Komarom

Justin and I took a “field trip” one Saturday afternoon to Komarom. It’s a small town that is about 15 miles from Tata on the banks of the Danube river. It was originally one town that spanned both sides of the river, but with the down-sizing of Hungary after the Treaty of Trianon, the land north of the Danube went to Slovakia, and the land south remained Hungarian. Today, the town is still split in two and there is a Slovakian and a Hungarian town. We walked through the Hungarian side, which is much younger than the Slovakian side, and has no historic city center, and then decided to head to the Slovakian side. In Slovakia, there is the historic center of the town and a new “Europe Park.” Europe Park features buildings from many different European countries all in one courtyard area. We had a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant where a little dog decided to join us and beg for food. It was a cute dog, but not so welcome at our table. We weren’t able to go into any of the three forts in Komarom - Justin has seen one of them already, but I hope to return soon to do so. It was a nice afternoon trip - maybe we're testing out how well we can handle traveling together - here's hoping we can get out and about in Hungary together. I almost pushed him into a bus at one point as a joke, but I made up for it later ;) he forgave me.

Dream...

As I did some research for lessons on inauguration and the new president I came across a book that sounded interesting to me.  It’s called “Dream, a Tale of Wonder, Wisdom and Wishes” by Susan V. Bosak.  It is a very interesting project that brings together 15 of the world’s top illustrators and there are different sayings and quotes about life’s hopes and dreams.  I thought it was beautifully done, and enjoyed reading it and looking at the amazing illustrations.  The story was used with school children who then put their dreams for President Obama on Stars and mailed them to him so he received them on January 20^th, inauguration day.  Though the day had passed, I thought the idea was interesting.  I read the book to some of my students, and distributed a star to each of them.  I had them put their dream in their star and we displayed the project in the main hallway of the school.  Here are the results of their work.

Favorites...

I think these two pictures are my favorite that I have taken so far – I thought I’d share them with you.  If you click on the picture, you can enlarge it.

Take advantage of nice days…

One Thursday morning, I decided it would be nice to take one of my “school-leaving” classes out for a walk as opposed to making them do English exercises.  Though they were not dressed for it, we headed off to the bakery and then to sit by the lake for a bit.  Here are pictures of one of my classes. Take advantage of nice days…

 

Tornado

This Tornado was parked at school the other day, no doubt transporting some elderly lady on her way from home to some errands.  I thought you’d enjoy another peek at the Tornado in all it’s glory.  

Basketball

I have become used to rising early to watch the morning basketball matches at school.  Yes, the students play basketball before school starts – tip-off is 7am.  While it is just an inter-school league that plays, the game has become quite competitive.  Unfortunately there are always some unfortunate match-ups between 9^th graders and 12^th graders.  The 12^th graders tower over these students and score no fewer than 50-60 points more than the 9^th graders.  Though, the 9^th graders on one particular team never give up.  They try their hardest, and though they rarely score in the double digits, they play like it’s the championship game – they just can’t make a basket to save their lives.    I always cheer for the underdogs, and I have resorted to shouting at my students to stop scoring points – and to let the other kids have a chance.  The other interesting thing is that they utilize other basketball players as the referees.  Note in the last picture, how intensely the ref (in the blue shirt) is focusing on the game being played in front of him… ahhhhh Hungarian love.

Postal workers again!!!

Here is another picture of a postal employee – I’m sure the postal workers are thrilled that I have not received any mail recently, because it makes their load quite a bit lighter.  

Hungarian food

I had a bit of a setback while shopping for spices the other day.  I was at the Intersparr (which is a little fancier than TESCO – ok, a lot fancier) the other day looking for different spices.  I usually have an okay time because there is typically a picture of the particular spice on the cover of the packet it comes in.  Intersparr in their attempt to be fancy, have put a plethora of spice pictures on their packages so you have NO idea which spice is actually in the packet.  UGH.  I stil don’t know what this spice is… any thoughts?

