It's My Name Day!!!

Today, Sept. 3öth, all boys named Jeromos celebrate together. It's like a birthday around these parts. Seeing no day for "Jeremy" on the Hungarian calendar, I adopted Jeromos. Close, no?

I wrote it up on the board in the teachers office alongside "Nevnap" and everyone clapped. No chocolate or gifts, though. But then super-student Gitta told me that Jeromos is a better translation for Jerome and Jeremios is Jeremy or Jeremiah. I sometimes choose to ignore pertinent facts when it gives me the excuse to celebrate myself, but who doesn't?

Apparently I did not get the memo that yesterday was a nation-wide holiday. I went to first hour, no one was there. Everyone was in the main corridor, huddled around a podium. I pulled Gitta aside and made her translate the morning's celebration. Hungary is still transfixed on a 1849 battle against the Hapsburgs, but Gitta couldn't tell me if it was a victory or a loss. It sounded like a funeral, though, so I have my suspicions.

And I had a wonderful conversation yesterday with a boy from one of my classes after school as I walked to dinner. He was dressed in black and white.

J: Hi, what are you doing?
Boy: I'm going to Seattle.
J: No you're not. Someone would have told me if you were going to Seattle.
Boy: No, I'm going to Szolnok.
J: Oh, that's a Hungarian city I know. What are you doing there?
Boy: Going to Seattle.
J: What?
Boy: Going to Teakettle.
J: There's a teakettle in Szolnok? I have not read about it in the guidebooks.
Boy: No. We are going to the Tee-ahh-tear.
J: Oh, you're going to the THE-ahh-tur. Why didn't you just say that?

This weekend is Nyireghaza and Tokay. Should be glorious!

Always Wear Your Running Shoes

I had two options today, in my joy to get to Nyiregyhaza: take a train that left 20 minutes after the end of school or a bus that left three hours after the end of school. I took the later because it was far too long of a day (seven classes in a row) to rush at the end.

So Gitta and I talked for an hour in our after-school lesson. I brought my pictures, she brought hers, and we each picked any five of the pictures for a better explanation. She selected the Badger State Games picture, among others. In exchange, I wanted to know why five-year old Gitta had cow udders attached to her head. Ppre-school theatre at its finest, it turns out.

I took off for the library, made a quick stop because I thought I had plenty of time. After more emails than I should have sent, I set off for home, just two blocks away. But more importantly, my home is two KEYS away from the library, and I was mortified to realize I had neither when I got to my door.

I dug through my bag, I dug through my jacket, I dug through my pockets. Nothing. I raced back to the library, nothing. I lowered my shoulders. I'm not an enjoyer of running, but I ran. I ran in soggy shoes and socks, tie fluttering, because I wanted to get to Nyiregyhaza. I wanted to see American friends. I ran fast, knowing I had thirty minutes to get to the bus station. A usual trip to school takes 15 minutes, and I still needed to pack. I wanted it so bad, though, that I ran fast. I dashed up freshly-mopped steps at school, not knowing how to apologize in Hungarian, grabbed the keys, and looked at my cell phone. Seven minutes had elapsed, I didn't know if I could make it. But I wanted this, I wanted to leave bad. I turned right around and ran. Eight minutes later, I was at home. Either the keys were slowing me down or I was getting tired.

I peed (it seemed to take forever), packed and put on my racing shoes. Five minutes to bus departure time. Backpack fully loaded, I began the long sprint to the bus stop. I made it, thanked will power, and still had enough time to begin to worry that I was getting on the wrong bus, per usual.

Nothing came of my attempts to ask fellow bus riders if I was headed in the right direction. Nothing in English. Nothing in German. But I hopped on, got a ticket, and luck was kind enough to put a colleague on the bus next to me. She speaks Hungarian and German, so it was a laborious 45 minute conversation, but enough to reassure me I was headed toward the train station. When we arrived in Kal, she asked the bus driver when I should get off -- at the exact right stop. Without that information, obtained only in Hungarian, I think I would have died. Providence was smiling on me.

I rode the train for an hour, but we sat for fifteen minutes at a random city, and I began to worry that I would miss the connecting train. As if to augment that fear, Gaines called. While she and Chad had wound up in the wrong city on their voyage to Nyiregyhaza, the city was at least where Laura was planning on meeting me. A happy coincidence. The only bad part was that they were already on the train, and the conductor was blowing the horn.

I told them to go on without me, I'd take the next train if I didn't make it. And there looked to be no way I would make it. But the lights in the distance grew brighter, Miskolc was closer and closer. I strapped my backpack on and leaned out the door. As we were pulling into the station, I leaped out before we had even stopped. The train was still slowing into Platform 8. Providence again, is kind; Gaines, Chad and Laura were sitting on the train at Platform 9, sticking their heads out the window. Crossing the terminal in four giant leaps, I hopped onto the Nyiregyhaza train just as the wheels started to move.

When you come to visit, bring your running shoes.

Disclaimer of Sobriety

My parents -- and my sister -- have let me know that my parents are concerned about my sobriety, and no doubt sanity, here in Hungary. I would like to assure you, the casual reader, that I have a job that I go about during the week, and merely live like a Hungarian on the weekends. Just sampling the culture. When in Rome...

Yesterday and today in class have been fairy tale writing days for some of the kids. Certain that making fun of me is enjoyable for the kids, I encourage them to use me as a character. The curly hair usually makes it obvious who I am. Apparently the word "fairy tale" does not translate well into Hungarian, as I die in most of the drawings, eaten by a shark, monster or giant snake. Happy endings, it turns out, are rare in Hungary.

