The death grip of winter

The death grip that winter has over Hungary does not seem to want to go away! I'm not going to lie, I've been spoiled having winters in Texas. Here in Hungary this week the average temperatures will be in the 30's (around 0 in Celsius) and in Texas it will be in the 70's (around the 20's in Celsius). Now we did sign up for this so I suppose we can't complain. But then again this is our blog, so why not!

Last week we went from completely dry sidewalks to thick snow. It snowed for 48 hours straight. All day Thursday and Friday we had nothing, but cold little pieces (____fill in your own expletive here____) of white fall down. Normally this would excite me, but now it just annoys me. Just when I thought we had finished with all the snow we get a ton of it! So in the tradition of making my readers suffer...if I have to see snow, then so do you. Enjoy the pictures if you dare.  :)

The University covered in evil fluffy white snow. 

Wouldn't be a photo montage of Debrecen without including
the Big Church. :)

Off to clear the roads with one shovel and some brooms?

Beautiful? 

I could hear the statue whisper, "Help me my face is cold."

Frozen lakes...again.

Also, I recently discovered that my boots are wearing thin and have holes forming. So not only do I need the snow to stop for my personal sanity, but for the sake of my footwear too! 

No I am not pregnant, but maybe I should be?

Maybe I should have a baby?

This is a common thought that comes up for many women after they have been married for a while. As for me...I can wait. However, if I were to have a baby maybe Hungary would be a good place to have it. The government in Hungary recently brought back the maternity leave of three years instead of the two years. This is uniquely high even by European standards. To have this much maternity leave would be a dream. Back in the States you are lucky to get six weeks off or to even have maternity leave offered at all. My last job didn't even offer maternity leave--it was take all your sick/vacation time off and then come back to work.

"The government also introduced joint taxation for families as of January this year. Parents, and singles, with up to two children can deduct 62,500 Hungarian forints ($313) per child a month from their taxable income. Parents with three children or more can deduct more than three times the amount per every child a month." 

The idea of getting a tax break is reasonable in Hungary. The average Hungarian income is much less than the average US income. We make about a fourth of what we use to make in the States here in Hungary. Even that may be a generous estimate. So much of the Hungarian income goes towards living expenses and taxes that I'm surprised the government hasn't offered incentives like this before. 

If only the States would have such incentives for having children. Then again having a population problem like the one Hungary is facing is not something the US is having to deal with. 

"The number of newborn babies in Hungary fell 6.3% to 90,350 last year, according to official data. The government is determined to boost this number and put Hungary’s population back above 10 million."

Then again U.S. birth rates were at an all time low in the year 2010. The birth rate, which takes into account changes in the population, fell to 13.5 births for every 1,000 people last year. That's down from 14.3 in 2007 and way down from 30 in 1909, when it was common for people to have big families.
The situation is a striking turnabout from 2007, when more babies were born in the United States than any other year in the nation's history. The recession began that fall, dragging down stocks, jobs and births.

However, with 2011 predicted to be a better year for the U.S. and possibly the world economy the birth rates may go back up this year. It seems to me that every time I check Facebook a friend has either just given birth, just gotten pregnant or showing off their baby bump in progress. I suppose I am at the age where friends are getting married and/or having children. I want to post a picture of myself on Facebook and say, "Baby bump or just bloated? You tell me!" So many pictures of friends showing off their "bumps" seem silly to me. I kind of want to ask what's the point? But then again I'm not pregnant, so I guess I can't really understand the "thrill" of being with child yet. But when that day comes look out world I'm sure I'll be just as annoying as all the other Mom's-to-be out there! :)

To read the stories I pulled information from click on these links:

Hungary Wants More Children Story

U.S. Birth Rates at all time low

Being Sick Abroad

Well you may have noticed that we have been missing from our blog the last several days and that is because we have been sick. We started off the week with a nice Valentines Day. I bought Dana flowers and we went out for a nice dinner. The best part about being abroad for Valentines is that no one really celebrates it abroad. So we had absolutely no problem getting a table at a nice restaurant and enjoying a night out. But the niceness of our week stopped there.