 

Also at the Intersparr, something I have not seen – even after almost 10 years in the grocery business.  Anti-theft devices on meat.  The Hungarians love their sausage I guess…

Hungarian packaging

For some reason, Hungarians are obsessed with putting things in tubes like the old school toothpaste tubes.  I have an array of Hungarian products that come in a tube, mostly just so I could take a picture and blog about them, but there are lots of different things one can get in a tube fashion.  In this picture, there is Gulyas Cream (for making Gulyas), milk for your coffee (tej), Englischer (I have no idea what this is, and I don’t intend to find out), mustard, mayonnaise catsup.  I love this country.

Boo...

Boo has started to become a little more brave in her explorations of the house. She has recently become fascinated with the faucets – she particularly liked the old kitchen one because it dripped constantly, and she also is a little more brazen when she goes out on the deck. This week, she went into heat for the first time. She started one morning by making repetitive high pitched meowing noises, and writhing around on her back. She was not sitting on her hind and constantly was in motion. When she was up on the windowsill, she managed to call all the other cats in the neighborhood – it was quite a sight. This was the first time that I had witnessed a cat in heat, and at first I thought she had eaten something bad. I called Megan to ask if she had any advice, and when I described her actions, she immediately figured she was in heat. After I googled videos of cats in heat, I knew that was it, and life was good. Except for when Justin came over and she followed him around and kind of backed her butt up into his leg, apparently hoping for more than a pat on the back. Silly cat. He has spent more time with her lately since he was her cat sitter while we were on vacation. He was so sweet because he'd come over before he had to be in the field, and again at the end of the day. He really did a nice job caring for her, and didn't accept any payment except dinners and kisses!! I also got some wine for his brother Chris who apparently has taken to drinking red wine... but that's all he charged - wine and kisses! What a guy!

Return to Tata

My train trip back was nice, I had a first class car to myself the entire trip.  It was scenic and relaxing, and I was able to wind down a bit from the hustle and bustle of traveling.  When I arrived in Budapest, Justin was at the train station waiting for me… kind of.  He had never traveled to Budapest by train before as they usually go in a military van or in some sort of caravan.  So, I gave him instructions as to how to go about getting to Budapest, and more specifically the train station that I was going to be arriving to, and I thought we were all set.  About 30 minutes before my train was to arrive to Deli-Palyudvar (the station) he sent me a text that he was at Keleti-Palyudvar (the OTHER train station).  I instructed him to get out on the metro and head to the other station and eventually he made it and found me.  He meant well, but got on the wrong train because he arrived at the Tata train station extra early.  It was really nice to see him again, and even nicer to have someone carry some of my stuff.  We returned to my apartment, and to my surprise, Justin had fixed my sink in the kitchen!!  I don’t know if I have mentioned much about the sink in earlier blogs, but at one point, I was under the sink with tools in one hand, and my computer in the other video-calling my parents to see if they could help me solve the problem.  The sink constantly ran, and I had to crawl under the sink and turn the water on and off each time I wanted to use it.  Riley and Justin spent the better part of an evening, if not more time, taking out the old faucet (which was nearly impossible) and after four trips to the hardware store, they had it fixed.  I guess the jigsaw caused a bit of a ruckous, and the police were called, but someone must have explained that it wasn’t a problem as they never came to the apartment.  It’s nice to have a handy person around – since my parents, also handy, had just left.  He also had spent the week bonding with Boo as he took care of her on a daily basis.  I think the neighbors were a bit freaked out at first since this bulky stranger had a code for the front door, but I don’t think he gets weird looks anymore.  He was, and continues to be, very thoughtful and helpful with lots of different things.  