But my favorite was a set of six drawings, five of which showed me saving a beautiful damsel in distress by slaying the giant set of teeth that was poised to eat her whole. The final picture showed a bed, and the curly haired protagonist atop the damsel in distress. It looked pretty uncomfortable for her based off of the drawing, but the caption below read, "They had good night."

A Few of My Favorite Things

I have many favorite things in Hungary. It would, of course, be very sad to live somewhere and not have favorite things. Some of these are actual "favorites" and others are more along the "wow, that is simply so unbelievable that it has become a favorite" line. These are some of the best:

electric lawnmowers - it's like watching people vacuum their lawns, holding the power cord away from the blade in one hand, while pushing the lawnmower back and forth like a vacuum with the other.

gas prices - next time someone back home complains, tell them to consider Europe. My recent calculation puts gas at $6.27 a gallon. That's a rise of approximately 59 cents since Hurricane Katrina.

"expectations" - I find it rather humorous that I will need to ask my colleagues tomorrow whether I should be happy or concerned that I had more than seven students skip two different classes today. I also should get around to asking, sooner or later, if I should be assigning homework and giving the students grades. On a related note, half of the teachers are leaving Thursday for a school-sponsored staff trip to Italy. I'm not sure how the school will function after they leave, but very few people are worried about the scenario. I, especially, am not worrying as I don't speak Hungarian.

Jon Bon Jovi - the simple fact that Mr. Bon Jovi's musical goodness transcends cultural and linguistic lines makes me very happy.

cabbage noodles served with sugar - Hungarians understand when I don't like mashed up cabbage served with cold noodles and topped off with sugar. I appreciate that.

Librarians - Today I made the librarian smile by proving to her that I knew the Hungarian word for pen. It's "toll."

Mosquitoes - My apartment has been invaded by mosquitoes. There are at least two hundred flocking around the light fixtures. The amazing part is that they have not bothered me once, not a single bite. I have yet to figure it out.

Sandbags - My bathroom floods every time I take a shower. Like New Orleans, it was a bit poorly constructed. But yesterday, I built a sandbag levee out of a grocery bag, sand from outside my door and a rusty steel bar.

Bikes - I want a bike. I figure a sign is the way to make that happen. I flipped through a dictionary and produced a rudimentary one in Hungarian proclaiming my desire for a "not new," "not 1.000.000.000 forint" bike. I drew a picture of me smiling next to a bike to better help convey the message. No reports yet on anyone with a bike to sell. (Feedback I have received, though, suggests that the word choice I used is more akin to "desire" and carries a more romantic than I intended.)

Harvestfest 2005

It was about this time last year that I ventured into the heart of the Bible Belt with the cult leader's daughter to listen to bluegrass music at Harvest Fest. Needless to say, the Hungarian "city" of Hernandnemeti's version of Harvest Fest this weekend was a bit different in nature.

We were so excited, of course, to arrive in Laura's hometown of H-Nemeti that Liz, Harpswell, Gaines and I jumped out of the bus a stop too soon. A bit of confusion and a 2km walk later, though, we were right where we were supposed to be: Laura's first-world apartment. Seriously amazing accommodations.

I must confess that we saw very little of the Harvest Fest the next day. We did not run out into the fields to help pluck grapes from the vines. We did not even let the parade interrupt our lazy afternoon of eating ice cream. But I assure you there was plenty of unplanned harvesting.

Yerik and Jenna brought both Mariah and vaguely suspicious ditchweed back to Laura's after arriving by train Saturday morning. After our spaghetti proved, frankly, too terrible to eat, we turned to the neighbors, who were stirring a pot of goulash over an open fire. They welcomed us with homemade brandy. (Courtesy, of course, demanded that we accept.) They also gave the boys beer, but wouldn't offer the same to the girls. When we showed an interest in the walnuts on the ground, a dozen kids clamored into the walnut tree and spent an hour shaking down walnuts. I didn't find much pleasure in eating them, but I did enjoy the smashing-open part of the activity.

The goulash and company were nice, excepting for the cartilage. The un-chewable chunks required a "discard bowl." The mosquitoes are incredibly bad here in Hungary and they drove us inside at dusk. Unfortunately, the now obnoxiously drunk neighbor men were driven inside, too. For an hour they pestered us, in Hungarian, to join the party downstairs and dance. The ladies, especially, were not excited by the invitation. So we went to a bar, in our attempt to escape. After a beer, we made perhaps the greatest decision ever made in human history. We decided to push the aversion to partying inside of a school out of our head and explore the booming music coming out of the local elementary school.

Laura had been invited by her fellow teachers, but none were there when we got there. We were greeted rather rudely at the door, but after our quasi-Hungarian language skills affirmed our status as American teachers, we were welcomed...with trays and trays of palinka and Unicum.

Mind you, we were standing in the front lobby of an elementary school. Tables on the edges of a giant dance floor welcomed perhaps a hundred college-aged and adult revelers. They were all dolled up, men and women alike. It was some sort of homecoming reunion for the city, we guessed. In front was a big seven-piece band, decked out in bright yellow. For hours (we think) they played Hungarian music and we danced the night away. I kicked off my flip-flops and spent most of the night barefoot. We used freshly picked grapes when we ran out of chasers.

