing now?
I never tell a woman what to do with her body
But if she don't love children then we can't party
Think about it every year, so I picked up a pen
Happy birthday, love you whoever you woulda been
Happy birthday...
Chorus:
All I thought was a dream (make a wish)
Was as real as it seemed (happy birthday)
All I thought was a dream (yeah, make a wish)
Was as real as it seemed
I made a mistake!
And from the heavens to the womb to the heavens again
From the endin' to the endin', never got to begin
Maybe one day we could meet face to face?
In a place without time and space
Happy birthday...
I made a mistake...!

That’s all for now. Coming soon: a series of entries about the eleventh biggest city in Hungary (that means Szolnok).

Fly x2

Fly #1: (of time) pass swiftly. As in, “It’’s the end of April already? Two months from today I’ll be on another continent?? Only 7 more weeks of teaching???” etc. Since I’m in the mood for stats:
245 days I’ve been in Hungary so far
57 days until I’ll be in Minnesota
8 weeks of teaching
29 more actual days of teaching
11 weekdays on which I could feasibly teaching, but will hopefully instead be traveling
So it’s going to be a good spring, I think.


Fly #2: (of an aircraft or its occupants) travel through the air. As in, “Who ever thought flying home would be so difficult? Why on earth is a plane ticket so expensive, why won’t the major websites let you book a round trip ticket starting in Europe, why...” and further ranting.

Anyway, a lot of my fellow CETPers were smart and bought their tickets home months ago. For those who haven’t, please benefit from my experience. First of all, for those who are coming back next year and want to buy a ticket to the States and back, the following sites won’t let you buy a round trip ticket originating in Europe: Priceline and all it’s affiliates, Orbitz and affiliates, STA Travel, Student Universe, Cheap Tickets, Cheap Flights, Lowest Fare. So boo to all of them.

On the other hand, two awesome websites that let you compare a bunch of airfares at one time: Kayak and Sidestep. These two are great, they do all the work for you. I wish I had found them before I did all the work myself.

If you feel like torturing yourself by checking all the airlines individually, the cheapest ones I found were at Lufthansa and Air France, and Expedia and Travelocity also presented some options.

In the end, I went with Alitalia, because it was absolute cheapest. And me being the person I am, I’m willing to switch planes 3 times in order to save $50. But you might be different. Anyone who’s willing to share with me what their ticket cost, please comment.

48,000

Forty-eight thousand forint is a lot of money. That’s $222, 180 euro, 26,200 yen. In my funds-reduced life here in Szolnok, 48,000 Ft is approximately half my monthly income. Things that I would like to buy with 48,000 Ft include:

- summer shoes, socks and underwear, or a spring jacket
- food other than pasta and bread
- a broom, or working vacuum
- Draino, so I can take a shower without it being a bath
- burnable CDs, so I could download more Lost, Housewives, or Simpsons
- beer, wine, pencils, and other teaching supplies
- a bus or train ticket to anywhere-not-Szolnok this weekend
- a plane ticket to a sunny, tropical island paradise.

What I will actually do with my precious 48,000 forint: buy a one-way ticket to hell... and back. Specifically, an 8-day bus trip to London with 40 of my students and 3 of the other English teachers. Back a couple months ago, when I agreed to come along and paid the first half of the fee, no one held a gun to my head to force me to come. They laid out two perfectly reasonable options: pay 88,000 forint for this lovely trip, OR stay behind for the week and pick up all the extra English classes. So I made what seemed to be the obvious choice, particularly since at the time I had nothing better to spend the money on. Well... things change.

My mind would also be less financially-occupied if my private students would stop playing musical chairs with me. Student A moved his lesson from last week to today, and wanted it at the same time. So I asked B if we could meet at a later time today. Then A called to cancel today completely, but can we meet tomorrow instead? Fine, so I was reveling in my free hour when C called and wanted me to meet his friend D because she needed to talk to a native speaker. ARGH! The ending is, none of this would bother me in the least if I felt like the money I get for my troubles was going toward something worthwhile. But it’s not, so it does.