On Tuesday we woke up to get ready for work. Dana left the bed first and came back pretty quickly saying that she felt horrible. I told her to get back in bed and I would call our contact to get us a doctor and tell Dana's school that she was not going to be in. She fell back asleep and I headed to work. I was only at work for about 30 minutes when I suddenly felt like crap. I could barley stand up and I felt both hot and cold. My students first asked me if I smoked because I started having a really bad cough. I kind of laughed and said no. Then I just sat down for the last 10 minutes of class and told the students to work on their homework. They told me I should go to the doctor and that I looked ill. My first period is a good group of kids and appreciated their concern. I then went to my contact and told her I needed to go home. she agreed and told me to head home. I came back stripped down and crashed next to Dana. 

Our contact arranged a doctors appointment for us and so we journeyed over to the doctor's office. This was our first experience with government health care. To be honest it was just as long of a wait back home and I felt no lack of quality. The building was not as nice and there was a little confusion about us both being sick and not just Dana but that was it. Our symptoms were heavy coughing, congestion, light headedness, chills, sneezing, running nose, and exhaustion. We were told we had sinus infections and they recommended we take the week off and gave us some medication. Our employers cooperated and we have been home ever since.

The first day we were awake for maybe 4 hours. The next day we took more of our medication and slept some more. We called our parents to tell them what was up. Other than that we just used a mountain of kleenex, slept and ate at strange hours, took multiple showers, broke into hot spells in the night, and eventually started feeling better. Hopefully we will be back to normal soon.

Getting ready to take some alka-seltser like medicine.

Our medications

Taking the alka-seltzer like stuff.

Not very tasty :)

Dana preparing for the same.

Trying a different approach.

Still not good.

Finishing off the glass.

Finishing mine as well.

P.S. It's okay to laugh at these pictures of us drinking our medicine...we thought they were pretty funny too! :)

Weekend in Kecskemét

This post is long over due. You may be wondering where we have been for the last week? Well, first we were in Kecskemét for the weekend...then we got sick and have been sick ever since. But before we were sick we had a lovely weekend visiting CETP friends and enjoying the best pizza in Hungary.

Kecskemét is about 2 1/2 hour train ride from Debrecen. We left Saturday morning in time for the pizza party that afternoon. Our CETP friends, Franny and Jon hosted the party and fed us in the traditional Hungarian way, which was until our stomachs couldn't take it anymore. :)

We got to meet some new CETP people, who came this January and who were all very nice. It was fun to share stories about teaching, life in Hungary and other random topics. It was great being around so many English speakers at one time, it almost made me forget we were somewhere foreign. That night we stayed at a hostel and the next morning went back to Debrecen.

I'm bad about taking pictures of people--especially people I just met. So unfortunately there are no good group shots.

A memorial to the original territory of Hungary. 

We found Debrecen!

József Katona Theater

St. Miklós Church--side view

St. Miklós Church

City Hall

Downtown.

City Hall close up. The bells ring out a beautiful sound.

The Great Church.

We found another Debrecen marker.

Cifra Palota

Kecskemét Synagogue

Update About News Around Debrecen

Our last post talked about a military parade that we saw briefly while walking to work.

Well, we had an actual Hungarian translate the news release instead of the google translator thing. 

Translation:
Csaba Hende the minister of defense took part in the farewell of the soldiers who will go to Afganistan
and Kosovo. He said : the original goal isn't changed because of the deaths and it isn't planned to
finish the foreign military mission before its time determined.

Also, we know that Hungary isn't really going to invade Romania--just a little joke. :) Hungarians are a very peaceful people.

In other news--the weather here in Hungary the last week has been more spring than winter. We even walked to the grocery instead of taking the bus. On Monday the weather was so nice we opened all the windows and let in some fresh air. It was only about 45 degrees (5 Celsius) that day, but to us it felt tropical. However, today it was rain/show mix and nowhere near 40 degrees. 

In Ben news---

Hey. My news this week deals with my students. This week a few of my private students showed me presentations and books on Hungarian towns and castles. We have discovered many places we want to visit when the weather gets warmer (a phrase we seem to use very often :)). Also, my high school students enjoyed my lesson this week. I brought a football to school. We had already discussed sports and they had seen it earlier in the year. However, this time I showed them how to throw it! It was fun to watch the trial and error. It made me realize though that they really don't play many sports in Hungary that require throwing. They like water polo but not everyone plays it. As compared to American kids who grow up throwing a baseball and football around a lot. Some students picked up alright and others kind of shoved it toward the receiver. I am pretty sure it will not become a national sensation. However, most of them had watched and enjoyed the Super Bowl. They said that after I explained the rules it made more sense. :) It was definitely a neat experience. 

