Where we crash a VIP dinner and play charades for days. . .

Budapest

Szia/Hello!

Mandy and some strange beehive looking thing near our flat.

We’ve (my teammate Mandy and I..check her out. she’s cute.I know, right!! ) toured around Budapest, ate crapes, tried goulash, and explored our new town. Its charming here in Sarospatak. The little town has a castle, buildings as old as dirt, and beautiful flowers everywhere. We’re enjoying ourselves here. I cannot wait to go swimming in the thermal water, to hike, and get a tour of the inside of the castle. BUT, there are some things that we’d like to have. For instance, it’d be nice to have internet that works, or to have our own kitchen, or to not have our building smell like cigarette smoke….ugh, I hate the smell of cigarettes.  It’s cool though. We are being resourceful and having good time doing it.

 It’s been fun so far talking to people with the few Hungarian words we know.  We went to buy an alarm clock yesterday, and I could not figure out how to ask for an alarm clock, so I sort of yell “good morning” in Hungarian and throw my hands in the air like an alarm. We got our point across, and the dude was cracking up. Then last night we were starving, so we followed some people we didn’t know to a restaurant.  Generally, you go into a restaurant and seat yourself, so we did that. Then I asked for an English menu in Hungarian. Well, apparently the waiter was trying to tell us that the restaurant was closed for a VIP group and he was asking us if we were part of the group. We had no idea what he was saying. I thought that he was trying to ask us what we wanted or something. Then the waiter brought another person that spoke English. He was trying to figure out if we were part of the group..We said no, and he basically told us to leave.. Oh jeez…We left and there weren’t really any other restaurants open. We ended up eating cheerios with forks and cups because we don’t have any bowels or spoons yet . . . Good times!

Oh, so I also wanted talk about the rest of teaching in California. We had our last day of teaching on Wednesday August 17^th.  For the last day, we had a party and each level (beginner-advanced) presented something that they learned that month. My students (beginners) presented a song and played charades. If you cannot tell, I am a big fan of charades. They had fun with it. One of the phrases they learned was “Please be quiet.” One of the students received this phrase to act out, but instead of putting his finger in front of his mouth or something like that he just shouted “AHHHH!!!” really loud. The whole room burst into laughter.

 The party was bittersweet. One of the students sang a song for us, because he knew we were Christians. It was about God’s grace. It was beautiful.  Another student wrote us a poem using some of the words we taught him. He said he would miss us and that we would always be in his heart. I got a little ferkelmpt. I will miss them too. At the beginning of the month my only intention was to learn how to teach well.  I poured my heart into the time we had to lesson plan and tried my best at teaching, but I viewed it more as a learning time for myself. I slowly realized that our group of teachers was making a difference. Pour your heart into whatever you’re doing and you’ll make an impact. Check out a pictures of some of my students. They are amazing! 

That’s all for now.  I start teaching on Thursday. I am teaching college and high school aged students. Wish me luck!

FOR MORE check out my teammates blog: http://mandyinhungary.blogspot.com/

A park in Sarospatak

Parliament in Budapest

Sarospatak

Your breathing is good, but the odor is bad. . .

Some of my Hungary teammates on a scavenger hunt.
The instructions: take a picture skipping through a field.

I've been in California for three weeks now and things have been pretty good. California is a beautiful place. Not that I've had too much time to explore though. They keep us new teachers pretty busy. The days generally start at 7am and end at 9:30-10pm. It's tiring, but lots of fun...

Our schedules are packed with learning to teach and learning about our new cultures. They actually have us teaching already too. We go to local churches and community centers and teach to non-English speakers. I taught the second day I arrived. That was actually pretty terrifying. It's like having to run a race you haven't trained for. The first night was rough, but it got better after that though. Each time it's more and more fun. I teach beginners, so I have to do a lot of charades in order to make them understand what I'd like them to do. I've gotten a lot better at role playing with myself. This can be pretty comical at times. I didn't know I'd like teaching so much. It's honestly pretty great. I'm getting more excited about meeting my students in Hungary.


 Funny story: The other night, one of my coworkers was teaching advanced students "social taboos" and she made the class role play some situations (we role play a lot to get them to speak English more). The one student was supposed to tell the other student that she had bad breath. It went something like this: TS: "Lucy, did you brush your teeth this morning?"  Lucy: "Ummm, Yes."  TS: "Well, your breathing is good, but the odor is bad." It was great! I couldn't control myself when I heard that story.  This is the kind of stuff that happens all the time. I really didn't anticipate laughing so much while teaching English. The students laugh too when they realize their mistakes. It's a good time all around.

I leave in one week for Hungary. I'll keep you posted!