Poor Girls' Spring Break

An update on the House War coming is coming in the next entry. But now, a recap of Spring Break: Szolnok.

Last week Wednesday seems eons ago. But, as I may have mentioned once or twice, there was a basketball game. Despite various handicaps, not the least of which were Davis being out of the game with a snapped ankle, as well as having to dodge the beer people kept throwing, the Olaj managed to pull off a 76-56 victory. Hajrá, Olaj! After the game, Mike, Juli and I celebrated.

Laura arrived Thursday, and we continued the celebration. Mike, not yet fully appreciating the wonder that is a Poor Girls’ vacation, departed for Budapest and points beyond, leaving Laura and I to spend the remainder of the break cooking (paprikás csirke, galuska, and onion rings, all successful), venturing out daily to check on the rivers (rising, flooding), watching movies, and getting Laura addicted to Lost (unfortunately, on the last day).

Today, Tuesday, we drove with Juli and her father to Budapest. Juli was going to the American Embassy to be interviewed for her visa application. She got it! They gave her a one-year tourist visa. Gratulálok, Juli! (She also got a really cool pair of new sneakers, not from the Embassy, and I got some books. But of course the visa is the most important part. Hence the parentheses, indicating a digression or afterthought. All right, I’m done).

PS - how could I forget? Our majorest accomplishment of the break was setting up the new CETP newsletter / blog, which anyone and everyone can check out at CETP Newsletter.

That’s all for real.

Ultimatum

I returned from my Transylvania sojourn to discover that 3A (Apartment And Appliances, aka my flat and all things in it) has turned against me. After the Water War, I thought we had reached a peace accord, but 3A’s treachery is beyond belief. This morning, he (and it has to be male; nothing female would give me this much trouble) decided to go with a five-pronged attack, one in each room. In the kitchen: my sink is falling apart and covered with goo. In the bedroom: my alarm went off an hour early today. In the hallway: the faint but ominous smell of gas. In the bathroom: the toilet is making alarming gurgling noises. Most disturbing, in the living room: as I was using my extra hour of time this morning to watch channel 22, MTV, it suddenly switched to channel 21, but was still MTV. Intrigued, I examined the problem, and discovered that about half of my 38 precious channels are now fuzz. Grrr.

Granted, some of the problems may have been caused or exacerbated by me - ahem, such as leaving dishes lying in the sink for a week while I tromped around Romania, or forgetting to change my alarm back to Hungarian time. But! The toilet? The TV? The deadly gas?? These are not things you can mess with! The TV especially - you took away my Viva!! So, 3A, here it is: in the spirit of generosity, I’ll give you a couple days to shape up. After that, if you fail to meet my already super-low standards... there will be war.

The Great Transylvanian Experiment, Take Three

Day Zero - Inauspicious Beginnings

The first leg of the journey, for me at least, was getting from Szolnok to Budapest. Normally, this is not at all problematic, but since I had the grand idea that arriving into Nyugati would simplify my inter-Pest traveling, it became more complicated. Not the least of my problems was that the train was 45 minutes late. Anyway, I arrived in Pest, and arrived at the Kollégium.

And arrived at the second problem. Or, if “problem” is too strong a word, maybe I could just say “situation”. I met the other Americans. How? By standing in my room and listening for other American voices, which drifted loud and clear down the hall. I poked my head in and asked, “Are you Hajni’s Americans?” to which they replied in the affirmative. I had found the group of Lexia students.

Let me clarify this. In addition to CETP, Hajni also runs the Lexia Student Exchange Program, which I did in 2003. When we went to Transylvania in the fall, the entire trip was CETP teachers, but for this trip, in addition to 6 teachers and one teacher’s boyfriend, we also have Lexia students from Krakow, Budapest, and Berlin.