My favorite story comes second-hand. At the end of the night, after I'm sure we'd confirmed that Americans are both drunks and poor dancers, rumor has it that I grabbed one last shot of Unicum for the road. (Just sampling the culture, folks!) Gaines didn't think it the best choice for me, so she politely asked if she could have it. A sucker for sharing, I gave it to her. She slammed it down onto the floor and yelled "No more for you! We're leaving." I was crestfallen, I'm sure. Gaines had to remind me the next morning that I had right then and there asked her to "please remind me to call you a bitch in the morning."

First Eger Experience

Eger is a city I will go back to many, many times! Unbelievable.

The guidebooks are right, it's the most magnificent of cities. Imagine Salzburg, if you trade Mozart for wine. Some might scoff at that idea, but I'll take high culture in a bottle any day.

Kyle and I walked around the city for three hours. I was simultaneously amazed by the beauty of the buildings and the history of the place. And the coeds. We climbed a Turkish minaret, the Northernmost structure still standing from the 1500s invasion. But on to Miskolc!

The Sun'll Come Out

But as the sun always comes out, the kids, too, always get a little better.

Yesterday I met with a 12A student, probably the best English-speaking kid in the whole damn town. Her name is Gitta. She has already taken the first-level English exam, required to leave high school. She's already taken the second-level English exam as well, which means she doesn't have to go to English class during the day. But she comes to my class, and wants to work for an hour outside of class, because she's planning on taking the third-level exam next spring. It earns major points for college and is supposedly tough. The wonderful part is that she's a great girl, very eager to learn and already has excellent English. I think she can become better than many of the teachers by the end of the year.

The best part of the deal for me is that it's almost like having a friend! I gave her my yearbook from last year to read, she had no problems plowing through it, and then we talked for an hour. Just like Eva, she got a little sick of answering all my difficult questions.

And on the friends theme, I am thinking about starting a club. They don't have clubs here, but I'm in need of friends, so I figure I could recruit some kids who want to speak English. We'll have camp-like fun. Some days we'll play games, maybe some days we'll pick up garbage around school or do some vague "make the world a better place" stuff. I think we will meet on Mondays so that I can try to recruit them to come watch the English movies at 6:00. I'll even pay.

I received a letter this week...my first letter! (Thanks Allison Snavely McGinnis!)

And my least favorite class has decided to strangely idolize me. And here by idolize I mean repeatedly snap cell phone camera pictures of me from all possible angles at all possible times. Then they compare with friends to see who got the best shot. During class, in the hall, eating, wherever. Not quite the same cell phone rules in Hungarian high schools as back home.

Boo!

Forced to up daily allotment of wine to two glasses after movie was a no-go. Apparently I am the only person in this whole town who wanted to see Ashton Kutcher's latest work of art.

Kids and weather, too, have conspired to make me unhappy this week. The former don't listen and seem content to go without learning English and the latter seems to equate fall with cold, clouds and rain.

Another First

Hungary is teaching me that there is a first for everything, but I wouldn't have guessed that there would have ever been a "first time getting tipsy in the teacher's lounge in the middle of the day." Just not one of those things that fits the American way of doing things...

But here, when the headmaster turns 60, apparently the best choice is to throw down. So we all huddled in the teacher's office during the 30-minute lunch period, awaiting his arrival. Instead of yelling "Surprise!" "Happy Birthday!" or some unintelligible Hungarian phrase, we all collectively chose to remain awkwardly silent as he walked into the door. Then we started clapping, slowly until we had built into some sort of weird non-celebratory fervor. It was at that point, then, that they broke out the champagne.

So instead of eating food, we toasted the headmaster with "egyershegredgre," a word that I am convinced only Hungarians can correctly pronounce. Then they insisted that we all refill our glasses. When the 12:00 bell rang, marking the "start" of fifth hour, we were still working on polishing off the champagne. Not to be rushed, we continued to savor our drinks and then continued on with our afternoon.

Playing tonight at the movies? An Ashton Kutcher movie with the word Dad in the title. Any ideas?

Good Americans

Gosh, I love good Americans.

Take Gaines, for example. She's the ultimate all-time winner of everything for burning me a CD. That's a precious commodity around here. Now I can jam to American Idiot and Message in a Bottle for hours on end. Thanks darlin'. Plus, many people might get mad at me for constantly demanding a foosball partner or starting a pillow fight at three in the morning. Not Gaines. And I think she might have even enjoyed it.

And Emily? Goodness gracious, this girl knows that there is no better way to make a bunch of English teachers laugh than by letting a vaguely-older Eastern European man make out with you in a bar. And the best part? She was diggin' it.

Kat, too, is a keeper. This woman is so smart that when she sees two subway controllers tackle me and charge me a 2000 forint fine for not having punched my subway ticket, she simply turns, runs and jumps on the subway. Such brilliance!

Laura is so generous that she offered me a piggy back ride during the late-night rendition of Les Miserables that we decided to stage in the middle of Kalocsa. Then she started to spin. I am still inspecting myself for bruises.

NOW READING: Frankenstein and TIME (Sept. 19)
NOW DRINKING: A Portuguese red from the Lake Balaton region
NOW LISTENING TO: Dave Matthews Band's Stand Up
NOW EATING: A large loaf of bread
NOW WEARING: Tan European shoes
NOW WANTING: An old-school communist bike
NOW CURIOUS ABOUT: German parliamentary elections
NOW THINKING: Fall is here

Paprika is Served with EVERYTHING!

The Hungarian bus system has thrown all it has to offer to throw at me, and I am proud to report that I have emerged a champion!

Successfully spent the weekend in the city of Kalocsa, a wonderful rendezvous of people who like to speak English at a fast rate of speed. Kat, Liz, Laura and I nearly died on the way down, but the bus driver did do a good job of preforming first aid on those who were actually injured when he slammed on the brakes. (True story.)

