Friday came with welcome thoughts of the weekend. I taught my 9th graders TGIF- in addition to “straight pimpin” but that’s for a different story. I had 5 classes today, and two of them were double sized because Zsuza was gone somewhere. Sheesh. The 10th graders, who the American teacher had last year, must have not believed that I was serious about anything. The American teacher from last year is known for a couple of things- going to the Tesco (Wal-Mart) every Thursday, playing poker, and not really doing much in class. Well, having me enter the room was a bit of a culture shock for them, but they’ll get used to it. I have no pity for 10th graders in the USA or in Europe. My 11th graders were working with the fall, winter and spring sports programs that Burnsville started putting out under the athletic director Scott Garvis. They were to choose a team and give me 5 statements about the team. Depending on the ability I had them create questions as well. The students of course loved this, because they got their first glimpse into my American High School. They were busy taking cell phone pictures of many of the “good looking ones” and judging what the difference between Nordic and alpine skiing was. They asked where the handball team was, and when I told them that I had only seen handball for the first time in the Olympics, they chided me for my lack of worldly sporting knowledge. Oh well. I end friday with one section of the 9th graders, and they are really fun – so things were good.
After 5 lessons at school (which is quite a load here, but wouldn’t really be if I was at home) I decided to ride the high of my previous night’s performance in town. I was going to ride the bus TO the Tesco. I was going to stop this foolishness of walking two miles to the store, and I was going to ride the bus both ways. Well – that was the plan anyhow… So I confidently had my 180 forint out, and stood with pride at the bus station. I even ventured over to look at the schedule, pretending that I knew what all the bus numbers and times meant, checked my watch and returned to my spot to wait for the bus. I was sure that those around me believed that I was a local Hungarian just interested in riding the local bus, because that’s what local people do. The bus came, I got on, delivered my 180 forint and sat down. I wasn’t sitting very long though, because this bus turned about 300 yards up the road and stopped at the town bus station. Everyone on the bus got off, and he stopped the engine. So, I too got off the bus and began to walk confidently. I wasn’t sure where exactly I was walking, but there was a student of mine on the bus as well, and he kept looking at me wondering if I knew what I was doing since I just paid to ride the bus for two whole minutes. I am a firm believer in doing everything with confidence, so I marched to a bus schedule on the side of the building, again portraying my obvious expertise of the bus system, and stood there long enough to try and convince this student that I knew what I was doing and that this was all a part of the master plan. As soon as he rounded the corner though, I hung my shoulders at my first aborted attempt to get to the Tesco by bus. I ran into two other students waiting there, and when I asked them if they knew which bus went to the Tesco, they laughed and said they were waiting to go to Budapest – they had no idea which bus went there. (as if I were beneath them because I actually live in Tata, as opposed to living here during the school week). Ugh.
I crossed the street to the smaller grocery store that is literally a football field away from my apartment and picked up some groceries there, instead of exploring the treasures of the Tesco. I admit defeat on this occasion, but I am not finished with you Tata bus system.
That night was the “party” at school. Talk about awkward. First of all, one thing that must be understood is that Hungarians don’t really operate on the clock that Americans do. When they say 8:00, it means 8:15. When they say 6:00, they really mean about 6:20. So earlier in the day, I was “asked” in very Hungarian fashion, “you go to the party? Be there at 6” which was not only a request but a demand at the same time. Be aware of saying maybe to anything because it essentially equates to a firm yes. My response was “yeah, I was thinking about it” and I was told “see you at 6.” Ok then, 6 it is. Well, I strolled into the court yard at 5:50, since I like to be early, and there were three other people there. Really? Kick ass party. Ugh. So I sat on a bench and waited for other people to show up. I did take note of the treats that were set out for people – nice looking rolls with cheese, and champagne. Wait, what? Alcohol at a school party? Hmmm…. Europe is so fascinating. Eventually people rolled in and some even sat to talk to me. Many people are trying to hard to give me all of the English words they know, it’s actually very cute. However, at an occasion like this, I am limited in terms of who I can talk to – since many of them either don’t know who I am, or don’t speak English. People continued to mingle, and one of the school secretaries sat next to me for a bit. She also teaches one class of math in English, and yet her English is weak at best. Can that make me nervous? Anyhow, we were sitting there, and then all of a sudden at 6:22, she rose, clapped her hands and declared, “we start now” thus began the program. It started with the deputy headmaster saying thanks for coming, yaddah yaddah yaddah. Then the Headmistress spoke, and then we had a toast- with alcohol – at a school party. This was crazy. There were students all over, some of them serving the drinks in fact, and there was champagne without alcohol and water as well. But there were teachers (some, not all) parents and community members out in the courtyard of the school toasting to the fact that they did not become a private Catholic school. Interesting. After the Headmistress, there were going to be some student and faculty performances. I was looking forward to hearing some cultural things as the kids could show off their talent. One young man got up and recited a poem from a famous Hungarian poet – they are VERY into their poets here. It was during his recitation that I decided that Hungarian sounds either like the chef from the Muppets, or like someone playing a backwards record. Not the prettiest language, but interesting to listen to none the less. Megan thinks that there are really only 4 Hungarian words and they say them with different tones just to mess with all the other people. Following the poem, there were musical performances. You can imagine my surprise when the first song performed was the theme song from Friends, with strange accents. They continued with two other songs in English, and then a bigger band came out to play. I was thinking, ok, now I’ll get some Hungarian traditional music. Wrong again. They played a cheesy song that I don’t remember the name of, but it’s a jazz song circa 1970- I’d imagine not really connected to the Hungarian music scene, but whatever it’s a party. I chatted with my colleagues from the English department. Mirtill brought Peter – and I asked him if he was still sore from hauling all my luggage… he said of course he was not, but he totally thinks I’m a spaz I swear. I saw the funny gym teacher who says “good morning” no matter what time of day it is, and he offered me an additional glass of champagne. I nodded and said I’d like one, and he poured one and said “egeszsegere” (with some accents my computer doesn’t do) – the Hungarian version of “cheers” and I walked away. He’s trying so hard, he just has no English to work with, and my Hungarian leaves much to be desired yet.
After the party, I was to travel to the train station to pick up Megan. She was coming from Papa to visit for the weekend. Papa is about two hours away by train, if you go through Gyor. Since I was still unsure about the busses and such, I gladly accepted a colleague’s offer to drive me to the train station. The big train station, not the ghetto hole that I was at when I went to Budapest the weekend before. As I was turning to leave, I got tapped on the shoulder, and it was the mom from the Budapest train. She whipped out the double cheek kiss, and I went with it, since apparently we are now good friends. I explained to the English teachers who she was, and they conversed about me in Hungarian. She told the teachers that I was very resourceful to get all the way to the train station, but her bubble was burst when I told them I walked there for lack of better understanding of the bus system. We chatted through the English teachers for a while, and I told her I will be traveling to Budapest next weekend, and I asked if she wanted to come along for the ride?! She thinks I’m quite funny.
I got to the train station in plenty of time to pick up Megan – and I observed some interesting things at night at a sparsely populated train station. First, the bathrooms don’t have lights that work, second there were homeless people who fully got out sleeping bags to sleep under the lights of the station (I’d think that the noise of the trains would be distracting) and last, there are some creepy people who hang out at the train station at night. She arrived on time and we rode the bus back into town. I have no problem getting back home on the buses, it’s just getting somewhere that trips me up.
We enjoyed some wine and had a nice night comparing stories from our first week of teaching. I was glad that there was another native speaker in my presence!!!
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