All The News That's Fit to Print!

Hooray, please enjoy the June -- and Farewell -- edition of the Csillag-Dispatch, this time created by the English students. This version of the Star-Dispatch is set to hit the presses, the palms of these silly little pupils, tomorrow.

Summer 2006

I have developed a "mild life crush," as I’ve taken to calling it, on mountains and the sea.

They’re both just so good that I find them almost irresistable. I particularily like being sandwiched between the two. The geologic utopia of places like Norwary, Greece and Croatia.

And next, the state of Washington. The summer of 2006.

I’ll be living on an island in a teepee, snuggled between green mountains and the blue sea, inspiring high schoolers to make the most of life, four weeks at a time. My coworker in that mission will be a fantastic Canadian lady.

A new camp, another corner of America. New friends, new stories. Sailboats and kayaks, experiential education and life. Upper-middle class gifted and talented clientle, my specialty. And a new experience, a private camp, complete with four-week stays and uniforms. Robyn says that the later’s a good equalizer when you’re working with "the kids of Russian billionaires, country-clubbers, kids on scholarship, and Orcas locals."

It means flying off two days after I wake up for the first time in a long time on American soil, and there’s an opportunity cost of being gone so soon after being away. But I figure I’ll have plenty of time to grow old just as soon as I matriculate to that looming law school.

Until then, summer.

Used!

I've been used! I've been had! And I kind of like it.

Guess what I found on "Global Voices Online," some sort of traveling meta-blog.

May 1st, 2006

Eastern and Central Europe

Croatia, Travel

Jeremy Jewett of Hungarian Goulash comes up with “the ABCs of a Spring Break in Croatia”: “The stories of a spring break well-spent in the northern-half of the former Yugoslavia will be told alphabetically, chunked into a little tale or nugget of wisdom beginning with the letters A through Z.”

19th

The results are back and Big Kinga is the 19th best German-speaking 8th grader in this whole country!

I would like to take this moment to stake claim, of course, to the title of 19th-best German-teacher in Heves county.

This ranking, of course, would beat my most feedback when I had to sub for class 11E, a class that has tried to auction off its most eligible bachelorettes in the past and does not necessarily specialize in English or German.

This time? A handwritten death threat. I could either let them go home early, or I would face the fate of three long swords through the abdomen, which, according to the drawing, would make me frown. We did not leave early.

Girls Gone Hevesi!

Double -- even triple! -- meaning!! The phrase "girls gone hevesi" can mean any of the following:

1. The girls are now, unfortunately, gone from Heves!
2. The girls went native, became hevesi (from Heves), during their stay here!
3. The girls went heves (wild, passionate), during two nights in Heves!

In Eger, we prioritized the Palincsintavar (pancake castle) over the Egrivar (the famous castle above Eger), because the chicken liver lunch just hadn’t fit the bill. After loading up, we walked the churches, squares and streets that make Eger wonderful.

Atop the 16th century minaret, we befriended five little girls and a boy who heard us speaking English. The 5th graders spouted off impressive phrases, and we made each other giggle all the way down the ancient spiral staircase. The kids in Tiszaujvaros are getting a good English education, it seems! Unfortunately, they didn't know Teacher Liz.

After a bus ride and nap, we set off for a "traditional Hungarian graduation party." Bandi Bacsi (Uncle Andras) and others had invited me to the Friday night get-together, and they assured me that the girls were welcome, too.

Yea they were welcome!

The party commemorated class 14C. For some reason, they stuck around the trade school for two extra years and were just now being handed a mechanics diploma. That made them the exact same age as the beautiful American girls I had imported for the evening.

We walked in a little late, but cheers went up as soon as we did. Without any open chairs at the long banquet table in front of us, the ladies and I sat down at a side table. The class of 15 or so boys, not a single girl amongst them, wouldn’t have any of that, though. They whisked a table next to their end and urged us to join them. We couldn’t resist the honor.

Rachel started to meet the boys first, as she was sitting next to one rather charming young lad. I didn’t know any of them, they weren’t my students. It’s important to note that the English they have learned comes not from a classroom. Viktor their English teacher confessed that he spent many of the English lessons discussing the more pertinent topic of entrepreneurship, but from pop culture.

The boys threw down shot glasses in front of us, and that was the final time they were empty for more than half-a-second all night. As soon as the ladies could manage to gulp one down, it was filled with a new beverage of various strengths. Mostly way strong. We gobbled down another meat and potatoes dish, this paprika specialty was much more to our liking.

About the same time as we hit the bottom of our plates, we started to notice that the boy next to Rachel seemed to have fewer buttons buttoned on his shirt than before. This is a trend that will continue throughout the night. It also the formal beginning of the true sketchiness of the evening.

The boys asked the girls if they knew how to play strip poker. This is when the girls decided it was important to learn the word "nem."

For some reason, immediately after this discussion, Rachel peels off her sweater. The boys, of course, like this. Button-boy grabs her arm. Rachel swats him away.

One boy handed Rachel his cell phone. On it, the word "nookie." I don’t know if it had a question mark or not, but it got a "nem" from Miss Modesty.

Another boy handed Rachel his cell phone. I don’t know why she looked at it. On it, a movie. And an actress that Rachel thought looked like Margaret. So she pointed at Margaret and yelled to the boys "porn star!" Rather loudly. The boys were agreeable to the concept. Marge and I were rather concerned.

Another button undone by sketchy-boy. Another leg touch. Another "nem." There are some classic, classic pictures that document the progression.

So Rachel ran off to the kitchen to hide from the boys. She turned her (apparent) Hungarian sexual irresistibility to the teachers, instead. One of the boys turned to Margaret and smiled. He knew a couple important English words. "No Rachel? You next!" Shatabi, shatabi, shatabi.