In Kalocsa, we drank palinka, because that's what there is to do there. The next day we decided against running in the 2km Paprika Race, but did enjoy the traditional Hungarian folk dancing, as well as the "szexy teenager" booty-shaking performance. Before long we were ready for the main activity of the day: eating paprika-based foodstuffs.

I was so proud of Liz when she went straight to the scariest looking pot of brown-ness. She was all about that particular batch of potato and schlop and I wasn't about to stop her. But when the man handed her a bowl full of hearty goodness, she did a double take. It was then that she noticed what I had been thinking all along, the little strips of meat looked strangely more like octopus than beef or chicken.

Mortified, we ran back to the table. We poked at the thin green/brown strands of something, only to notice that they were all attached at one end. Small bumps covered each strand, excepting one bigger tube-like tentacle of waviness. Chad tried a bite. He complained about the texture. We speculated it could be cabbage or octopus or squid or some sort of vegetable skin. Maybe a weird fish, even. We had no recourse left but to ask Hajni by telephone.

She laughed immediately. So, too, did the old Hungarian woman next to us who could sense the punchline already.

We were staring at a bowl of cow intestine.

Needless to say, I tried a bite after much prodding. The texture was weird, as Chad had claimed, and I swear I could feel little digestive cells bursting in between my teeth as I chewed. Apparently it is a Hungarian specialty. (What isn't, though?) We were thoroughly unimpressed.

Numbers of Note

7 and 8

Strangely enough, my favorite classes so far are the 7th and 8th graders. The are excited and eager to speak. They are willing to try to communicate, even if it comes at the risk of making a mistake. They loved attempting to describe pictures from my book of pictures today. The older group is reading letters written from my German students last year and will be writing back soon.

Zero

Number of students who know who Nikita Khrushchev is. I've tried to have some discussion on the topic of goals with my oldest students. I forget that I must teach interactivity to them, it's a largely foreign concept. But invariably, we turn to discussing Khrushchev, and not a single student has been able to identify or even recognize the name of the former Soviet premier. Hungary has certainly changed a lot in 15 years.

32

Number of CDs I own in Hungary. The song most commonly stuck in my head here? Sting and the Police, "Message in a Bottle." I must promise you that my current situation is less desperate than the song suggests, but there's something soothingly reassuring about singing "I'm sending an S.O.S. to the world" while walking down the streets of this city. First person to burn me a random CD with that song and others and send it to Hungary will be declared "Lifelong Winner."

271

Number of kids I teach. 59 in German, the rest in English. Wow.

1st

First venture on Hungarian buses this weekend, wish me luck. The road from Heves to Kalocsa goes through Budapest, so at least that is familiar territory. Paprika Festival in (cal-oh-cha) promises to be fun, with traditional Hungarian folk dancing and more good times with Americans Abroad.

Rick and I

I think my most favorite things in life are those that are beautiful. A close second goes to those things that are absolutely, absurdly, wonderful random:

Next week, I will be a Rick Steves tour guide.

When Etelka, the wondrously-wonderful head of the English department, asked if I would like to join her in Eger, about 40 km up the road, for an evening of wine tasting, it didn't take long for me to say "igen." Eger and the Matra hills of the north are so ripe with grapes and full of wine that the sweet nectar nearly drips all the way to Heves. They are tauntingly close to Heves. On clear days, if I walk toward the sunflower fields north of town, I can see the hills in the north. And often I wish I was there.

Here was my chance! To see the metropolis of Eger! To taste the wine of high-regard! To live the Hungary of the guidebooks!

I didn't ask a single question, as if I was worried that she would retract the offer before I could say yes. "I would love to, Etelka, thank you for the kind invitation," I said with a smile, matching her English-influenced politeness step for step. Somehow I managed to subsequently clear my evening schedule with little difficulty.

We jumped in the car with a young teacher named Victor and set off for the north. Etelka had left the teacher's meeting early, she was now decked out in traditional Hungarian attire, heavy on the black, white and red, with beautiful crow-shay (you learn to appreciate phonetic spellings here) and em-broy-dur-ee work throughout. She told me of the many young people who had come to Hungary to teach or volunteer that she now claims almost as children of her own. The stories, how much they grew to love Hungary, made me smile. I still had no idea why we were headed into the vineyards.

Etelka is welcoming and heartwarming and accommodating in a motherly way, she makes me feel very much at ease. So I was surprised when she said that she will be gone for 18 days beginning next month, travelling to the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia.

I asked if a substitute teacher will be coming in to take her place. She laughed and pointed at me. "No, you and the other teachers will be picking up the extra classes." It was news to me. But the big bombshell was still coming.

I asked how she's worked this, why she's taking a half-month's unpaid leave in the middle of September. She said she'd be working as a tour guide, which made sense as I looked again at her it's-a-small-world-after-all costume. Then she said that the wine-tasting group we were meeting today was a tour group from California. Again, more pieces of the puzzle, but still not that last clue.

"Perhaps you've heard of Rick Steves?" she asked with a smile.

Waa!! Of course I have heard of Rick Steves. Rick Steves is a legend! An institution! Herr Kohlhoff used to make us watch Rick Steves videos, even if they weren't on Germany. My dad has made me watch Rick Steves, too, he claims the man's words as some sort of divine truth.

"Ahh...Jeremy?" he used to call out, no mater what room of the house I was in. "You might want to turn on PBS. Rick Steves is on."