News around Debrecen

We don't often report about news events going on in Debrecen. However, when I was walking by the main square last week for work I saw the most unusual site. A military type of demonstration. My first instinct was to be nervous, but my second thought was, cool, what is going on? I didn't have time to watch the soldiers marching in place or hear any speeches (not that I would have understood them anyway). Later that day I asked Ben if he knew about what was going on and he didn't know either. Then he asked some of his adult students about what had happened. One of them found out for us and sent us a news link.

So is Hungary finally going to invade Romania and take back that land that was theirs? Who knows? But this is what we did find out:

http://www.dehir.hu/videogaleria/20110203/bocskai.html 

Thanks to the magic of google translate I have translated the article from Hungarian to English.

The soldiers took part in búcsúztatóján Csaba Hende, the minister of defense. Thetárcavezető said the deaths will not change its original purpose and is not scheduled to be completed before the time of the foreign military mission.

It is not a perfect translation, but you get the idea--maybe. The video attached to the news story shows the main square along with the soldiers and if you squint really hard you may or may not see me walking in the background.

Questions and Observations

We have had some people write in some questions so we figured we would answer some:

How much is our apartment? 
Here's the thing. We don't pay for our housing. Our schools pay for the flat and the utilities. So we really don't know. Sorry.

What do we do for fun? 
Well when we have a free weekend or extended break we travel. During the week it varies. When it was warmer we would go for walks around town and relax at an outdoor coffee shop or restaurant. Now that the weather is more arctic we stay in more. We visit the thermal bath sometimes or just hang out inside nice coffee houses and read and talk. When we are at our apartment we Skype friends and family, watch movies, TV, or read. We also have friends that we hang out with as well. But, to be honest, the winter has become pretty boring.

Where do I play tennis?
There are clay courts by the university that you can reserve. When there is snow they have a couple of indoor courts but they are hard to reserve because of high demand. My students blame it on "all the old people that have nothing else to do." :)

The two indoor clay courts.

This is Galgóczi Balázs one of my 11th grade students.

What is teaching here like?
We have enjoyed teaching. Dana has become more busy and she has to zip around to several schools and nurseries daily. She is definitely worn out by the end of the day. I have a pretty easy schedule so far. I am only in a few different places each week. Most of the people in the program are at one school five days a week. They have similar work and schedules to teachers back home. Having taught back home I can say that there are some pluses to being here. Including: Better disciplined students, increased student work ethic, smaller classroom, and much less administrative oversight. However, I do miss teaching back home and look forward to diving back into it.

Thanks for the questions! We welcome more and will do our best to answer them.

Onto other things. We have been tickled by the reports of snow and ice back home in Fort Worth, TX. We know that people are tired of being out of power and having traffic headaches. However, we have had worse weather for the last 2 1/2 months. It is a little comical reading the papers and social media updates about all the winter weather back home. We wish them well but can honestly say that they need to get used it. Last year it snowed what was record amounts on Valentines Day and they broke that this year. I think that with all the climate change that has been happening this could become more regular. Luckily we are prepared after living here. :)

P.S. I am glad that Jerry Jones has been having a painful Super Bowl hosting. That jerk deserves it after ruining the sport and traditional sportsmanship for future generations. I have yet to find many modern day athletes that I am okay with my future children looking up to. Thanks Jerry!

Random stories from the frozen tundra (also known as Hungary)

Snow Apocalypse My Foot!

Our hometown of Dallas/Fort Worth is being hit with a lot of snow this week and we couldn't help, but laugh a little. I felt like saying to all my friends back in Texas, "Take your last 3 days of snow and multiply that by 3 months and then tell me how bad it is!" I would of course say this with smile on my face. You see, since living in Hungary, snow has become a daily part of our lives. We always wear about 3 layers of clothing when we prepare to go outside now. We thought the snow was magical back in the middle of November, but now that it is February....the snow is a little less cute. On the plus side, we have definitely built up our tolerance to cold and have learned to walk on ice (shuffling very slowly sometimes). 

Scoot on Back.