There comes a time at every school-canteen graduation-party where you are consumed by the urge to begin taking riding-tractor pictures. It also served as a good excuse to leave the hormone-fest for a while. We hopped on a good three or four tractors, all sitting like an outdoor-museum on the school grounds. We tried not to leave any prints on windshields.

About at the same time that our tractor-photo shenanigans had run their course of amusement, Viktor and the boys realized we were outside. Viktor put on Rachel's previously small green "jumper," then made her strip it off of him. All under the shadow of a rusty tractor.

Fun does not usually come in this fashion, folks.

Another urge took us to play foosball, as all nights of revelry generally boil down to that primordial instinct sooner or later. I think it has something to do with Neanderthals, going for the kills, then twirling hunks of meat over a roasting fire.

There, Rachel and Victor battled Marge and I. The Boston Babe and the Heves Hunk (Margaret and I, mind you) battled the bad guys furiously for four rounds, but lost the tie-breaking fifth round. It cannot be said that Rachel didn’t do enough to encourage me to win one for the team, we just lost to a superior squad, as much as that moniker stings.

By the time Margaret had posed for pictures on a motorcycle and I introduced the ladies to one of my ninth-grade students who was at the kocsma, we figured it was time to leave. The arrival of Button Boy only sealed that commitment to expediency. We did, though, manage to stage a rather stunning reenactment of The Sound of Music in the "downtown" park gazebo and hop on nearly half of the cities statues for commemorative pictures.

As we waited for the train the following afternoon, the ladies and I debriefed their stay in Heves. They weren't impressed by the market, but the library made their day. They decided they enjoyed the personal tour of this little outpost of Eastern Europe, and that the overt "sketchiness" of parts was half the fun. That was even before they saw the little two-car train pull up. That made them laugh.

In BP we met Eva and hit up Statue Park. Don't go. It's lame. The (massive) advertising campaign makes it seem like the 5km trip outside of the city limits would be well worth the trip. Massive soviet statues. The cruel eyes of Lenin or Stalin bearing down on you. A trip back in time to a very different Hungary. Instead, it's a little plot of land with completely underwhelming memorabilia. Even with Eva's personal stories of learning Russian long ago couldn't bring it up to any sort of magnificence. The ladies liked better the Fishermenás Bastion, riverfront-walking, and a short tour of Margit Island, compulsory when touring around a young lady named Margaret.

Sunday morning it was off to the train station rather early. The ladies were bound for Slovenia, the same train I'd taken a few weekends before. Portoroz was their next port of call, but I've heard rumors that they were considering making a (short) detour off of their 21-page itinerary in the forthcoming days.

I thanked the girls profusely for coming during hugs. It had meant so much that some friends were willing to come and share this little experience. Rachel will be able to stand testament next fall to all -- well, some -- of my stories, when we call a little white house on Johnson Street our own.

And then they were gone. Whisked away on an Italian train. I was left alone with me.

So I went to the Hungarian National Museum. Go. It's free. And good, lots of understandable history. Well presented and displayed. Lots of English.

The Ladies Go to School

As the girls beautied themselves after we woke up Friday morning, I had a feeling that it was going to be a sweet, sweet day. Cloudy skies, but at least it wasn’t raining.

We were standing in the teachers’ office at 8:00am when the bell rang, the girls were amazed at how little significance it played in the minute-by-minute operations of everyone in the school. First hour, which officially begins about five minutes after the bell rights, would be class 10C: home to 16 horny sixteen-year-old boys and four girls. Not a one of them is gifted in English or destined for much of an international lifestyle.

Visitors are awesome because they’re a two-week lesson plan. The actual visit, plus a class period of preparation the week before. The sophomores concocted a tri-fold plan to amuse Rachel and Margaret. A third of them (or really only a slicked-hair-boy named Tamas) would teach the girls elementary Hungarian. Another third would ask the girls pre-written questions. And the last group would offer them a little Who-Wants-To-Be-A-Millionaire action. In forints, a million is not quite as impressive an amount, I will make just a dash over a million forints over my time in Hungary.

As Tamas strode to the board, the lights went out. The girls were a little alarmed, but the kids and I motored through the distraction. Funny things happen in the second world. He wrote five words on the board, and made the girls pronounce each one, with plenty of help from the audience. Sör, iskola, egy, kettö, harom. The girls laughed at his priorities when the translations came up next to the foreign words: beer, school, one, two, three.

Strangely enough, the ladies struggled to pronounce "köszonöm szepan" when the lessons took a turn toward the more difficult "thank you very much."

When the bell rang, we were forced to make headlamp and torch jokes as we weaved through the darkened halls. We’d really never had this kind of power outage problem before, except when all the teachers were drinking around candles in the teachers’ office one night. But the girls were a bit skeptical. Under the cover of darkness, though, the gals were able to slide through the halls and escape the stares and remarks I’d promised.

We passed hordes of administrators flying about as we walked back toward the office. It turns out that the power problems came at a bad time, the school-leavers were scheduled to complete their information science final exams that morning. Information science requires computers. Computers require power. Agi was still hospitable enough, despite it all, to rope us aside, welcome the girls (through my translation service) and invite us for coffee just as soon as the power was restored.

Second hour, or rather a couple minutes after the start, we wandered up to 7A, the little class of TGIF-screamers. Threw the door open, they were all milling around as usual.

"Oh, they’re so little and cute!" Margaret said, surprised to find little dwarf-pupils in this Hungarian high school. They really are pretty much little wee-people, like an elementary-school-museum encased inside of a rough and tumble high school. We walked in, and it almost looked as if the girls were ready to pick them up and pet them.

