Tuesday 17 February 2015

One month later

Can you believe that it's been almost a complete month since I started teaching?

One month. DONE.

Because I sure can't.




I've been sick with the flu so I've stayed home for the last two days and I've been sleeping and drinking inordinate amounts of tea.

BUT
before I was stricken down by this plague, I was exploring more of the city and doing pretty cool things. For starters, we celebrated Farsang (like Carnival) at school with an assembly and a sort of walk off competition for each class (it was all in Hungarian so I'm a bit foggy on the logistics) and my kids were definitely the cutest ones there. (Maybe I'm a bit biased. Whatever.) There was lots of singing (everyone knew the words) and talking about Farsang things (probably) and overall it dragged on for so long that I started to eat my costume.

These are my kids who didn't dress up or whose costumes weren't too cumbersome


There was a bit of a minion theme going on.


This is French me (I had a baguette to start as well) and my amazing clown co-teacher Magdi







Afterwards we had a party that involved a lot of limbo and chocolate bars. That weekend I also found BAGELS. You never really know what cravings you'll get when you're in a new country. And my bagel cravings were STRONG. (So far I haven't craved perogies. But it will happen. Right Elise?) Luckily I have some new friends who have been here for six months already and they have just discovered a new place that sells bagels. For under a 1000 ft too (which is apparently a steal for this kind of weird food). I had duck breast with balsamic onions and some kind of yummy chutney. 

Does this look good? I can't tell because of the sickness but it was delicious at the time.)


This is Char and Mer eating their bagels

The next day I checked out the Mangalica pig festival and ate so much pork I thought I might actually get sick of it (spoilers:I didn't) and was much too cold and full to take any photos. 

Which brings us to this weekend. I had a friend (Hi Anna!) come visit from Mateszalka and we explored the great indoor market together, where we looked at buying traditional Hungarian blouses, giant fuzzy slippers and touristy tote bags. And of course bought langos (only a 3/5 I'd say) and wolfed it down standing up. I even folded mine over like a burrito to eat it faster because we were in a rush. Which is pretty sacrilegious to Hungarians I'm sure. We then headed to Fisherman's Bastion to meet up with friends (didn't happen due to poor timing choices and bad phone connections) but the views were spectacular. 


Maybe it's famous. Maybe it's not. I liked it though.


Fisherman's Bastion and all of it's tourists.

Anna trying to take in all the views

We were supposed to go out later that night but we both weren't feeling well. Instead we walked a minute for gyros and came back to eat dinner while we watched New Girl in our PJs. The next day I went to Mohács for the Busó festival as a chaperone for a friends grade eight class. It's a bit like Carnival. Except ummm maybe a bit different. I was talking to a friend and we decided it had a "rape-and-pillage" sort of vibe. Suffice to say it was an experience. If you want to learn more, you could look at this LINK, it seems pretty accurate. Anyway. Here are some pictures from the festival.

They're supposed to be scary. I would say that they had succeeded.


Yes, they do hit you with brooms.


And have strange tractor vehicles.


They can also be a bit ummm friendly.

I'm sure this looks gross but it was actually delicious. A cone of bread with sausages? Yummm


Kürtőskalács also known as chimney cakes. Also finom (delicious)


These are my fellow chaperones/friends- Carlyn, Kendahl and Matt (minus Jen)


The bonfire at the end where a scarecrow effigy was burnt. 





2 comments:

  1. What a bizarre festival. Glad you survived. Get better.

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  2. Looks and sounds like you're having a lovely time in Budapest:) xoxo

    ReplyDelete