Lake Bled II

We got up early and had a wonderful breakfast.  There was quite a spread at this place (the Mayer Pension) and it was delicious.  Probably not the kind of place I’m used to staying in, where you can pack an extra sandwich and call it lunch… we left for a day of walking around Bled.  When we got to the lake, we decided to take one of the man-powered boats to the church on an island in the middle of the lake.  The boats are specially made in Slovenia, and (from what I remember) it is the only place they are used.  There is a special flat bottom on the boat, and a single gondolier type person.  It was calm on the lake and we enjoyed the trip both out and back.  We got to talking to the other people on the boat and there was a family of Slovenians who talked a bit about life under Tito, two Japanese who were both studying in Hungary and us.  The island was interesting and (of course) had a gift shop so I was happy. 

After our boat trip, we decided to hike up to the castle that overlooked the lake.  I’m not sure exactly how to put this into words, but one of the three of us was not really thrilled with the idea of walking up this hill to the top… after I encouraged my dad to find some “walking sticks” to help this someone out, we were in a much better place.  My parents have gotten very good at “observing things” in the middle of a taxing walk.  They observed moss, trees, moss, dandelions and moss on their way up the hill.  When we got to the top, we felt good because it’s quite a ways up, but I would have liked to go down that way too… instead we took the easy road – literally- we followed the road down.  The castle itself wasn’t that exciting, but it was a beautiful view and provided for some good picture taking opportunities.  We toured the castle and I purchased some wine from a fake monk.  On our walk home, we stopped at a nice restaurant for lunch.  The place was absolutely packed so that was a good sign.  The owner was a cute man who was very funny and provided a good atmosphere for us to eat in.  We continued on our way home and stopped to purchase some souvenirs.  We got back to the pension and I decided to take the afternoon off – my parents set off on another journey that took them most of the way around the lake again.  They came back and it was then that I realized that I had lost the wine bottle I had purchased that afternoon.  Mom and dad headed back to the souvenir shop to look for it – they didn’t find it there, and then I realized that I left it at the restaurant when I left for the bathroom.  They headed back to the restaurant and when they asked if they had left some wine there, the man replied with “of course- We keep for two months, then we drink.”  Wine in hand, 12 miles on the pedometer, it was a good day for them. 

The next morning we had an early departure.  We ordered a taxi for 6:45 to pick us up.  We decided not to bother with the bus that early in the morning, not to mention hauling all our stuff to the bus station and the potential of running into the driver whose bus I broke… we had a nice smooth ride back into Ljubljana and were at the train station in plenty of time.  We had a drink at McDonalds, retrieved the luggage from the lockers and headed to our respective tracks.  My train was going to Budapest – theirs to Munich.  It was a great trip overall, maybe because we’re all on differing levels of prozac, maybe because absence makes the heart grow fonder, who knows.  It was a great trip, and though I was happy to return to my cat and Tata, I was sad to leave my parents.  

Lake Bled, Slovenia

I won’t go into detail about the trip from the bus station to the pension – because as a result of my mom and dad not listening to instructions and following wrong signs, we added about another 12 miles on our journey.  Ok, not really 12 miles, but we went out of the way, and did not take the most direct route to our accommodation.  When we got there, it ended up being a really nice place- probably the nicest place I have stayed at in a LONG time.  My mom picked well.  We unloaded our stuff and immediately mom tried the internet.  It worked, so life was good – and we headed out to see the lake and the countryside.  Bled is an amazing town that is surrounded by the Julian Alps.  It is breathtaking to see the beautiful lake with the mountains in the background.  There are no motorized vehicles allowed on the lake, so it has managed to be preserved quite well.  There is a particular atmosphere about the lake that is tranquil and to the many who travel there annually, healing.  We had a nice lunch right on the lake, and wandered up to the church on the lakeside.  We had an early evening and prepared for what would be a busy day.  

Ljubljana - ctd.