And that’s when they charged us. Three of them. Seventh-grade boys. In unison. They screamed a blood-curdling war-call and lowered their heads to charge. As if Braveheart was their leader. Or inspired by Sparticus. Called to arms by Alexander the Great. Feet pounded toward us, little boys hurtling.

We leapt back in fear -- Margaret, Rachel and I -- as they drew their weapons. They aimed for the kill and fired with lethal accuracy. Blood-thirsty vengeance. These, after all, were the descendants of Attila the Hun.

Something wet seeped through my fingers. I envisioned my lifeblood draining away from a hole in my chest. I wondered if the three of us would be buried with honors here in little Heves.

I looked down at my own chest and the same moment the girls looked down at theirs. In shock. Damning Hungary. Mortified. A deep indigo stained the front of their tops.

Then it made sense. The deep indigo of invisible ink.

It wasn’t until we looked up again, still aghast, that we saw three little metal flasks -- yes, those kinds of flasks! -- sitting on little TGIF Kristian’s desk.

"Welcome to Hungary, ladies," I whispered under my breath, shaking my head, continually amazed for nine-months-running by Hungary. "Please note the invisible ink on your chests and the flasks on that little boys desk, then let’s go ahead and speak some English with these little folks!"

(7A was uneventful after the initial shock. Introductions, questions, etc, until Rachel decided it was imperative to sketch a moose on the board.)

The lights came back on during the break, and I toured the ladies through the school. They were amazed at the chaos, but I assured them that it all worked out somehow. They stood in disbelief at the singing in the halls, the music on the loudspeakers, the whole affair. They noticed the segregation. I think they probably agree with my mantra "interesting to observe."

(And after the power came back on, the ladies were able to hit up the internet in the teacher lounge. That’s when they began preaching the gospel of Facebook. I am beginning to show early signs of addiction.)

Fourth lesson was with 8A, my favorite little angels. We’d planned Jeopardy the week before. After learning what Jeopardy was (although they struggled with the whole "answer must be in the form of a question" concept) the kids wrote up five categories worth of answers: Football, Soap Operas, Famous Hungarian Cities, Cars and Stars.

Margaret, who can get a little feisty in a competitive setting, jumped out to an early lead. But these kids love the underdog, and quickly began to give Rachel covert assistance. By final jeopardy, Margaret had a sizable lead, but Rachel was within striking distance.

The category: The School. The girls placed their blind bets.

The answers? This is the name of the school you are sitting in. The girls scribbled their answers while I hummed.

Margaret unveiled her answer. "What is Joszef-famous Hungarian man?" The kids decided it was okay. She bet conservatively, but we added it onto her total.

Rachel was next. She looked uncertain. "Who is a famous Hungarian man?" The kids conferred, and the vote was unanimous: Rachel the underdog’s answer was okay! She bet the house, of course, and won.

Lunch was terrible. Little curled hunks of chicken liver swimming in a bowl of noodles. Even the soup was disastrous. The ladies were not impressed, and we set off for Eger by bus with crummies in our tummies, needing a second course. And we hadn’t even hit noon yet.

I've Got Friends (In Heves, Of All Places)

Rachel Jones is a sparkling gal. She used to just be a former camper and the little sister of a friend. Mandy, taller by an inch, is one of my best friends from Camp Nan A Bo Sho and UW-Madison. Without her, I simply wouldn’t be the same me. Bones, as we used to call her summer long ago, is now a special ed teacher lucky enough to find herself holed up in Jackson, Wyoming, under the shadow of the Tetons.

Next year, though, Rachel will be more than just another camper I’ve befriended. She’ll move into a new category in my world of acquaintances: roommate! Five of us will share a pad in Madison, two block from the state capital, two blocks from James Madison park.

And Margaret Bermingham’s one of her good friends, a wonderful girl in her own right. They worked together two summers at NABS, the two summer after I left. She goes to Boston University now, but makes it home on occasions like Halloween in Madison and camp reunions. She spent the spring in London, studying and interning, and has been travelling since classes ended.

If you are so enabled, facebook them. (Uh-oh, Jeremy learned a new verb!)

When I heard that they wanted to make Hungary the third country on their spring-time European travels, I was jazzed. These ladies are good shit, and I had long been advocating that anyone and everyone should come experience a taste of Hungary with me.

So far, only my parents had been willing. And there are inherent differences between parents visiting and friends visiting. Chess museums and handiworks cooperatives are traded on the itinerary for gypsy ghettos and bars. So it goes.

The girls arrived from Salzburg by train on Thursday, but they assured me that they felt capable, with good directions, of weaving through Budapest, boarding a little Hungarian bus by themselves, and then manage to get off at the right town. I vowed to help by waving like a madman outside of the right station. Heves and I were both excited. Not often that beautiful young gals come from America!

In truth, I was distracted from my waving duties by picking flowers and talking to students, the girls managed to negotiate their way to Heves and get off the bus at the right spot all by themselves. It’s a major accomplishment, I’m not exactly sentineled on the beaten path. They even managed to get their bags out of the bottom of the bus by the time I saw Heves’ two newest blondish heads awash in the confusion of a foreign land. I’m sure the bus driver was skeptical of their sanity until I greeted them. I was happy, these were my first camp hugs in a long time.

As soon as the bags hit the floor, I welcomed them with palinka, one of our favored Hungarian traditions, before we wandered through the streets of Heves. I’ve been here a long time, I’ve forgotten the shock they felt. Despite it, they smiled. I loved how fast we could all talk together.