We stepped out of the car at a beautiful family-owned vineyard and wine cellar, 45 minutes from Heves. The spot overlooked the beautiful Egerszalok valley: brown roofs, tree-lined roads and rows of vines leading up to the hills above the city. And then it all become clear as a bus rolled to a stop next to us. Etelka was a local guide for Rick Steves, she is heading off to lead an 18 day trip of Eastern Europe next week, and was training Victor to be her replacement while she was gone!

The 30 adults gasped when I was introduced. "What? There's an American boy stationed in this beautiful outpost of high culture?" They were mostly recent retirees, some were on their third or fourth Rick Steves trip. They came from wonderful places, mostly out west, finished with wonderful careers that had earned them plenty of travelling money. They were curious to hear about my stay so far, mortified to hear of my Eastern European apartment, but envious of the experience. We tasted six wines, all of which in my opinion were fantastic. We started with the light whites and ended with the reds as the setting sun cast an orange alpenglow on the town below us and vines across the valley. We danced to the music and laughed at jokes. I translated the whole thing for a 90-year-old German woman who happened to be travelling through. Sadly, though, I don't think she got as complete a picture as everyone else.

We waved goodbye to the tourists as they loaded back onto their bus, content with their brief sample of just a taste of Hungary. They would spend the night in Eger and the next day in the Valley of Beautiful Women before heading down M3 to the lights of Budapest. Etelka smiled at Victor and I. He looked a little nervous. I offered to come along next week, if he'd like. He smiled with a look of relief.

So next week I will be a Rick Steves tour guide, offering just a sample, just a taste, of Hungary.

Tiszaujvaros

On the map, Tiszaujvaros is just a small blip southeast of Miskolc on the banks of the Tisza River, but I have come to claim the city as my own little utopia!

Planned and built out of nothing by the "socialists" (definitely not the "communists," as we would tend to say back home) in the 1960s, Tiszaujvaros is now home to 25,000 people. It has modern-ish buildings, wide boulevards, long parks, convenient sidewalks and more than one restaurant. It's the real deal compared to little Heves! It even has a Tesco, the Hungarian version of Walmart. I stood in awe for a good ten minutes before being able to physically move through the doors. For the first time since leaving Budapest, I felt like I was in the modern world again. Simply delightful.

Eva, Liz and I traded wonderful stories over beer on Friday night, but the real merriment was on Saturday. Yerik and Jenna, a married couple teaching in Nyichazaalsdfjslak came. So did Kyle from Eger. Kat made it in from Szerenc and Mariah arrived from Kisvarda.

Kat and I joined Eva, her English-speaking friend Agi, and Agi's cousin for an afternoon of kayaking on the Tisza River. I love kayaking, but I had no idea what was in store. Agi's cousin qualified for the world championship in flat-water sprint kayak and threw Kat and I into the lightest, thinnest, longest boat I've ever seen. I'm surprised we were able to let go of the dock.

We came so close to tipping that we offered to switch boats. Kat spent 20 minutes or so learning to use the rudder while I paddled, but in no time at all we were cruising the river with enviable speed. We returned two hours and many kilometers later, amazed to still be dry.

This little city boasts indoor and outdoor pools, indoor skating rink, a track, indoor kayaking pool, lap swimming, weightlifting complex, tennis courts and a skate park. It's unbelievable. The highlight, though, is a state-of-the-art thermal pool. We soaked all evening in the utmost state of relaxation.

We must have gotten ourselves thirsty over the course of the day. And I, for one, had a rather strong thirst for Red Bull and vodka. The local disco Camelot was more than ready to meet our needs, we didn't leave for six hours. Highlights included Cotton Eyed Joe, Eye of the Tiger and the handful of other English songs; repeated rebuffs by the ladies to my attempts to start a conversation in Hungarian, English or German; and some rather wonderful pictures of friends attempting to pull me off the dance floor at three in the morning. I insisted on staying, only to finally head home at five when they turned the lights on.

Eva and friends said I was still dancing.

On Food

Many of you, I am certain, have spent significant portions of your day worrying about my food situation here in Hungary. I am, it must be noted, a fairly "selective" eater. One observer once noted that my four food groups are cheese pizza, potatoes, pretzels and kool-aid.

Keenly aware of the issue, I set out to Hungary intent on eating whatever was put in front of me. This plan would work well, I reasoned, as I didn’t understand the language that the menu was written in anyways.

Luckily, so far, so good. I'm actually allowed to eat three meals a day in the school cafeteria. One hundred kids live in dormitories during the week, I eat right alongside them. For your amusement, I'd like to offer the culinary delights of my week so far:

Monday Breakfast – Rolls. With butter and a tomato slice. And water.

Monday Lunch – A chicken soup with really fat noodles. Spaghetti noodles, served cold, topped with brown-sugar-looking-substance that tastes more like ground-up brown rice. Not good. Served with giant sweet pickle.

Monday Supper – (Doesn’t count…I ate reheated spaghetti at home.)

Tuesday Breakfast – Giant slice of bread. Served with Jam. And tea.

Tuesday Lunch – Pork (maybe?) soup. Served with something that looked vaguely like a pretzel, except it tasted like a roll. Served with giant sweet pickle.

Tuesday Supper – Almost-Spanish rice, but it would have needed a little bit more “Spanish” to make it taste good. Served with giant sweet pickle.

Wednesday Breakfast – Roll. And hot chocolate.

Wednesday Lunch – Chicken soup, this time with balls of couscous-like grains balled into mushy dumplings. A small chunk of beef, swimming in a bowl of warm apple sauce. Served with a roll that tasted like an upside-down pretzel. Served with giant sweet pickle.