Right, so I met up with the bulk of the students, who are from the Berlin leg of Lexia. Two things which occurred to me after meeting them: one, that I need to stop teasing Janos about being the old man. Two, a memory of a conversation we had some weekend, I think in Tiszaújváros, when we were all together and discussing the upcoming trip. Someone, possibly Liz, said something about how not fun the trip would be, to travel around on a bus with a bunch of rowdy college students. Someone else, possibly me, came back with, “How bad could they be?” because really, we’re mostly only a couple years removed from them. Ha ha. I’m eating those words now.

Day One - Nagyvárad and Bánffyhunyad

Today we drove a lot and visited two churches.

Despite a late start, due to flood-related transportation problems, we were on the road by 7:30. My fellow travelers this time around are:

The Adults are almost the same as last time: Hajni; András, our translator; Péter, our bus driver; unfortunately this time our guide isn’t Sándor, but instead we have a quiet young woman named Ildikó.

The Teachers: myself, Nicole, Jess, Jenn, Jillian, Tara, and Tara’s boyfriend Tom.

The Kids (the Lexia students): one from Krakow, Mike; one from the new Hungary-and-Romania program, Meghan; and a whole large group from Berlin. Their names escape me, and until any of them do anything to distinguish themselves from the group, I’m just going to refer to them collectively as The Kids.

We drove across Hungary, past Szolnok and eastward. We made it to the border and across without major hassle; we were through by 2 o’clock. I had a brief reminder of my earlier feeling of inauspiciousness as the first sight I saw in Romania was a dead sheepdog lying in a ditch (a sight which, sadly, was not a singular event). We stopped in Nagyvárad to see the a church. After leading us to the main walking street, Hajni let us loose for half an hour to exchange money and scavenge up some food. On the way back to the bus, Jillian and I walked past two younger girls who made a comment about Americans, then turned around to see how we would react. Unfortunately, at the same time Jillian and I turned around to see where the group was. The girls started cracking up, we started cracking up, and when we meandered back towards the group, they started following us. They followed the group for a couple of blocks - unlike so many people, ranging from sketchy to sad, who would follow around a group of Americans begging or pick pocketing, these were just two bored girls. So all was well, until we got back to the bus, when One Of The Kids thought it would be a nice parting gift to make idiot faces at the girls. At which point, they started sulking, and The Kids started snapping pictures. Not that I didn’t have the same impulse. But I didn’t.

After Nagyvárad, we headed into the Kalotaszeg region. When we came over the Királyhágó pass, Hajni announced that we were officially in Transylvania. We applauded tiredly. We stopped in Bánffyhunyad to visit the 13th century Protestant church there. András told me I should give the speech, since I’ve heard it twice before. Actually, I was proud of how much of the speech I could understand in Hungarian, before András translated it.

The first evening was, as it has been on my two previous tours, the village of Kalotaszentkirály. We all had dinner together in one room, at two tables to which we automatically separated ourselves: Kids at one table, Teachers at another. Jillian said she felt like we were the camp counselors of the group. Dinner was a veggie and meat soup, followed by rice and veal, and a pastry for dessert which was sort of like a powdered-sugar-covered, light, spiral donut. Plus palinka, of course. Amazing.

After dinner, Hajni divided us up into groups for the night, and although we schemed to all be put together, we were split. After the Dividing, we all sat around for a while, until we staged a coup d’état by standing up and putting on coats under the pretense of huddling around the stove. It worked; everyone stood up and started moving towards the door. Good job, Teachers - way to instigate some social change.

Day Two - Körösfö, Kolozsvár

Today we drove a lot and visited one and a half churches.

This morning, we three girls (myself, Jess, and Jenn) walked back up to the place we had dinner for breakfast. It was the traditional spread of bread, meat cheese, rosehip jam tea and coffee. Mmm, coffee. At breakfast, we plotted our attack on the bus - we were determined to snag good places and let The Kids share seats today. Success! The bus picked us up first, and Jillian and Nicole were the only two on time to the meeting places, so we staked our claims.