Despite Hungarian advice to the contrary, I made them peek into the gypsy ghetto with me after ice cream. Long lines of small houses, set tight against dirt roads with the leprosy of potholes. Broken windows mar walls, garbage paints the ditches unfortunate rainbows. It’s (not) affectionately known in these parts as "krakko." The Hungarians insist that it’s impossible to enter and exit alive. We disproved the skeptics (and/or racists) because I wanted to show the girls the first and the second (and maybe even the third) world natures of Heves. There are many. And its hard to understand the school without seeing that side of town. I wish you all could. They asked a lot of questions, but I didn't have good answers. I don't know if there are any.

We made Italian spaghetti and drank African wine, but when the lights at the Hungarian bar were turned out on us, we figured it was time to hit the hay in anticipation of a deeeelightful Friday ahead.

Up Next? Rachel and Marge tackle Hungarian seventh graders, moose-drawing, 16th century towers, rural trains and, of course, Hungarian men!

RMJ, MBA Do HU!

IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS RACHEL JONES AND MARGARET BERMINGHAM WILL BE STEPPING FOOT IN HEVES, HUNGARY!! WOO WOO!!

Yea for camp friends! Yea for little-sister-of-friend friends! Yea for Bob-Konrad-jokes! Yea for tie-related shenanigans! Yea for future roommates!

Thursday: Hug, Palinka, Tour of Heves, Tour of Apartment, Tour of a Hevesi "Kocsma"

Friday: 7A, 10C, 8A, Lunch, Eger, Dinner Party, More "Kocsma-olni"

Saturday: Morning Market, Hungarian Train Network, Budapest, Statue Park

Sunday: Budapest, Train to Next Destination

Spring Fling

The yogurt that I bought yesterday is stamped to expire on the very date that I am set to leave Hungary... June 8th.

The Hungarian commitment to spring-time education matches mine almost equally. Of my five classes yesterday, three were cancelled. One group was on a field trip, one group was watching a national-government-mandated video, and one group was taking a literature exam. The little 8th graders are up against an oral examination for the first time! As a result, I have time to write, so please enjoy the burst of stories, sequences as they happened.

Love,
me

Why I Came to Hungary

The kids often ask why I came to Hungary. This essay, written  just a dash over two years ago, is why.

The fourth Tuesday of April, 2004

The joy of traveling is discovering happiness where you never knew it existed. Happiness, of course, is everywhere, but to find it outside your own experience is to travel.

Yesterday, I traveled to Hungary.

Budapest bites you the moment you step off the train. Hungary is not the United States. For the first time, I was behind the Iron Curtain, even if the sharpness of that divide has rusted for the last fifteen years. Heavy women are quick to peddle open rooms in their home to overwhelmed foreigners. Broken English invites each confused visitors who steps off the train, affluent by default, to share lovingly-stirred goulash for some petty sum. For these mothers, these grandmothers, bringing the West into their eastern home is the only means to support their way of life.

But the gauntlet of unfamiliarity continued even after we managed to convince the heavy women that we were visiting a friend. Even as familiar a thing as escalators becomes foreign, and frighteningly so, in Hungary. Not one of the native Hungarians worried about having to jump, rather than step, onto the fast moving steps. And no one worried about the steepness or the claustrophobic tunnel that seemed to be closing in over us. With metal gears churning, clanking below us, it was a long, long ride down.

And beyond the dangerously-efficient escalators, above the harrowing subway tunnels, Hungary was no less foreign. The challenge of housing nearly two million people gave the central planners of yesteryear a platform to showcase a rather drab outlook on life. For me, the sameness and grayness of concrete block apartment building, side by side, one after another, seemed like it would suffocate happiness, silence life.

But against the smog of a sterile gray, simple colors shine the brightest.

In pieces, I began to realize that Hungary, and I would imagine a majority of the world, contents itself with a much different joy than ours. More simple, more pure. The joy isn’t like ours, it isn’t a purchased high.The happiness isn’t an entertainment that dulls the senses until an even more colorful, more sexy flash of mindlessness can startle you into the shock of instant pleasure

The joy was more simple. The happiness was the celebration of color. A glimmer of goodness in a world more centered around survival. The joy was the flowers of Budapest.

The flowers of Budapest carried in the arms of a Magyar-speaking grandmother, who had seen her country through so much, a past that made as much sense as the present much of the time.

The flowers of Budapest alongside the thin pancakes that each customer ordered at the family-owned restaurant.

On tables, behind ears, between lovers. Under feet, around fountains, across parks. Against gray.

The flowers of Budapest made me smile.

"I’ll AGG your TELEK!"

In Hungary, when your plans to gallop off to one UNESCO world heritage site fall apart, you can always go the other direction and find a different one! The traditional village of Holloko gave way this weekend to Aggtelek National Park, home to Hungary’s biggest and best cave. The Baradla cave system stretches 25km, all the way into Slovakia. At the border, steel bars block any illegal migration, but tourists are free to visit and explore many of the other chambers and halls.

We used Liz’s place in Tiszaujvaros as our base camp. I’ve been there so many times this year, more than anywhere else except Budapest, but each time I love it. You can ice skate in the summer, you can swim in the winter, you can eat good Italian food any time! It’s some sort of unexplainable utopia, built from scratch in the middle of the Hungarian great plain. This weekend TUV kept us amused with a "Spanish Party" that consisted of venison goulash, sangria by the pitcher, and music that alternated between Rammstein and polka. On a related note, the wonderful and charming Liz is the worst dancer ever.

We set out on the rather lengthy train-train-bus voyage to Aggtelek, unsure of quite a few segments of the plan, but unconcerned. Our group shrank as some people missed necessary trains, a troubling-phenomenon that continues to plague American teachers almost 10 months into our stay. (Although the new folks have only had four months to perfect the ability to get to a train station on time.)

