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?