Day two Ljubljana, we wandered a bit through town.  We had seen most of the things in the historic part of town so we didn’t spend too much time out and about. We decided to take an early bus to Lake Bled so that we could get ourselves settled in town when it was still light out.  It was easy enough to get things figured out, though when I first asked about train times, they gave me a schedule and failed to mention that the train station is actually 2km out of the actual town of Bled.  Not good, so we ended up using the bus system instead.  In my infinite wisdom, we sought out the lockers at the train station, knowing we’d have to return to catch our trains in a couple days, and we left two bags there for two days.  It was nice not to have to worry about the extra pieces while we trekked around Slovenia.  We purchased bus tickets, got some drinks and waited for our bus.  We had all our luggage with us since we were staying in Bled for two nights, so that was a bit cumbersome – but when we got to the bus, the driver helped us load it under the bus.  It was just over an hour to Bled, not really a long trip, but a scenic one.  Slovenia is a beautiful country – I really think everyone should get there at some time in their lives.  At any rate, we got to Bled, and I decided to be proactive, so I opened the luggage door on the bottom of the bus, only to open the wrong one – the broken one.  It raised a bit and then kind of ker-plunked to the right, since it was not connected on the left side at all.  The bus driver high-tailed it out of the bus, and began to yell at me – to be expected I guess.  The funniest part was the man who was seated against the window directly above where I had broken the bus – the look on his face was priceless, translatable in any language “you’re f&@!ed.”  We retrieved our luggage from the correct compartment, and I scurried around the side of the bus station so as to get out of the eyesight of the bus driver.  It seemed to take forever for the bus to pull out and continue on its route, but whatever – shit happens.  

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ljubljana was beautiful.  We were staying near the main square in the historic part of town.  We exited our hotel into a shopping district and a pedestrian street lined with vendors and various sculptures.  We decided it would be in our best interest to get some Euros since we no longer were operating with Croatian currency.  I used my Hungarian card and was able to get money easily.  My dad tried – and once he got through the end of the transaction, he realized that he didn’t get any money out.  We stood and stared at the machine for a while wondering what could have just happened, since I got money and he didn’t…  We tried to seek out help to say “we tried to get money, and it said we got money, but we got no money”  which isn’t easy to do in a country as small as Slovenia and – we had no Slovene that any of us knew.  After we didn’t find anyone to help us, we tried a different machine, and it didn’t work again.  I then tried my card that was the same as my parents, and it didn’t work – so we figured it was the card itself, and not necessarily the machine.  We also paid a little closer attention and realized that the machine had said “you have chosen an invalid transaction” so we did not lose any money as they never actually gave any out of the macine.  At any rate, we hit Ljubljana hard since we only had a day and a half there.  We rode the funicular to the top of the hill where the castle is.  The castle itself was not as impressive as others we had seen (or my parents would see on the rest of their trip).  We did enjoy the view and there was a 3-D movie that explained the history of the city.  We continued to wander through the pedestrian walkways and check out the stores along the way.  When it started to sprinkle a bit, we decided to duck into a little restaurant and get something small to eat.  Mom ordered the “best” bean soup she has ever had – and even I liked it – so it was that good.  We also tried the local beer and a glass of wine.  After lunch we wandered again, and I decided to get my haircut.  There should be an entirely separate blog titled “never let a non-English speaking, tool belt (holding hair clips, combs and scissors) wearing, mullet sporting Slovenian cut your hair after you’ve been drinking”  It didn’t end well for any of us – let me tell you.  I definitely walked out of there with Euro-bangs.  If you don’t know what “euro-bangs” are, they are basically asymmetrical starting in the upper left of my forehead and getting longer to the lower right – and while I’ve had my hair cut like this before, I’ve never had them start as short as these did.  At any rate, we met for dinner and had a nice evening out.  After a few glasses of wine, I began to reminisce about the perceived “deprived childhood” that I didn’t really have, but when you’re young and don’t get your way, you feel like you’re deprived.  Many of the situations were strictly me being a baby about things, but when re-told as an adult, the way I perceived things was not only skewed, but funny.