After much debate without a single pro-active measure taken, we landed miraculously at the Aggtelek National Park headquarters. A Tourinform office, a couple of restaurants, a few hotels, and the same tourist-friendly shops selling the 34-incarnations of Big Hungary memorabilia that we’ve been accustomed to since Transylvania. Be warned though, the nearest ATM is 30km away. I bought an awesome green squishy ball for 300 ft that amused me for hours until white gel started seeping out of a weak spot in the construction.

We signed up for the short tour, a one-hour walk through the most famous parts of the cave. We were lumped into a Hungarian-speaking production along with an army of teenage boys and camcorder-totting families.

My favorite sight was the famous Concert Hall, a slab of poured concrete that becomes, when coupled with plastic chairs, a 600-seat auditorium with amazing acoustics. Famous singers and orchestras come to play under stalactites, but for us they arranged something even better. Another Hungarian playing of Chariots of Fire. I was in heaven, a four-year-old boy running laps around a coffee table. Unlike the interpretative ice-dancing episode in Tiszaujvaros, though, this time I (somehow) kept the swelling passions bottled up.

But my favorite room was the Columns’ Hall, where eons of slowly dripping mineral-rich water have frozen stalactites, stalagmites and columns galore into a poetry of colorful stone. Some are so impressive that they’re named. The Minaret stands alone in center stage, seeming to tower almost as high as the real thing in Eger. The Library is off to one corner. The Church-Organ in another. You expect Fraggle Rock characters or some other invention of Jim Henson’s mind to jump out behind every dripstone. As you walk out of the cave, there's a small sign announcing the Slovakian border to your left.

On the subject of caves, I’d like to give a quick thank you to that timeless computer classic "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego" for teaching the generation of Americans who were kids between the years 1988 and 1992 the word "spelunking."

Aggtelek National Park, a beautiful place to visit. But it is possible for you to "successfully complete" Hungary without seeing it. If you’re up for the adventure, we would have benefited from these recommendation:

You’ll only be hungry for more after the standard short-tour. And who wants to visit the most famous cave in Hungary without even getting dirty? Bring a student ID to get a 40% discount and take any of the torch-lit, on-your-hands-and-knees tours. By "torch," of course, they mean "flashlight." (4 hrs – 2400 ft, 5 hrs – 3600 ft, or 7 hrs – 4200 ft) Advance reservation required. Might be worth it to ask for a guide who knows a little English. (36.48.503.000, aggtelek@tourinform.hu)

Transportation:

Take the once-a-day direct bus to/from Aggtelek via either Eger (2.5 hours) or Miskolc (1.5 hours). The longer tours start at Josvafo, which has twice-a-day bus connections with Miskolc (1.5 hours).

Accommodations:

With all the hassle of getting to the boondocks, relax and enjoy your stay! Take a longer tour and spend the night! The national park (36.48.503.005) operates a hostel, with beds for only 1800 ft a night. Right alongside, there are quaint cottages for rent, at a really good price. For 5300 ft per night, you get a charming 4-bed cottage with electricity (shared kitchen and bathroom facilities in a different building). A 6-bed cottage with kitchen and bathroom costs only 15000 ft for the night.

Big Kinga and the Lone White Hair

Nagy Kinga’s her name. Every time you say that, what you’re really saying is "Big Kinga." It makes me chuckle, because it’s true. She’s an eighth grader and she’s taller than me. And she speaks better German.

Last month, she was in a German-speaking Wettbewerb (competition) and took first place in the whole darn Heves county. This is due, of course, in no part to her conversational German teacher. But the school administration decided that to prepare her for the national competition in Budapest next month, she should practice as much as possible. With me.

So we meet a couple times a week, and we’ll keep meeting until her competition. We usually go outside, speaking German is so much easier out-of-doors in the spring sunshine. Yesterday I gave her a choice. "Kinga, du kannst wählen," I said, offering two choices. "Wir können über Slovenia sprechen, oder wir können ins Friseur gehen. Ich brauche eine Haareschnitt!"

I lost a lot of emotional attachment to my hair in Slovenia when Yerik noticed, and plucked as proof, a ghostly white hair from my scalp. I was mortified in a single moment into the apathy of old age. Just a day after a nice Croatian girl on the train had guessed that I was 17 years old, here I was, half the way toward whizzened.

A white hair! Akh! I’m young at heart! I’m a youthful adventurer! I reject stress and worry! My trademark is wild and crazy curls of gold falling from an always smiling face! I wear flip-flops and blue jeans with a sport coat! And we haven’t even mentioned yet that I nuzzle my head and those precious hairs every night onto a Sesame Street pillowcase!

Unbelieveable.

Thankfully, Kinga picked the later, and we marched off the barbershop. Just me and my 13-year-old star-pupil-turned-beauty-consultant-and-translator. Ildiko the hairdresser was excited to see me, it had been a while since I’d visited her. She likes experimenting on my blond curls, I guess, not the most common type of hair in these parts. Kinga and I flipped through the books. She taught me the word for curly -- apparently it’s welle -- but neither of us knew the German word for straight. We improvised.

Ildiko’s silent assistant washed my hair while Kinga selected the best style and pointed it out to Ildiko. She lifted her scissors and curls started to fall. Ildiko’s hair is bright orange and she kept using the word "fru-fru" when discussing my hair with Kinga, but for some reason it’s easy to trust her. Inches later, she whipped out the hair straightener and began smoothing out what was left of my bangs. When we all agreed it looked good, I handed her 5 USD and we all were happy.

Kinga and I walked to the park and sat down with ice cream cones, my treat to her for her hard work in the long process of attempting to make me beautiful. Students walked past without recognizing me, but once they did, I figure it took about ten minutes for the whole damn town to know that Tanar Jeremy got a hair cut. Ahh, life in the small town.

