Library Cards and Hamburgers
On day two in Szerencs we were picked up early in the morning by Adrienne and Fanni and we went to the school that I would be teaching at. I thought that it was the ONLY school that I would be teaching at, only to be informed that I would be teaching at three different schools, and one of them is in the next village, which is a 4km walk one way. Now don’t get me wrong, I love to walk, however walking two and a half miles one way, carrying a laptop bag and a change of shoes is not my idea of fun! Especially once winter hits… So yes. Three schools, grades one through eight. Two towns. One girl. Ta da!!!
After touring the school, Reagan and I were left to amuse ourselves for the rest of the weekend. From what I could tell the town does not have much of anything to do in it. Limited shops, restaurants and entertainment. But what the heck, I am game for amusing myself, so we decided to hike into town and see what kind of fun we could find. We walked the mile and a half to the downtown and began wandering in and out of the shops. For starters, let me just tell you that things are extremely expensive here. We went into two different toy shops, and their Barbie dolls were around $30 dollars each. Food is the same. I bought a cucumber that was $4, and fabric softener that was $12. They really need to get on the Euro. Like yesterday. Second, all of the signs and everything are in Hungarian. No surprise there really, but what surprised me was how very little the people spoke English. Virtually not at all. Lucky for us I carry a little translation book with me everywhere I go, so I was able to point out words to them and communicate that way.
We walked the whole length of the downtown, which consists of many gelato shops (that also have coffee… real coffee, not the crap we serve back home), a few different pubs, and various shops that were similar to American convenience stores. The town also has a public swimming pool, which is indoors, and a mineral bath. The bath is warm water, and people go there for its healing powers. At the bath they also have a salt cave, where the air is pure and is supposed to cleanse your lungs. I don’t know how I feel about the bath. You all know how weird I get about public swimming pools. Hair, band aids, kids peeing, etc. It all grosses me out.
Next stop, the castle. The castle is fairly small, but well preserved and quite beautiful. The grounds surrounding it are immaculate and are covered with walking trails, benches, flower gardens, and a pond that has a pier and lots of fish and frogs. It is very, very pretty. The castle gates are always open, and inside of the castle there is a small information center, (where they do not speak a lick of English), and in the upstairs part there is a library. We headed into the library to see if they had any books in English. A long shot to be sure, but what else did we have to do? So we went up to the front desk and asked the ladies there if they spoke English. Panicked looks came over their faces and they all shook their heads no. So I got out my little translation book and pointed at the word for book, which is konyv, and the word for English, which is angol. One of the ladies nodded and led us over to a shelf in the back of the library where they kept their books in English. I would say there are about fifty books on the shelf, and it is a very odd selection. Ninety percent of the books are classics: Twain, Dickens, Kipling, Steinbeck, Austen, Shakespeare, Poe, etc. The other ten percent are a grab bag of crap that they must have had donated to them, such as five books out of the Sweet Valley High collection.
So I picked up “The Catcher in the Rye” by JD Salinger (another fave), “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” by Charles Dickens, and a bilingual copy of “Just So Stories for Little Children”, by Rudyard Kipling. Reagan picked out a hodge podge of books and we headed back to the front desk to obtain our library card.
Since the ladies at the front did not speak a word of English I had to mime out us checking out books. I showed them my name and the address at the school and kept pointing at myself and saying the word for teacher, which is “tanar”. They nodded and then with worried looks consulted each other. Finally they conceded that it would be okay for me to check out books. They gave me a card to fill out, and through the use of my translation book we figured out what needed to be written on it. Then they mimed to me that the books would be due in 3 weeks. Success!! Our first business interaction with Szerencians!
After that we decided to go home for awhile and then come back into town later that night for dinner. We went to a pub that was open and had outdoor seating. It was around 8:30 by then, so lots of people were inside the bar, the smoke was thick, and the “townies” were lounging about wanting to see and be seen. The outside tables were crowded with people a bit younger than me and the teenage set as well. They kept coming and going on mopeds and motorcycles. We opted to sit outside with them, rather than face the billowing clouds inside the pub. In case I did not mention before, everyone smokes in Hungary. Everyone. There really is no age restriction on when it is okay to start, and earlier that day we had seen a little boy around the age of 8 or 9 professionally chuffing away on a cigarette outside a store. We were floored by this, but it is really quite normal.
We managed to successfully order hamburgers, sans mayonnaise and cabbage, please! Then we went outside to eat. Aside from a stray dog joining us for our meal, there was really nothing else eventful to report. Another day done in lovely Szerencs.