Our first stop of the day was Körösfö, which has nothing in the way of tourist attractions other than dozens of tiny shops and stands lining the single street, which is actually a highway with cars and semis rushing past. So in my mind, it will always be the Highway Mall village. This time around, I managed to restrain myself a bit, and despite much drooling over embroideries and pottery, I got back on the bus having only spent 55 lei ($18) on two rugs. (And yes, I know that it was only a couple weeks ago that I spent $35 on rugs at Ikea. I’m sorry, I’m developing a new obsession or something. But there are far worse things I could be spending money on. At least rugs are practical.)

The next chunk of the day was spent in Kolozsvár. We saw the Farkas utcai Reformist Church and part of the medieval town wall. We walked past the Babes-Bolyai University, which in a past life was the Franz Joseph University where my great-great grandmother Katalin earned her degree in midwifery. We wandered around the town, saw the main square, the statue of King Mátyás and the Szent Mihály Church, but only from the outside (hence the “half a church”). We listened to Horváth István’s speech about the problems of the minorities in Transylvania, which was informative as always (I’ve now seen it four times). After the speech, Hajni let us loose in the town. Jillian, Jenn, Nicole and I immediately headed for coffee and pastries, followed by a toothbrush-hunt (successful) and a bathroom-hunt (also successful) before we hopped back on the bus.

As a final note, I have to say that the best part of Kolozsvár was when Péter ran a red light and got pulled over by the cops. Nothing came of it, because Ildikó jumped out and saved us with protestations of, “We’re just a bunch of American tourists; we need to find food and bathrooms and exchange money and we only have one hour in your beautiful town...” But it was funny anyway.

The planned final stop of the day was the Torda Canyon. Thankfully, it was drizzly all day and Hajni and the driver decided not to risk the possibility that the muddy roads might swallow the bus (not to mention us walking). So, hooray, no canyon. It was beautiful last time, but the walk back up nearly killed a good group of us. In fact, I seem to recall Hajni vowing never again with the canyon... but apparently her memory isn’t as good as mine.

The back-up plan was a tour of the Torda Salt Mine. Words fail me. Salt is beautiful. It forms in waves and swirls, it drips down in massive stalactites, and it grows to cover the cut walls and underground buildings like delicious crystal barnacles. Mmm, salty. Yes, I licked one of the walls. And broke chunks off the ceiling. No goiters for me!

Our overnight stop was in Torocko, the village where the sun rises twice (because of the giant mountain. Remember the giant mountain?) Once again, we had dinner together, and once again, we self-segregated. The Teachers sat on the left, the Kids sat on the right, and the Adults sat in the middle, joined by a couple of the less-bubble-headed Kids. Dinner was a creamy meat-stock soup with carrot pieces and rice, followed by noodles and pork in a paprikás sauce, and something like cinnamon cake/bread for dessert. Because we were following the local tradition, we had a pálinka as an aperitif, in addition to as a palate-cleanser between courses.

In the evening, after dispersing to our houses to drop off luggage, we reconvened in the town square to search out a bar. The Teachers plus Ildikó ended up at the same bar where last time a farmer invited Laura for a ride on his tractor, and other such shenanigans. It was interesting to talk to her (Ildikó, I mean). She’s Hungarian, of course, living in Satu Mare with her husband and two small sons. She said that this is actually her first tour, which surprised me because although she is shy around Hajni and András, it’s obvious that she knows so much about everything we see and do. I like her - if I come on this trip a fourth time, I hope she’s our guide again.

Day Three - Marosvásárhely and Korond

Today we drove a lot and visited one church, one museum, and a culture house.

After a group breakfast, we toured the Torocko Ethnography Museum. I’ve only been there once before, and I was just as interested this time. Too bad others didn’t follow my example.

After the museum, we hopped on the bus for the long ride to Marosvásárhely. As yesterday, it was rainy and yucky, but nevertheless we tramped through the city to visit their Orthodox church. The iconostasis and sheer level of opulent decoration was almost enough to make me convert.

Continuing the day’s theme of overwhelming opulence, our next stop was the Kultura Palota to marvel at the painted walls (I’m thinking about doing some folk-style embellishment when I do my hallway) and stained-glass windows.