Wednesday Supper – I promise you this is true…Noodles and Beef! Honest to goodness egg noodles topped with a delicious sauce of beef chunks. It was glorious. This was even better than the time I drove past a Noodles and Beef truck on the way to Colorado. Served with a giant pickle.

Thursday Breakfast – An extra-large slice of bread. And butter.

Thursday Lunch – Chicken broth, with a handful of croutons. Plate full of roasted potatoes, with a chunk of chicken sitting on top of it. Served with another damn giant sweet pickle. They are not good. I do not eat them at Thanksgiving. I do not eat them any time of year. They are gross.

As you can see, not too bad. The assistant headmaster, the German-meister Agi, has set two goals for me this year. The first is that I take, and pass, the 12th grade German examination required to leave school. I suppose that’s a good goal for a German teacher. Her second goal is that I gain 10 kilos.

Teacher's Soccer League

Right after questions of age and marital status, the kids are quick to ask if I play soccer. Sometimes they ask if I like soccer. Sometimes they simply stammer "You…foot…ball…good…like…play?”

Regardless of structure, my answer is always the same. "No. Soccer is boring.” But there I was this afternoon, marching into the "sporthalle," set to join the Wednesday Afternoon Teacher’s Soccer League.

They kick the ball hard. Lesson learned.

I haven’t played soccer since I was seven, but I figure I can hold my own against middle-aged men in most activities. I even went in with the attitude that I would let them win, I figured it would be good for the Hungarian psyche -- they tend to lose in lots of things.

In large part, the plan worked. The strategy of "run around and attempt to kick the ball” worked fairly well. I resembled someone who thoroughly enjoyed the game of soccer, although it may have just been an act.

That thought was confirmed when I had to sit through watching the Hungarian national team play the Swedish squad on television after the match. The final score? 1-0, Sweden. We waited through 92 minutes of game time for that lone burst of excitement. Sweet.

Bowled Over

WISCONSIN 56, BOWLING GREEN 42!!!

i nearly pooped my pants when i read about the offensive explosion. apparently the Denver Broncos have traded Ron Dayne back to college football. i hope they do not require RB Brian Calhoun in exchange.

today in class I had a wonderful time quizzing one of my 15-year-old pupils on her 21-year-old boyfriend. other highlights include teaching first hour the Camp Nan A Bo Sho finger game. as no one wanted to volunteer, they learned quickly that the last person to put their finger on their nose loses and has to volunteer. the two pretty girls in the front of the room did not catch on quickly to the game. felt like an expert today as i helped fellow English teachers understand the word "conduit" and why we say "i don't know any of the people IN the picture" as opposed to "i don't know any of the people ON the picture."

Heartbreak

Heartbreak, you see, transcends language barriers.

Monday started wonderfully, three classes in German (we mostly understood each other) and then two in English. The first English class, I must say, aptly sums up many of my first impressions about the Hungarian schools.

(Let's take a moment, though, to make sure that we are all reading Heves as "HEV-ish." Start to say the word "heavy," but then cut out the "y" at the end and replace it with an "ish." If you have not been doing that up to this point, you are wrong. Please change.)

Bells are significant in America. Teachers, students, everyone is ready to start at the bell, and more than ready to leave at the second bell. In Hungary, bells might better be replaced with the following loudspeaker announcement:

"Attention Eotvos Joszef Kozepiskola: Hello, how are you doing on this lovely day? This announcement is just a suggestion, consider it however you might. Students, now is probably a good time to put out your cigarette and begin to file back into the school. Of course, if you are engaged in a really interesting conversation with a scantily-clad member of the opposite sex, please continue talking until you have reached some sort of conclusion. And if you just lit a cigarette, what the heck, take your time. And attention teachers: No need to rush yourselves this lovely day. Please begin now the third of five in-depth personal conversations you will have between classes. That way, once the students have all filed back into the school and toward the general direction of a classroom, you might be able to do the same. Of course, don't feel pressured, as the students will certainly understand if you are just now beginning to plan a lesson or are in the middle of a particularly delightful snack. Class is 45 minutes long, no need to hurry. Thank you for listening to the bell, enjoy your approximately five-ten-fifteen minute warning, and have a great day!"

A second difference/challenge is the schedule. Not content with anything simple or well-organized, the school has A weeks and B weeks. Classes regularly divide, especially for language classes. The groups migrate, as do teachers, and occasionally no one is exactly sure where they belong. Friday, for example, my contact teacher told me to take six kids to the courtyard. We had a great time, but I was promptly yelled at by the principal. Second-hand, of course, he speaks none of the three languages I speak, and I speak none of the two he speaks.

Today, 10B and I were one of the nomadic classes, with no real home. We wandered around the school for ten minutes, I promise you, trying random doors until we found one that was open. A lone chemistry teacher, not an English or German speaker sadly, was in the room. I somehow got the point across that I was a shepherd to a herd of children without a home, so she let us discuss the finer points of how to pronounce their names, and whether or not I have got a job, car, girlfriend or pet. Not always in that order.

I left school smiling, but we come back to the heartbreak.

"Internet no today," the librarian stuttered. I appreciated the attempt at English, but walked home crushed. The world was stolen for me. (For example, I would have to wait another day to find out that William Rehnquist died.)

I mulled the sad state of things over reheated spaghetti, but left with a smile, knowing that for two hours my life would be better. I would live in the fiction of a different time and a different place in a language I happen to speak. Batman Begins began at 6:00 pm at the theatre.