My kids continue to be adorable on many levels. However, they also get me sick. That is the tragic downside of working with nursery kids, they tend to carry a lot of germs and spread them around (to me for instance). When I work with my nursery kids we usually sit on the floor for "circle time" where I show them pictures of new vocabulary, play games, etc. The kids love to get close to me and that means I get a little claustrophobic feeling. So I do a little chant that Ben said had worked for his sister and mom. I shuffle myself backwards and sing, "Scoot, scoot, scoot on back" and that gets the kids to move back as well. Giving me a germ free buffer zone for a least a minute until the next activity. 

What's In a Name?

I love all the names kids come up with for me at school. I teach almost 200 kids a week, so some interesting nick-names were bound to be made up for me. Some of my kids call me "Teacher Dana," "Dana Néni" (which means Aunty Dana in Hungarian), or "Angol Néni" (which means English Aunty in Hungarian). 

I Can Teach Anywhere!

The other day when I arrived at my nursery school in Ebes they had a new teaching arrangement for me. Normally I teach in a classroom with small desks and a carpet area where we sit on the floor. When I looked in the classroom instead of the room being empty it was filled with a dozen sleeping little kids on cots. I guess they decided to use my room for nap time, but where do I go? All the rooms seemed to be filled with sleeping children so I was showed to an empty hallway. They put down three mattresses for me and my 10 kids to sit on while we did class. No big deal right? Except we had to be super quiet because everyone was sleeping! So we whispered the "Hello Mickey" song and we whispered our vocabulary words. Luckily my lesson plan for that day wasn't a loud one with lots of songs and dancing! It is times like this when I am teaching on a mattress with a bunch of little eyes on me that I think, "How did I get here?" It is strange and funny all at once. 

Usually I have boots on, but this was on
a day where the streets didn't have any
snow for once.

The view outside our apartment window. Tropical isn't it? 

Ben gearing up for a cold walk or
maybe robbing a bank?  :)

Nursery Kids, Mickey and Me

It is a new month and I am glad we are now one month closer to Spring. January was a hectic month for me in terms of teaching. Hence, that is why I haven't written anything about teaching in a while. You see, my teaching schedule completely changed with the start of the new semester.

I have many new additions to my teaching schedule including--two classes of first graders, more nursery kids and did I mention more nursery kids? I am now teaching nursery kids (pre-school) at seven different schools. That's right folks seven--at least I think. The last month has been a jumble of meeting new kids, meeting new Hungarian teachers and trying to remember which bus takes me where I need to go. 

My nursery kids range from beginner to super beginner! I had someone with me in my first round of nursery lessons help translate things to the kids, but now that it has been a few weeks I am on my own. I usually have between 7 to 12 kids in a group for a 30 minute lesson. You may think a 30 minute lesson is a breeze, but put yourself in room with 10 kids and see how it goes. My lessons can go from brilliant to crap in a matter of moments if I don't maintain order. The kids are eager to learn, but also impatient. Every lesson feels like a one woman show, except the show isn't on Broadway...it isn't even off-off Broadway material. 

Me and my Mickey Mouse doll get the show started with the usual "Hello Mickey song," which is either a hit or gets me a few weird stares. The first time I pull out the Mickey Mouse doll I can tell what some of the kids are thinking, as in, "Who is this weirdo waving Mickey Mouse in my face?" But by the second lesson and definitely by the third lesson, me and Mickey are rock stars. They sing and wave and get so happy it almost makes me feel bad that I thought about ditching Mickey in a dumpster by the road the other day. 

Teaching kids in a foreign language is harder and easier than I thought it would be. It's hard in the fact that they speak Hungarian to me and I can't respond back. It is even harder when I do understand their Hungarian, but still cannot respond back because I am the English teacher--not the Hungarian to English teacher. I wish I could communicate with these kids in their native tongue. I can tell they have some wonderful, smart and silly things to share, but my Hungarian just isn't good enough and their English is still too limited.

The easy part about teaching the nursery kids is that they are sponges. I've always heard this term used with young kids, but now I know it is true! I am jealous that these kids are going to be bilingual, trilingual and so forth. It is amazing to see how much you can teach kids through body language, songs and games. Even the shyest of Hungarian children at the end of a lesson is already saying words quickly. 

I love teaching so far, but I do wrestle with what the future holds for me. Do I continue teaching when I go back home or do I seek a job behind a desk like the one I had before I came here? I don't know if Mickey and me will do a tour in the USA, but at least we have our routine down pat!