I love it when I have time to write, sitting at my desk, clattering away at my Laptop. For the past few days, I've existed inside a tornado...being thrown from one place to the next. For crap's sake, I feel like I have a real job. Ouch! I can't believe I just wrote that. If anyone were to defend that last statement I made, it would be me...but over the past several months teaching abroad, I've realized that it takes a tremendous effort to feel as though you are REAL teacher at a school abroad. Maybe it takes a tremendulous one...because I haven't reached that point. I don't feel like a real teacher as much as my colleagues attempt to help me. I'll get into that another day though.
As for right now...I'll write about non-school related things...aka the countryside.
This past weekend, Liz and I took a train from Budapest to Hernadnemeti, a small village near Szerencs, where Laura lives and teaches. Unfortunately, we had some trouble with the trains and missed our connecting train in Miskolc. So, we sat in the waiting room at the station munching on apples and watching nervously as a drunk beat the living #$%& out of another drunk sitting in the corner. We decided to try to catch a bus to Hernadnemeti, but it never appeared. We stood at the bus stop thinking dejectedly of our last option. It was 11 pm at this point and we walked back to the train station to catch a taxi. Liz and I tried to maneuver our way through Laura's town in the dark using blotchy Hungarian. We were turned around more than once, but eventually the taxi dropped us off safe and sound in front of Laura's beckoning light filled window.
Liz and I met up with Laura and Jenna and we all talked over tea for a short time and then went to bed, preparing to take a morning train to Aggtelek National Park. This park is on the border of Hungary and Slovkia in the northeastern corner, so it was a lot of train, but time seemed to fly, because it was good to catch up with Jenna, who I hadn't seen since last year.
After I left one of my favorite hooded sweatshirts on the train for some lucky soul to find and give a home, we arrived at the park and checked into our hostel. We had wanted to camp there and have an outdoorsy weekend, but the Hungarians on the phone told Laura that it was too cold to camp. So, we were left with the hostel, which proved to be very cozy.
Later in the afternoon, the four of us took off on a hike through the surrounding hilly forests. We had already seen the cave (beautiful in my opinion, but not really rugged and off the beaten path. The trail inside the cave is so marked and so not adventurous in any way) so we decided to pass it up. The scenery that day was very autumn. Rolling hills, yellowing leaves, the faint smell of burning in the air...the whole nine yards. Liz and I had been somewhat anxious to get away from the city for a weekend and be out in the countryside. It was just what we needed. The air was fresh, no car exhaust, and beautiful rolling forests. Although, with this, we also got the inevitable country stare when speaking English.
We hiked, we breathed in the forest air, we paused at memorable sights, and we rehashed CETP memories among other individual ones. We decided to turn around at about 5 o'clock, because the forest valley was becoming a tad dim. On the way back, we somehow got lost. The blue trail was nowhere to be found. We took turns running up the valley floor here and there, tearing through the mass of crunchy orange leaves, attempting to find a the blue paint on a tree. Some of us contemplated how we'd make it through the night:
"I guess we'll get to camp after all!"
"We could always huddle together."
"Those people at the souvenir shop will be our only witnesses and we'll forever be known as the stupid Americans who got lost in the forest."
Marvelously, Liz found the trail with her never-failing eagle eye and we were back on track in no time, but booked it out of that forest as the sun began its dangerous descent and the temperatures became a little chillier. It was a workout for sure.
That night, we had a huge dinner at the local park restaurant where I had bableves (vegetable and meat soup) to warm up, chicken with mushrooms, and a cocoa palacsinta. It was a nice two hour dinner followed by a night in at the hostel. Laura and Jenna went to the hostel lobby to watch "Dumb and Dumber" dubbed, which they said was half as funny. Liz and I retreated to our beds with books. When the movie was finished, Laura and Jenna came back up to the room and we talked into the night, slumber party style (no lights, all girls, tucked in our beds laughing constantly).
It was a much needed trip, but good to get back to Budapest all the same.
The second countryside I'm headed for is...drumroll...IRELAND!! My fall break plans are in order and I'm due to leave on the 26th of October where I'll hop a train to Vienna and fly from there to Dublin. More on that later...at any rate, the countdown is ON.
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