I smiled all the way to the theatre, three blocks away. I grinned as I slid 400 forints ($2) across the counter and proudly said "egy." The lady frowned and said "nem" before starting a rather long explanation. I told her I didn't know Hungarian, but she continued on, pointing variously at the cash box, the seating chart and the weekly schedule. I stumbled backwards in defeat. Crushed. The harshness of reality swallowed my attempt to escape in fiction. I couldn't get into the movies, for a reason I don't understand.

I stormed to the grocery store, bought 400 forints worth of ice cream and pouted all night.

Weak-End

Weekends in Heves, it turns out, are lacking in several key categories. The first is fun, and really all the others hinge upon that category.

Everything shuts down at noon on Saturday. The number one option after that -- other than leaving, mind you -- is soccer in the afternoon. So I paid 400 forint to cheer on the mighty Heves footballers. Not well-accustomed to the local sport of choice, I didn't even know which team to root for, although I did like that one side had a man in the stands with a drum. As I was set to leave, a man pulled me aside and introduced himself as a teacher at the school, who hadn't gotten around to saying hello yet. We talked for ten minutes. It's those little bits of conversation and friendliness that I like to cling on to.

But walking through town Saturday evening, after making a bit of spaghetti, I stumbled into (not literally, the solo wine-drinking usually comes later in the night) a museum-like building, full of displays of textiles. Hungarians get excited about weird things, it appears. But a man came out of an office and shook my hand. I offered "nem tudok magzarul, sprechen sie deutsch or english?" He replied "wenig," and I knew I was in trouble. He tried, in painful German to explain the textiles to me. We didn't get very far, nor frankly was I that interested. But he motioned me to follow him, toward a wide door at the end of the exhibition hall.

As he swung it open, it occurred to me that maybe I had never seen a more magnificent sight in my life. HEVES HAS A MOVIE THEATRE!!! Now by "movie theatre," I mean a large room, with hundreds of foldable chairs lined up in rows. A portable projection screen stands above a stage designed for theatre or dance. But the small windows above the back wall were the key, an honest-to-goodness movie projector! I did a little dance as he showed me the upcoming shows. Even through the cloud of Hungarian I could see beloved cognates like "Batman" and "Mr." and "Mrs." and "Smith." I smiled all the way home.

And then today I went to the thermal pool. I'll admit it, I was hoping for bikinis. It's rather quite alright that I didn't see any, though, because as I have come to learn, going to the thermal pool is an old-people activity. Woah. I was the only member of the 200 person crowd between the ages of 10 and 40.

Szombat

Last night I learned how to light a gas oven for the first time in my life. The whole process took a book of matches, a lighter, a piece of two-sided tape, a headlamp, a pussywillow branch and approximately 15 minutes, exclusive of wine breaks when I got frustrated. As you can imagine, I seriously considered simply leaving the oven on for the duration of my stay in Hungary.

But the fish sticks were great. (Of course, here by "fish sticks" we mean that gross German concoction where they grind up as many undesirable parts of fish as they can find, glue it all together somehow and bread the outside.) It was a wonderful Friday night fish fry, just like back home. I substituted potato chips for french fries, but didn't feel bad about it.

It was, overall, a fairly lonely night, even with a Hungarian-dubbed episode of Home Improvement on in the background. I had to call several friends to reassure myself I wasn't drinking by myself. Turns out that I was, but it was nice to talk to them.

This morning, I've allowed myself to become aggravated when I forgot the pin number for my debit card and the blatant absurdity of this internet connection at the library. Blogger works perfectly, every time. JSOnline doesn't work. Yahoo works after repeated clicking, but only sparingly. I think I've been able to send two e-mails. NYTimes is a no-go. USBank doesn't let me in.

Only Blogger.com works perfectly. It's as if the Internet is getting my dander up on purpose and offering only an outlet to express frustration.

I did, though, get to see an old woman carrying two dead chickens in her hands as she left the market this morning. That was one of those uh-that's-not-how-we-do-it-back-home moments.

Starting with 7A

First hour is free on my schedule for Fridays, but second hour says 7A. Hungarian gimnasiums "call up" only the best and brightest students to form the youngest class in the school. The "A" class gets to study two more years (7 and 8) at the gimnasium than the other students, who stay at the primary school for 7th and 8th grade. I walked in with little fear, after all, these would be the best students Heves has to offer, probably scared to death on their first day in the big school. And I was advised that they had studied English before.

Well, the good news is that they can count to ten.

I had grand plans to expand on Hajni's ideas. Rather than have the kids ask questions of me and have a volunteer make up answers, pretending to be me, I would have them write a quiz asking me questions! They would write the quiz, guess answers, and get points if they were right! This idea sounded quite exciting to me.

I walked in beaming. "Good morning, 7A!" I said. "I am here to teach you English!" They smiled.

I wrote on the board in nice, big block letters. "My name is Jeremy Jewett." They smiled.

There was a knock at the door. One of the students was supposed to be in German class instead of in English with me. She left. They smiled.

"Who is ready to have some fun?" I said, obviously ready to have some fun myself. I've got this great bell I was going to ring every time someone was right. They smiled.

It was about then that I realized that smiling is the default facial expression on the 12-year-old Hungarian face when it has no idea what is going on.

"Can you understand me?" I asked, suddenly skeptical. They smiled.

We backed the train up to "MY N-AME IS JER-E-MY." They smiled.

But one girl -- I still have no idea how to pronounce her name other than swallow as many G's, Y's and umlauted-O's as possible and then gargle them out until you get a positive reaction -- really smiled. She said, "Hello."

