I can't believe that I have already been here for three weeks. It has certainly flown by. Now I'm already falling into my routines and habits and life here has taken on a fairly pedestrian feel. This is not said as a complaint. I'm happy to be forming routines and getting acclimated to living here - it hasn't always been an easy process. There's one last major step before I really live here: on Friday Taylor and I are headed down to Serbia to the Hungarian consulate there to see if we can become legal, visa-holding aliens. Once that (fingers crossed) goes through it will all be official. Failing that, at least I'll see you all a bit sooner than expected!
The last few days of teaching last week went very well. I was a bit stressed by the impending mountain of paperwork I was supposed to be doing, but classes themselves were productive and I think more and more I'm going to have a good year with most of my students. Two different colleagues came up to me on Friday and said they had had students compliment my class, so I'm happy because I thought a lot of them disliked me for actually making them do stuff. Well I'm sure some of them do, but at least some of them are happy to learn. Also nice was that when I just didn't turn in all my work on Friday nobody batted an eye. I suppose that deadlines here really don't mean too much either, so I gave myself an extension. Last Thursday brought an exciting new development, my first couchsurfer. Couchsurfing is a site where you sign up to host/be hosted all around the world. Basically it amounts to staying with a stranger that you meet over the internet, which sounds extremely sketchy but it's actually a really great way to travel. Having had a friend recommend it to us, Alina and I used a similar site (www.globalfreeloaders.com) out West on our road trip and had a few great experiences with it. My first couchsuring experience was also very positive. A Frenchman named Philippe stayed with me on Thursday and Friday nights. He is biking all the way from Paris to Istanbul, so he had a lot of really interesting stories to share. He was very friendly and even stocked my kitchen with more than I had in it (bread) and did the dishes in the sink (a coffee percolator and a mug for each day of the week...). On Friday night he and I joined Taylor at Chicago, the local American themed restaurant cum billiards club and bowling alley. Yeah, it's as awesome as it sounds. We played a few pool games and then ate a whole lot of pizza, which felt just great after nearly a month of purely Hungarian food. Not that Hungarian food is bad, it just lacks variety and ethnic food hasn't exactly caught on here in Szentes. It's pretty sad the shameful things I would probably do for some good Thai or Mexican food. At any rate, the rest of the night was spent hanging out with a few of Taylor's older students at a local pub and then going to a big palinka and wine festival in the main square. It was a lot of fun and I actually picked up a few new Hungarian phrases.
Philippe observes as Taylor lines up a shot in Chicago's billiards room
From the billiards room we got to watch our hoodlums, I mean, students doing some bike tricks. Look carefully for the midair blur there and you might make out one of my freshman.The rest of my weekend was much less eventful, though it did include things that excited me immensely such as time to sleep 12 hours in a row, a run to Tesco where I bought a few essentials for my apartment, and enough sunshine to do and dry all of my laundry which becomes a pretty big deal when living without a drier. Other than that I did a lot of work for school and was therefore kind of peeved when in discussing the past weekend with students I discovered that they generally don't have any homework over the weekends. Then why do I? Oh well, I ostensibly planned every class I'll have for the rest of the year and all of my syllabuses are off to be stamped and dropped off in some basement. It's good to feel like you're working for a cause. At any rate, I leave you now with some pictures of my town and apartment:
I took this on my walk to school. My commute is quite a trek at about a mile each way, but it's nearly entirely along the river and it's so beautiful that it always puts me in a good mood. Well, as long as it isn't raining.
Nothing says Eastern Europe like the juxtaposition of Old World charm and concrete.
Szentes is a biking town and there are probably more bikes than cars or pedestrians. Once I know I'll be here for the long term (post visa) I'll be in the market for a bike myself.
My apartment building. The two windows on the left on the second floor are mine.
The view from my balcony is very peaceful, all weeping willows and kids at the playground. I live in the "Garden City" part of Szentes, remote but very safe, easy going, and friendly.
My apartment, where 70s style is still alive and well!
3 comments:
Oh My God! Paul! I Love it! You're apartment is so cute!
I really really really wish I could come and visit you!
Nothing says Eastern Europe like the juxtaposition of Old World charm and concrete.---> hahaha, so true.
Man, your apartment and all your pictures remind me so much of Slovakia
1) Your apartment looks awesome -- head's up, I might have to come visit.
2) How cool that you had a couch surfer!!!!!!!!!
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