Serbia

Hungarian for the day: Sajt - cheese. Noted here only because of how it is pronounced, shait, as in the way the Irish say shit. This has provided me endless entertainment and really made me wonder how much more mature I am than my students.

Yesterday (Thursday the 20th) was the big day of truth: a trip to the Hungarian consulate in Serbia to try and obtain a visa. The problem is that I should have obtained all my papers before leaving the states because once you are in Hungary you cannot apply for a visa. That was impossible for both Taylor and I, however, because our schools were being reorganized from two separate schools into one and there was no headmaster over the summer and hence nobody to sign (and stamp) my official documents. Hence we needed to leave the country and go to a Hungarian consulate in a neighboring country to apply for a visa. Since Serbia's consulate in Subotica is by far the nearest one to Szentes, off to Serbia we went.

Gyula (pron Djula), Taylor's boss, happened to be from this Serbian town so he was the logical one to accompany us. Northern Serbia's population is more than half ethnically Hungarian, and Gyula is one of these Hungarians who grew up in Serbia, identifies as Hungarian, and speaks both languages. He picked me up at 7 in the morning and after a brief stop at the Gimnasium (his school) to make sure that our numerous papers were in order we were off. The drive and border crossing went smoothly and took only 2 hours so we arrived in Subotica with plenty of time to make our appointment. Our time at the Hungarian consul was anticlimactic. We turned in our papers, they thought they were really confusing, and said that things looked okay but they would have to spend thirty days thinking about it and forwarding the documents back and forth to Budapest before they could be sure of anything. Sigh. There was one very auspicious development in that Gyula had gone to school with a woman who works at the Hungarian consulate. He described her as "someone I very much wished to be closer with" but said she had sadly aged over 25 years. At any rate, they had a very congenial sounding conversation and at the end he said that she would try her best to make sure things moved along with our applications. Here's hoping!

By the time we were done with our official business it was still only midmorning. I kind of feared we'd turn back around and be back in time for afternoon classes, which I would have been completely unprepared for. My fears were unwarranted because Gyula was eager to show us around his youthful stomping grounds as well as hit up a number of stores and markets to stock up on some of his favorite products from Serbia. We spent a really fun day sightseeing and listening to Gyula talk about his past and what life was like growing up in Serbia. He was quite effusive and generous, treating us to lunch where he assured us we'd get the best pizza in the world (really good but I'm still for the Chicago deep dish) and insisting that we try Serbian palinka. I'm glad that if we're lucky and get our visas we'll have to go back to Serbia with him again for another day of Serbian food and bargain shopping. Much better than playing the name game or trying to convince a room full of disillusioned Hungarian 16 year olds wearing Slip Knot t-shirts to talk about their hobbies in English. For once the Hungarian bureaucracy seems to be working for me!

Subotica's town hall was built by Hungarians before they lost the territory after WWI. It's a stunning building covered in intricate and hand-crafted traditional Hungarian wood and ceramic ornaments.

Gyula explains the history of Subotica to Taylor in the city's main square.

A fountain constructed completely from handmade ceramics

The McDonalds around the world always seem to pick the most conspicuous spots to set up shop. Here is one in the corner of the old town hall pictured above.

After a day in the city Gyula took us to a lake outside of Subotica to walk off a huge lunch. He assured us that all of the Serbians and Hungarians in the area had pictures of themselves in front of this fountain from the good old days of their summer lake vacations. Now we do too.