That one word opened the floodgate. By the time we were done, those kids were halfway to fluency, regurgitating such key English phases as "What is your name?" "What is his name?" and "Her name is..." I debated, momentarily, to stress the difference between HIS name and HER name, but I figured that concept best wait until next week.

The good news is, of course, that it gets better, as at this point I had not yet even had my first German language class. About to try teaching a non-native tongue to third-language native speakers without having a fluency in aforementioned language. Unbelievable.

My level of German ability is about the same as the students in the advanced half of 11A. We got along just fine and dandy, although the girls in particular didn't understand everything that I said. Vice Principal Agi says (in German, mind you, so I might not have this exactly correct), that I should take the year-end Abitur examination and see how good I can become. I guess you've gotta have goals.

Regardless of language, I think that if you put me in a room with eight kids and a bell, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a good time. I think 11A will be a good class this year.

The 12D students are seniors, six of the best English-speakers pulled out of one of the least academically ambitious classes, and we got along just fine. We huddled around the map of Wisconsin and practiced such necessary tasks as finding the answer to questions like "Where is Lac du Flambeau?" and "How many people live in Middleton?"

For 11B, I switched back to German. They wanted to know the same questions as the other classes. I am 25, which some guessed correctly. I like blue. I do not like soccer (although will soon start playing with the teachers) and I have seen handball only in the Olympics. My family has a dog, but here in Hungary I only have two plants. I do not have a girlfriend, which usually elicits gasps. Most Hungarians I have met seem to have friends of significant interest, although often in other cities. In case you are interested, and just have never gotten around to asking, I am not married, I do drive a car in America, I have lots of hobbies and my favorite food is pizza. And my hair? Why is it curly? I guess credit is due to my parents and the summer sun.

With 11D, it was back to English again. The students convinced me to write on the dry-erase board with a Sharpie. I am a moron, of course I should have known better. I tried a test-mark and was able to erase it, so I marched on, scrawling my name, a map of the United States and my sister's name "MEGAN" in big letters across the middle portion of America. When the bell rang and the board didn't erase, I become a little worried. I tried asking in English, German and Hungarian, but could not find a spray bottle with the potent stuff inside of it. I had a cleaning lady and the technical school principal searching for twenty minutes, to no avail, although I think that they thought I needed a dry-erase marker instead of cleaner. After a stoic battle, I rightly gave up feigning ignorance, said "viszlat" and left. This class could be trouble all year.

I slogged to the pencil store. Three dry-erase markers at the Papir-Éraysir-Éytik cost me 900 forints. And I'm sad to report that Zsofi said she can't hang out this weekend because she has to paint a fence all weekend. True story.

Tanar Jeremy

You would have been proud to see me stroll into the kozepiskola this morning, armed with the word "Csörtöttörk" (Thursday), ready to tackle the challenge of learning to pass off some sort of understanding in the Hungarian school system. They whisked me immediately to the principal's office, where I shook hands with numerous old men. They were most likely distinguished old men, but it was hard to tell, as the proceeding were most often explained to me in Hungarian, sometimes in German, but only rarely in English.

We all walked out together, to the front courtyard, for the grand opening ceremony. After much clapping and applause by students and adults alike, an English-speaker nudged my leg and said, "Stand up. Right now!" So I did, and they applauded. I waved and then they applauded more. As if I were some sort of hero, the moment was mine. And that's when I was handed flowers and kissed. (Humor me, momentarily, so that I might linger on that kiss. I don't remember if it was the young German teacher, or if it was a student who looked like the young German teacher -- I'm not good at that kind of detail in the heat of the moment -- but I can most assuredly say that I received a smooch on the very first day of school.)

There were no classes after the hour-long ceremony, but I was handed my schedule for the year. We have A weeks and B weeks, and each week I see 20 different groups of kids once for 45 minutes.
(Note, though, that they make a generous accommodation for attention spans in the afternoon, when we meet for only 40 minutes.) This time frame does not include the time after the bell rings when the students are expected to put out their cigarettes, find their way to class, etc. Teachers, too, are not expected to hustle to class until perhaps five minutes after the bell rings. Of my 20 classes, 14 are in English and 6 are in German. I teach the youngest kids (12 and 13 years old) both languages, although each child chooses only one. I teach both English and German to the advanced students in the upper grades as well. On every-other Friday morning, I am done teaching at 9:40. Other days I have five classes back-to-back. It's rather helter-skelter.

After digesting the schedule, I was free to walk around before securing lunch in the cafeteria. Just for you, I counted the number of tractors and farm appliances mounted on cement platforms around my school. The exact number is 11. The prize of the collection seems to be the bulldozer, as it takes the prime location, closest to the school.

Walking home from school in the early afternoon was the first time I had ever seen students sitting in a pub drinking beer after school. They waved, so I waved back.

And ice cream with Zsophi (Sophia) was delightful. I met her at the pencil store. (The actually name, I just figured up, is the bastardized Hungarian phonetic spelling of the English phrase "Paper and Eraser Attic." It looks something like "pápir-éraysir-éytik.") We walked to a nearby cafe. She answered my questions about Heves. She was born in Eger, but has lived here for the past 21 years. She said wonderful things about nearby Eger, and repeatedly mentioned her boyfriend in Tiszafüred. She liked speaking English, and frankly I liked listening. We laughed, though, when I pulled the Hungarian word "var" out of my head before she could remember the English equivalent, "castle."

Finally, in other news, I have realized that my home does not have a frying pan, a spatula, freezer or many other essentials in the Jeremy-Cooking-Plan.