Loob-lee-ah-na and the Yugoslav Five

(Typed while watching a Jackie Chan movie in German. Apparently the enjoyability of his cinematic artistry is able to cross language barriers. Maybe it explains any typos, too.)

Come May, only one country’s passport stamp was missing in my book before I’d tackled the Yugoslav Five, the Jeremy-given-title for the five former Yugoslavian republics. Serbia & Montenegro and (the Former Yugoslavian Republic of) Macedonia were tackled in December. Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina were crossed off in April. (I must admit, of course, that the Bosnian authorities did not actually stamp my passport during our brief encounter.)

Slovenia, the most northern and well-off of the "land of the Southern slavs," was the only country left to discover. Old roommate Nate Fronk had been there in the fall, and we’d only heard good things from others as well. Tucked between Italy, Austria, Hungary and the rest of the Yugoslav Five, Slovenia is a natural paradise. Entrusted with just a sliver of Adriatic coast, the Julian Alps more than make up for the minimal seashore. Still snow-capped in early May, they are no less dramatic than the other stretches of the range further to the north and west in Austria and Switzerland.

Another short overnight stay in Zagreb gave us just enough time to uncover new side streets and a chunk of the best cheese I’ve ever tasted. Smoked. Salted. Fresh from a little German-speaking man in the market. I couldn’t stop eating it all the way to Ljubljana.

The train ride was beautiful, the track follows the Sava River in a tight canyon most of the way upstream from Zagreb to Ljubljana. While the others slept, I befriended a gaggle of Croatian veterinarian students headed to the Netherlands. I wish would could have talked more, but once again, trains were stealing my conversation partners off to different locales. (I’d run into Australian Emma of Dubrovnik fame, completely by chance, in the massive Keleti train station, but she was off to Prague instead of Heves because she hadn’t been able to get in contact with me. Oops.)

With the luck of the planless-traveller, we managed to secure the last two "prison cells" at Ljubljana’s most infamous hostel. The Celica Hostel (celica is the Croatian word for cell) is a recently-renovated prison. The middle floor features 22 prison cells, complete with caged door and one small barred window. Each room was redesigned by a team of artists and given a unique touch. Jenna and Yerik had a lofted bunk for two along with some stylized artwork. Mariah and I had a split level cell with a blueish, devilish theme.

The hostel is the most magnificent I’ve ever stayed in. The rooms and bathrooms are great. The lower-level common room, bar/restaurant, and outdoor terrace are fantastic. Free internet to boot! The hostel even adds features beyond the usual. A room for quiet reflection and an Asiatic sitting room with Turkish water pipes. The cells are pricey (25 Euro a person a night), but if you plan ahead, you can get a bunk in the bigger dorm rooms upstairs for half the price.

Ljubljana must be one of the world’s smallest capital cities. Only 280,000 people live under the shadow of the Ljubljana castle. The city center is delightfully pocket-sized, easily accessible by foot. The old town is split by the Ljubljanica River. Memorable bridges straddle the clear waterway, hardly bigger than a large stream. Four bronze dragons stand sentinel on one, another is buttressed by two pedestrian bridges. Cafes flourish along the riverwalk; restaurants and shops pave the next street up from the river.

We toured the hilltop castle the second day. The view is more spectacular than the architecture. The city and her rivers wound through valleys peppered with green hills. Further in the distance, the Alps rose sharply. It started a good conversation: From what national capitals are mountains visible?

Ljubljana, Slovenia. Bern, Switzerland. Quito, Equador. Kathmandu, Nepal. Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Vienna, Austria? Oslo, Norway? Mexico City, Mexico?

From the top of the belltower, we saw men setting up a fireworks display below. As many people as we asked, no one knew for sure why there would be fireworks. We decided to use the mystery of the occasion to our advantage, and spent the afternoon concocting fireworks-related pick-up lines. For us before, during or after a fireworks display. Some of the favorites:

I hear there will be fireworks above Ljubljana tonight and between us!

Let’s make sure that these fireworks aren’t the last delightful explosion tonight!

These Slovenian fireworks are nice, but interested in seeing a real American rocket?

The best nights begin and end with fireworks.

If you liked that showing, I’m willing to arrange a second round of fireworks just for you.

Unfortunately, none of these lines were actually enacted, tested against the intricacies of the Slovenian mindset. We simply sat in an outdoor pizza café next to the river to watch the fireworks. A dixieland jazz band decided it was a good spot, so they set up their five-piece band right next to us. Fireworks, pizza and dixie proved to be quite the combo on a beautiful spring night.

A short bus is the easiest way to get to Lake Bled, high in the mountains, one of the prettiest sights tourists ever get to. Either I'm a bit spoiled when it comes to mountains, or the dreary rain got to me, but it's still a magical sight to see.

Adios Amigos

First the school-leavers sang, then they left school.

Their graduation ceremony -- ballagas in this tongue -- was on a Saturday. A beautiful blue sky graced the outdoor ceremony, smack-dab in front of the school. There was enough wind to ruffle skirts and whip the dozen symbolic balloons away in the same hurry that many of the kids feel about leaving Heves in, frankly, any direction.

The underclassmen laced every hallway of the entire school with pine boughs and lilac, all the flora coming from the expansive school grounds. It’s quite beautiful on our little campus this time of year, even with the rusty tractors and uninspired statues cluttering the property.

The ceremony was long and in a language I don’t speak. There were no gowns. There was no ceremonial tossing of caps to mark the end. I clapped when others clapped. I smiled at their smiles, their tears, their hugs. I smiled at the flowers in their arms, set against anything but gray. The flowers of Hungary.