Our last stop of the day was the pottery-making village of Korond. As usual, after a brief tour of one of the pottery-makers, we and our cash were let loose on the village. I made a pre-planned purchase of two vases, one blue and one brown & green. The most exciting part of the trip was that for a brief few minutes in Korond, a tiny village in the Carpathian foothills, my laptop picked up a wireless signal. But not long enough nor strong enough to get online.

The evening we spent in Zetelaka. Tara, Tom, Nicole and I were together in a house, owned by Lukács Erzsébet and her husband Tibor, and daughter Annamari, who was dragged out of her comfortable position glued to the computer to speak some English for us. Erzsébet cooked us soup, stuffed cabbage, and dessert, and filled and refilled our glasses with homemade pálinka and homemade wine. Oh, wonderful. I could have stayed forever, but retreating back upstairs to a warm, downy bed had it’s own appeal.

Day Four - Segesvár and other things

Today we drove not as much an usual and saw two churches and a castle.

The theme for the day had to be something along the lines of “so close, yet so far away.” Example number one: on our itinerary, all it said for day four was Segesvár, and spending the night in Zetelaka. Since the two places are relatively close, and having done Segesvár twice now, I knew it wasn’t going to take all day, I was wondering what we were going to do with all the extra time. The answer: we took the long road and made various side excursions, to Nagygalambfalva to see the Reformist fortified church, and to Cris to see a Renaissance era castle that belonged to the Bethlen family.

Example number two is more personal. We were so close to both Bögöz (where as a Lexia student I stayed with the Demeter family, my favorite memory from that trip) and Medgyes (near to which my family came from, a few generations back), but obviously we didn’t stop in either.

Segesvár is important for two reasons: it’s the city where Dracula was born, and it was formerly one of the biggest Saxon towns. We used the restroom in the café next to Vlad’s birthplace before visiting the Saxon Monastery Church. The speaker about the church spoke German and Romanian, which made for some interesting translation work. After an attempt for her to speak in German for one of the Lexia Berliners to translate failed miserably (she made it three sentences, but I knew it was doomed when she mistranslated Wilkommen. And apparently her German is the best of the group. Honestly, what do these kids learn?), the church lady switched into Romanian, which went through Ildikó and András to become Hungarian, then English. Ever the linguist, I was fascinated by the process, but I may have been the only one.

After the church, we walked up the Covered Steps to the Church on the Hill, and then Hajni released us for the day. We had an unheard of two hours free, so I stuck out with Nicole, Jess, and Jillian to find lunch. It was a bit of an adventure, first to find a restaurant, and then to order. Three of us opted for what appeared in English as “Frankfurten with bread and mustard,” which we assumed could only be bratwurst. Wrong! They turned out to be nasty, pale pink, bologna-like hot dogs. Despite trepidation, we ate them. They lacked any flavor outside the mustard, so I guess the best thing about our “bratwurst” was that none of us got sick. Yet.

The days’ third and final example of “so close, yet so far away,” is in the situation of the gypsy beggar children which abounded in Segesvár and the roads to and from. Their physical proximation (close, very close - they run up and grab at you, or knock on the bus windows) contrasts with their social distance from us (far, obviously far. I can’t imagine what they think of us).

The evening we spent again in Zetelaka. Dinner was subdued, despite Erzsébet’s attempts to ply us with food and drink. We ended up not going out to the disco as planned, but instead Tara, Tom, Nicole and I sat around upstairs and played cards and drank the two bottles of water they gave us. Yes, we sat around drinking water. It was great. One of the bitchier things we did was go over The Kids and try to figure out who was who. Since none of them will ever read this, and I think it’s funny, here’s the descriptions we came up with:

Josh - surfer who wants to be a doctor
Sean - the one with the beard
Michael - nice kid from Krakow. As smart as the rest put together
Meghan - the Budapest / Romania program
Ursula - trendy beyond belief, maybe not in a good way. Iowan
Aurora - dumb as bricks. Asked, “What’s hay for?” Wears leggings and moccasins
Anya - chubby, sweet face like a cow, and personality & brains to match
Stefanie - quiet, loner, takes a lot of photos
Kelsey - the screecher. Fashion major, wears the tucked jeans
Leah - quiet beatnik. Looks “like a New York poet”
Erika - has a cool scarf. Artsy, in a good way. Bought a porcelain Milka cow
Colleen - small loud Irish girl

Day Five - Communist Buildings, and Nature

Today we drove a lot, up and down mountains, and saw two churches with much embarrassment.