On day two in Szerencs we were picked up early in the morning by Adrienne and Fanni and we went to the school that I would be teaching at. I thought that it was the ONLY school that I would be teaching at, only to be informed that I would be teaching at three different schools, and one of them is in the next village, which is a 4km walk one way. Now don’t get me wrong, I love to walk, however walking two and a half miles one way, carrying a laptop bag and a change of shoes is not my idea of fun! Especially once winter hits… So yes. Three schools, grades one through eight. Two towns. One girl. Ta da!!!
After touring the school, Reagan and I were left to amuse ourselves for the rest of the weekend. From what I could tell the town does not have much of anything to do in it. Limited shops, restaurants and entertainment. But what the heck, I am game for amusing myself, so we decided to hike into town and see what kind of fun we could find. We walked the mile and a half to the downtown and began wandering in and out of the shops. For starters, let me just tell you that things are extremely expensive here. We went into two different toy shops, and their Barbie dolls were around $30 dollars each. Food is the same. I bought a cucumber that was $4, and fabric softener that was $12. They really need to get on the Euro. Like yesterday. Second, all of the signs and everything are in Hungarian. No surprise there really, but what surprised me was how very little the people spoke English. Virtually not at all. Lucky for us I carry a little translation book with me everywhere I go, so I was able to point out words to them and communicate that way.
We walked the whole length of the downtown, which consists of many gelato shops (that also have coffee… real coffee, not the crap we serve back home), a few different pubs, and various shops that were similar to American convenience stores. The town also has a public swimming pool, which is indoors, and a mineral bath. The bath is warm water, and people go there for its healing powers. At the bath they also have a salt cave, where the air is pure and is supposed to cleanse your lungs. I don’t know how I feel about the bath. You all know how weird I get about public swimming pools. Hair, band aids, kids peeing, etc. It all grosses me out.
Next stop, the castle. The castle is fairly small, but well preserved and quite beautiful. The grounds surrounding it are immaculate and are covered with walking trails, benches, flower gardens, and a pond that has a pier and lots of fish and frogs. It is very, very pretty. The castle gates are always open, and inside of the castle there is a small information center, (where they do not speak a lick of English), and in the upstairs part there is a library. We headed into the library to see if they had any books in English. A long shot to be sure, but what else did we have to do? So we went up to the front desk and asked the ladies there if they spoke English. Panicked looks came over their faces and they all shook their heads no. So I got out my little translation book and pointed at the word for book, which is konyv, and the word for English, which is angol. One of the ladies nodded and led us over to a shelf in the back of the library where they kept their books in English. I would say there are about fifty books on the shelf, and it is a very odd selection. Ninety percent of the books are classics: Twain, Dickens, Kipling, Steinbeck, Austen, Shakespeare, Poe, etc. The other ten percent are a grab bag of crap that they must have had donated to them, such as five books out of the Sweet Valley High collection.
So I picked up “The Catcher in the Rye” by JD Salinger (another fave), “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” by Charles Dickens, and a bilingual copy of “Just So Stories for Little Children”, by Rudyard Kipling. Reagan picked out a hodge podge of books and we headed back to the front desk to obtain our library card.
Since the ladies at the front did not speak a word of English I had to mime out us checking out books. I showed them my name and the address at the school and kept pointing at myself and saying the word for teacher, which is “tanar”. They nodded and then with worried looks consulted each other. Finally they conceded that it would be okay for me to check out books. They gave me a card to fill out, and through the use of my translation book we figured out what needed to be written on it. Then they mimed to me that the books would be due in 3 weeks. Success!! Our first business interaction with Szerencians!
After that we decided to go home for awhile and then come back into town later that night for dinner. We went to a pub that was open and had outdoor seating. It was around 8:30 by then, so lots of people were inside the bar, the smoke was thick, and the “townies” were lounging about wanting to see and be seen. The outside tables were crowded with people a bit younger than me and the teenage set as well. They kept coming and going on mopeds and motorcycles. We opted to sit outside with them, rather than face the billowing clouds inside the pub. In case I did not mention before, everyone smokes in Hungary. Everyone. There really is no age restriction on when it is okay to start, and earlier that day we had seen a little boy around the age of 8 or 9 professionally chuffing away on a cigarette outside a store. We were floored by this, but it is really quite normal.
We managed to successfully order hamburgers, sans mayonnaise and cabbage, please! Then we went outside to eat. Aside from a stray dog joining us for our meal, there was really nothing else eventful to report. Another day done in lovely Szerencs.
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