The most bittersweet moment was a simple glance in the graduation announcement. There was Jeremy Jewett, along with a parade of Hungarian names. It was the first time I’ve seen my last name used by the school.

But there, in the middles of the "Apples (Alma)" and "Bigs (Nagy)" and "Goulashes (Gulyas)" and "Smiths (Kovacs)," were four other sets of given names first, family names second.

Brian Ravenel.
Christine Osl.
Doris Norton.
Julian Swan.

Four years of predecessors, four foreign missionaries preaching the gospel of conversation. Still shining down on these Hungarian pupils in memory.

For five more years, until little TGIF Kristian and Smarty-Pants Eniko have grown from rambunctious seventh-graders to school-leavers on the brink of life, my name will be in the little graduation announcement at Heves High, smiling at new graduates.

That makes me happy.

Trail Review: Lillafured - Szilvasvarad

Elli’s the young American gal who lives a couple towns over, spending the year here in Hungary at a culinary trade school. I met her on Thanksgiving, and to this day I still call her Thanksgiving Elli in most references.

I didn’t really think that she would be game for an adventure when I sent her a text message, proposing the idea of a backpacking trip. After all, this is a gal who’s turned me down before. (Transcript of actual phone conversation.)

Jeremy: Hi Elli, it’s Jeremy. I’m leaving Nyiregyhaza in an hour or so. Interested in getting some ice cream before I go?

Elli: No. I have to work in the garden.

Jeremy: Okay, then, I have a better idea. How about I buy some ice cream, bring it over, and then help you with the garden work?

Elli: No.

Jeremy: Okay, bye.

But for some reason, she was feeling inclined for a weekend of fun -- what she called her first unplanned adventure ever -- and promptly got her host mom’s permission.

We hit the trailhead in Lillafured, a little resort town most famous for its palace hotel. Just a short narrow-guage train ride up the foothills from Miskolc, Lillafured is like the personal hill-station getaway for Hungary’s second-largest city. Beautiful green hillsides, charming lakes and waterfalls and even some white-faced cliffs shooting upwards.

We set out for the trailhead with our new map of the Bukk National Park, a wooded preserve of rolling hills laced with hiking paths and old logging roads. Trail blazes, though, proved hard to find and we spend hours wandering up and down little towns until we found the red squares painted on trees.

It was Elli’s Hungarian that earned us the trailhead, and I must say that I’m impressed with her prowess with the difficult language. She came at the same time as I did last fall and has embraced the challenge of submersion into the language. I’m proud that she maximized that part of the experience way more than us teachers.

Our job is to demand that kids speak the languages of the world other than Hungarian, it’s best if we don’t let our kids communicate in Hungarian. Her role, on the other hand, is to attend Hungarian language cooking classes, work in a kitchen with Hungarian coworkers, and come home every night to a wonderful Hungarian host mother.

The result is that she’s earned a passable proficiency with the language. She could talk to all of the people we met on the trail. She can hear their story and make them laugh. She’s taken to liking it so much that she’ll enter Indiana University’s Hungarian-language program next fall, sight-unseen. In four days, she even taught me more Hungarian than I usually learn in a month. I’m a bit disheartened at my own effort when I look at her progress and successes.

She’d never been backpacking before and claimed to have a vague dislike for hiking itself. I think the very first hill, too, caught her off guard. I bet she was beginning to question her decision to follow me into the woods. But by the time we found our first campsite 5km down the trail, she was getting into the groove of hiking, two slips into the muddy trail not-withstanding. Spaghetti was good, but nighttime temperature was low. And it rained.

The second day, the terrain was speckled with caves, waterfalls and great woodlands, but without the soaring views of the Matra blue bar trail. We spent time on almost ten different sections of trail, the straightest line across the web of trails toward Szentlelek (10 km). We meant to stop at the private campground there for just a quick beer, but ended up staying a bit longer.

A man who would introduce himself as Jozsef waved at us as we took our packs off next to the mountain hut. He surprised us with English, then an invitation to join a goulash fest. He and his wife, along with another middle-age couple, had bussed to the hilltop campsite for a long afternoon of bubbling goulash to perfection. He proved to be a very friendly man, chatting away most of the evening.

My favorite snippits of conversation?

(Overlooking a view that stretched for maybe a hundred kilometers) "Did you know Slovakia is Hungary? Have you heard about Trianon?"

"Jeremy, you have an Irish accent. Yes, it is an Irish accent. I am positive."

"Elli, you are Polish? Polish girls are the best lovers in the world! (His wife looks on in concern.) Jo bula! Mwa!"

So we drank their wine, ate their goulash and joked in Hungarian. We never ate our instant potatoes, instead found ourselves in the unique backpacking situation of packing more food than we started with, all the extras they gave us! Camping place was about six dollars a person, complete with running water and complimentary view.

As Monday morning broke, the temperature was cold and skies dreary. And unfortunately, we still had half our hike -- 15 more kilometers -- to go. After a drizzly 5km, we stopped for a warm lunch at Bankut, a ski-resort at a different time of year. Grey skies and raindrops escorted us the remaining 10km after lunch, a rather scenic walk down the valleys to

Getting lost, being cold, seeing neat things, noticing litter, putting up with uncomfortabilities, hearing about Trianon, and drinking wine while eating goulash on a mountain top…doesn’t get more Hungarian than that!

Next trip: Green Club backpacking trip! With the kiddie corps!

Full Circle: Goodbye to the School-Leavers

Wednesday, May 3rd
[22:45]

Hungary invented a grand cure for senior-itis, the dreaded curse of apathy that haunts all those about to leave school behind. They ship ‘em out a month early, under the ruse of "school-leaving exams."