The theme of today was nature, namely in the form of water (the Killer Lake) and earth (the Frags’ Canyon). But before we would get to that, we stopped in Máréfalva to look at the painted gates, in Lövétebánya (I think) to taste the mineral water, and in Csikszereda. Csikszereda is a marvel of communist architecture (much like Szolnok; I felt at home). After we saw the Clapping Square, where crowds were forced to stand for hours and clap for Ceausescu, we moved on to see the Roman Catholic church designed in the new Organic style by Makovecz Imre, a friend of Hajni and András. The fact that it was Palm Sunday was a bit awkward, to say the least. There we were, indifferent group of 20 Americans, standing in their courtyard listening to a lecture while they were trying to conduct a service. It was worse when we got back on the bus and drove up to see the bigger Csíksomlyó church. It was surrounded by hundreds of cars and thousands of people, who stared at us passively as the bus made two passes by the church, driving slowly through the crowd.

Finally, we left the crowds behind and headed nature-wards. We saw the Killer Lake (frozen) and Frags’ Canyon (cold but sunny), but since I’m getting lazier and lazier, I’m going to skip over elaborate description. One is a lake, with a bunch of petrified trees in it, and one is a dramatic rock canyon. You can guess which is which. More important than describing either of them was the fact that Hajni moved to the back of the bus (she hates heights, so driving over a narrow mountain pass isn’t her favorite part of the trip) and we got to talk for a couple hours. So this was definitely my favorite part of the day.

The last night we spent at the Motel Dorina, which is not the hotel the group normal stays at. After a mediocre dinner made better by the Teachers splitting 4 bottles of wine, I got ready for bed, but was sucked into playing cards and drinking with some of the Kids. And I discovered that, who knew, some of them are actually cool people. I mean, with brains and all.

Day Six - Marosvásárhely, and homewards

Today we drove a lot, a lot a lot, and saw some gas stations.

After an even-less-than-mediocre breakfast (veto on the Motel Dorina), we backtracked a few minutes to Marosvásárhely to listen to a speech by the Hungarian vice-mayor of the town. It was interesting, but not worth reiterating here. After the speech, we settled back on the bus for the nearly 12-hour drive back across Romania and Hungary. We stopped in Kolozsvár to drop off Meghan, and in Satu Mare to drop of Ildikó. András and Hajni tried to spice up the journey by teaching us Hungarian folk songs (anyone from last time, remember the cinege-cinege song?) and András gave a quiz about the things we had learned in Transylvania, the prize being a can of authentic Transylvanian beer. But it was a long day.

Finally we made it to Budapest. I spent the night at Jess, came back to Szolnok, canceled my private lessons, and am sitting here now typing these final thoughts.

Speaking of final thoughts on the trip, here they are: Transylvania is the same. It’s beautiful, and I know I will go back again and again. The people were different this time around, and I can’t say for the better. This wasn’t just the fault of the Kids; there just wasn’t the group chemistry of the October group.

But overall, good trip. I’m looking forward to trying again next fall.

Messages

This is an idea I stole from Priest’s blog (which I love despite it’s angst), who stole it from Darkneuro (whose blog scares me), and hopefully someone will steal it from me. The idea is, you write ten messages, things you wish you could say to people but probably never will. The only other rules are that you don’t say who each message is for, and you can only write one to a person. Because I have problems following directions, I wrote 11. I’m also going to cheat a tiny bit and tell you that one is to a student, three are to CETPers, six are to Americans, five are to Hungarians, five are to men, six are to women, one is to two people, and one is to more than two people. So here goes:

1. I like being around you but I can’t stand how you use humor to keep people at a distance. You’re so good at it, it’s barely obvious 90% of the time. Which makes it all the more disturbing and sad when your facade slips. You’re a great person, but you need psychological help.

