This weekend I ate at least a pig

Hungarian for the day: Hello - used to say goodbye. I suppose they assume that our hello is like their szia. It takes some getting used to.

Monday morning and in 20 minutes I'm off to the first day of school! I'm nervous but also excited. Today is opening ceremonies and then classes with "form teachers." I don't know what a form teacher is but I'm not one, so I'll be observing my colleague Judit's English lessons. Then tomorrow I start my own teaching.

I enjoyed my first weekend in Hungary immensely but I don't think that my arteries did. Saturday Gabi, a colleague of Taylor's who has taken both of us under her wing, took us with some of her friends to a lesco (pron lay - cho ) festival. Two streets were blocked off and everyone had big cauldrons over open fires boiling with different types of lesco, which is a traditional Hungarian stew that, like most Hungarian food, consists of a lot of lard, onions, pork, paprika, and a few vegetables. We were given bowls and walked from lecso to lecso trying the different family recipes. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, which I really regret because with over 200 lecso entries, a big stage replete with traditional dances, gypsie songs, and Bon Jovie covers, and an entire town of drunken Hungarians wandering around gorging themselves, it was really something to see. One of Gabi's friends is a journalist here in Szentes who was there covering the festival and she had her photographer take a bunch of pics of Taylor and I being served our first lecso. She said here in Szentes Americans eating lecso might just be front page news. Yesterday also brought with it a Hungarian dining experience that left me feeling more blimp than human. Gabi's family had us over for lunch, which was one of the biggest feasts I've ever seen. Her family didn't speak English but they were exceptionally friendly towards us and seemed emphatic that if we ever had questions or problems we should go directly to them. Touched and slightly worried about our stomachs splitting, we spent the rest of the day enjoying the perfect weather and walking around the town, contemplating our impending first days as real teachers.

That's all for now - I need to get pretty for my debut to 400 Hungarian high school students. Szia!