All year they’ve been preparing, only taking break for December’s Szalagavato shin-dig. Next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday their high school career hangs in the balance. For the rest of us, it means no school. But this week, it means my very last classes with 12D, 12B, and 12A.

12D is the police class. I’m not sure how bright the future of Hungary’s finest is. I’ll miss just a couple of them, those that can speak English like Adam and Tamas. I won’t miss those like Lajos who don’t favor the English language or effort. I confiscated a gun from him in November. Then I found out it was okay for him to have it because he’s a police student.

(I shouldn’t write such mean thoughts…they all just showed up at my window to serenade me and say thanks. Full circle.)

I wrote a lot about 12B. Attempts at recycling and a girl named Georgia. They’re good kids, some good English speakers throw in the mix, too. And two sets of mis-matched eyes, my new favorite phenomenon.

For class today, I let them look at my photo album and yearbook, while those who wanted to practice for the oral exam spoke with me. In between two "individual short term interviews," I slipped Georgia a note. I congratulated her, wished her good luck, and told her about a story I once wrote. About her. I told her where she could find it online. The school doesn’t like it when I print things, otherwise I would have given her a hardcopy.

After my last afternoon class, I walked to the teachers' office. I found a meeting in progress. I don’t ever attend them, so I snuck in to get some work and then found a bench in the sun outside. I was busy reading when Georgia sat next to me.

"Thank you for the note. I read what you wrote," she said. She speaks hesitantly, carefully. I’m sure she wasn’t aware of the rhyme.

I closed my work and smiled at her. "Congratulations on finishing high school, Georgia. You are a clever girl and a nice person. I am proud of you."

She nodded. "It was interesting to read from a different…" she trailed off as she didn’t know the word.

"Perspective. I have a different perspective. My perspective is different because I am an outsider," I said, explaining the word, reiterating it in an attempt to pound the word in.

"Yes, a different perspective," she agreed. "I cried when I read it."

"I cried when I wrote it," I admitted. Then I held her hand in an aborted handshake. We thanked each other and she walked away. Full circle.

And 12A is Gitta’s class. Super Gitta. I haven’t written the name Gitta in a long time. I’d be nice to say that we simply lost touch after the holidays, but it was something more than that. We both became disenchanted with each other, I suppose. We stopped having private lessons, our hour-long weekly chats on life in general. She stopped participating in class, I stopped including her. Then she stopped coming all together.

If she weren’t a wonderful person with feelings of her own, Gitta might just be a symbol of my emotional failings this year. I’ve developed the habit of calling happiness fiction and accusing those who bring happiness to be simply figments of my imagination. Aaryn, of course, was real. And so too is Gitta.

This year, I must admit that I have oftentimes reverted to being a self-centered person, left too often to my own imagination and thoughts, my words and my interpretation of other’s words. My world revolves around the living of my stories and the telling of my stories. The rest of the world exists primarily as a supporting actor. I’m not so sure that’s healthy.

With only one delicate exception at the moment, every personal relationship I broach crumbles. I have too many feelings, or not enough, but never just the right amount. I’m easily convinced that people are amazing. I seem to have gifts that convince others into a similar analysis. But then it all falls apart. I shake my head and blame myself. So it goes.

But Gitta isn’t a symbol. She’s a girl. A woman, she would demand that I write. She’s the best English student at Eotvos Jozsef Kozepiskola. She’s a caring and special person.

And she’s my friend. She was the first person, and for a long time the only person, who was interested in me. Who asked me questions. Who inspired a Hungarian happiness here in Heves. I probably would have asked to be transferred somewhere across Hungary without her.

She’s leaving in one week, and I’m leaving in five, so we called a truce by text message. I owed her the scarf and gloves that she lent me in December after all, and she said she had something for me. She came to class and we all played Family Feud.

I had her sign my yearbook afterwards, a foreign concept here. After she closed it, I handed back the borrowed winterwear in a bag. I felt guilty. Just as surely as I had used the gloves and scarf to keep my hands and neck warm during the cold Hungarian winter, I had used Gitta to keep my heart and soul warm in the cold Hungarian loneliness when I first got here.

She handed me a long cardboard tube. The Hungarian movie poster for "Wedding Crashers" inside will be one of the prized souvenirs I will take home with me. We had gone to see it together in December. I had to buy four tickets because we were the only people in the theatre.

I peeked into the yearbook after I said goodbye and walked out of their classroom for the last time. I know Gitta’s handwriting. "Your happy smile warms the world." I smiled at the reminder of my charge. Full circle.

And tonight, they serenade. All the seniors. They walked around town, as a class, singing outside of the houses of their teachers. 12B came first. Erika and Ildiko, Georgia and Norbi, and the rest. They sang. I popped two bottles of champagne in their honor. I forgot to suck the first one and half of it is on my floor now. I played a Hungarian song on my CD player for them. Loosely translated, the chorus is "right here, right now, I’m at home."

12D made me go outside, an hour later, in flip-flops. Lajos thanked me and said it was a good year. Even the kids I don’t teach talked to me in German. I felt bad that I had given all my champagne to the first group, so I handed out small American flags. They were a hit.

And now we wait for 12A. Erika, my neighbor, and I. They will come late, Erika is their form teacher and their last stop. She’s been with them for 6 years. I’m simply a visitor. Saturday they’ll walk across a graduation stage, on to better and brighter things.

I’m not sure if Gitta will be among the carolers. She lives in a different village. But if she does, a bottle of wine will be waiting for her. She gave it to me in November, destined for a dinner and conversation that simply never happened. Not because of any faults on her part, just the craziness of my mind.

Until then, we wait. For everything to come full circle.

(Either 12A came really late, after I had fallen asleep with Poisonwood Bible open across my chest, or they didn't come at all...)