2. If we had met in America, I wouldn’t have liked you. I don’t know if being in Hungary has made me a more accepting person or maybe I’m just desperate for English-speaking contact, but in any case I am thankful beyond words that you’re in my life.

3. You are my icon. It’s for you that I try to live a good life and be a good person.

4. You are the victim of the most terrible thing I’ve ever done, and I’m not sorry.

5. Once a week you terrorize me without feeling the least bit of regret or shame about it. I can’t imagine what is in your head to make you believe that the way you behave is anywhere near acceptable. I think deep down you are just a horrible human being and I don’t think you’ll make it past age 30 without being killed or incarcerated or both.

6. I wish I were part of your family.

7. I wish you could understand me. In either language. In any langauge.

8. I don’t miss you as much as I tell you I do. In fact, I barely miss you at all.

9. I miss you more than I can say. I don’t think a day has gone past when I haven’t thought about seeing you. I drive myself crazy making up scenarios: What if my doorbell rang and it was you? What if I were walking up the street and saw you standing there? What if I ran into you in the store? I know it’s completely impossible but I can’t stop. Just thinking about you makes me smile, makes me calm, makes me whole.

10. When only the two of us are together, I enjoy being with you. When there are other people around, you act like a completely different person, and not a better one.

11. I think about you every couple of weeks and it scares me that it should be so infrequently. I’m afraid that when there’s no one tying us together, we’ll lose touch completely and that there might be a point when you’re not part of my life at all.

That’s all for now - tomorrow afternoon I’m off to Transylvania, so in about a week I should be back with some new stories. Hopefully good ones.

Lazing

Having spent I-don’t-even-know-how-many weekends in Szolnok, this last weekend an escape was long overdue. So Friday afternoon I hopped a bus Kiskunhalas-ward in search of adventure and booze. Success on both counts.

Since spring has finally arrived to stay in Hungary, we made it our mission on Saturday to get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine. Granted, this took almost until noon to accomplish, due to an extreme laziness and lack of motivation. Finally we settled on a goal: finding the Kkhalas river, which appeared on the map as a tiny blue line snaking through the city. A secondary goal was the two pubs the map indicated on either side of the bridge.

Well, the “river” didn’t really live up to it’s name. Unless you picture a river as a garbage-filled, stagnant channel. Which I don’t. We did run into some interesting characters along the “banks” of the “river”, including frogs, turtles, a tribe of dogs and a tribe of gypsies.

The pubs turned out to be quite similar to the river - dead, ugly, and sketchy - so we settled on a marginally better place near the bus station. After lunch, having satisfied the need to spend time outside, we retreated back indoors for an afternoon of lazing (and yes, that is an actual verb. I looked it up. Not that I’m overly concerned with whether the words I use are “real” or not - why start now? But in my opinion, both the verb “to laze” and the action itself are underused. And I’m trying my best to remedy both).

Wait, where was I? Oh, who cares. I’m skipping ahead to Sunday morning, when we got up, I won’t say early, but it did involve an alarm, in order to go to the fantastic, first-weekend-of-the-month market, which is held on a big field outside of town (near the “river,” actually). There are miles of booths filled with clothes, tools, produce, electronics, housewares, textiles, and pretty much any other type of junk you could imagine. The best part (and the reason for the alarm): at the far side of the field, an entire section devoted to animals. Horses, cows, the occasional sheep, and the most adorable little pigs (as well as some that weren’t so cute). We spent a good time ogling the animals, but went home empty-handed.

Although I didn’t come back to Szolnok empty-handed; I managed to steal 6 books, which should keep me reading for the next month or so. Wait, I forgot that I’ll be spending a week on a bus, followed by a week lazing around my flat not working. So, maybe for half a month. Well, we’ll see.