Happy Birthday to Me!!

It's a little late but the 24th was my birthday! It was a really good one too! I got presents from some of the teachers, some of the students, and everyone wished me a happy birthday! It made me very happy :D. Unfortunately, it's at times like this that I really miss home. It makes it very hard not being able to see everyone that I love and care about. I miss everyone so much!

On a second note, I worked on a project for our friend Jake. He wanted an intro video for his videos so here it is.

Not too much else has been going on. I got some more videos to upload from our trip to Serbia.

Old Christmas Videos

I've been really falling behind on blogging! Sorry to everyone who looks at my blog. I'm gonna try and get better about it!



Anyways, I forgot to post videos of when we went to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, so here it is now! Better late than never.

This first video is of some blacksmithing! It was really cool and it was nice to get close to a heat source since it was so unbelievably cold!

Along with the blacksmithing were some carols! It was great. This was a rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star!"

Lastly, there was this street performer with a puppet. People loved it and he drew a huge crowd. It might be hard to see in the video but the "puppet" got mad when an old man walked accross his stage. It was pretty hilarious!

I loved Bratislava and I think it was a nice place to go for a day trip.

So fast forward a bit and we find ourselves at the day filled with adventure. Jake, Val, and I explored the town and discovered many new and interesting sights! The first was the top of Castle District.

the castle and the Fisherman's Bastion!

These were some old ruins accompanied by a little dialogue from my self and from Jake!

This was part of the underground hospital. They were selling gas masks for 1500 HUF ($7.50) and that was WAY too good of a deal to pass up. We had a lot of fun afterwards taking pictures and videos wearing the masks!

Well, now we fast forward to the recent past. Val and I's friend Amy recently had a birthday party and she invited us. It was Mexican themed and she invited some Hungarians to join in the festivities as well. Great fun! They all loved the tacos that Amy made and Val even made some sopapillas that everyone loved as well!

Otkert

Ahhh what can I say about this wonderful place? It's the MOST amazing place in Budapest and our favorite place to go. This place has it all, good food, amazing decor, and the friendliest staff I've met anywhere in Europe. If you go to Budapest, you have to go here. I've been agonizing about posting about this place because it's so amazing and I don't want people knowing about it, but my kind nature made me change my mind :). If anyone wants us to take them there when they're here, let us know! (Not that you'll have a choice) :)

Otkert on Google Maps!

The Speaking Test!!!

This has been the craziest week that Val and I have experienced yet! It seems that everything is falling on the same days. For instance, this week we had everything happen! The new teachers from CETP arrived this week and we stopped by to say hi, My kids had a practice speaking test (That they all did great on!) and Val and I started our Hungarian lessons this week as well! It has been crazy, but mainly exciting!

To everyone that I haven't talked to on Skype, sorry about that. This week has been absolutely packed with things and I've had a hard time managing all of it.

The Christmas market

I had gotten out of the habit of posting anything for a while so this is very, very late. Well, you know what they say 'better late than never'. Here's some videos of the christmas market. It was amazing while it was here and I'm so glad that we saw it.
The first thing you see in this video is a stage where they held a bunch of performances. It was really great and we saw some pretty amazing performances.
This was a stand that was selling these amazing smelling things. They were delicious smelling and everyone that walked by stopped to smell them!
They even had some blacksmiths that were selling hand made crafts. They were very nice but very expensive as well.


Well, that's all for the christmas market. :D

Heading for home

Tonight is our last night in Budapest for the year! We are very excited to go home for the holidays. While everyone has been really nice towards us, there are just those special parts of the holidays that you can't get in another country.
I was shocked to find out that people in Hungary eat fish for the holidays. I always think of turkey or chicken, but fish has never crossed my mind. It was weird for me to hear and it made me that much happier to be going home and having some New Mexican food! Whoo hoo! It's amazing how you don't realize things like this are so different until you come across them. Also, I can't wait to not have to tone down my colloquialisms!!! Yay!

4 days of school..... after today

So, today is Saturday and, just like every work day, we woke up at 5:45 to get ready for work. That's right, we're going to work. It has something to do with not working on the 24th and instead working today. Blech!

Noone is happy about this. The kids are unhappy, the teachers are unhappy, and Val and I are unhappy about it. However, on the good side, we only have 4 more days of working, after today, and then we'll be heading home! Val and I are very excited about this! We also have a friend from orientation coming into Budapest and we'll see her tonight!

After school I'll post some more videos about what we have been doing, as well. We've been quite busy doing some fun stuff and also looking for presents for everyone!

That's all for now.

Anna's Great Fall

I'm so proud of my students! They came up with this short stopmotion this afternoon. They did such a great job!

Gerbaud and the Zoo: Part 2

Val's dad and stepmom have arrived in Budapest. We've done a lot already since they arrived last Thursday. The first was to visit Gerbaud! Where I saw the awesome old guys playing music. The guy playing the violin would say, "Opa!" every time someone would put money in the case.

Awesome.... Then we went to the zoo. It was some great stuff!!!! Sweet animal stuff happening............................................. NOW!

Cute gorilla baby!!!!!.........

Isn't that crazy????? I love the Budapest zoo!

Yes, that's a rhino and yes, I'm touching it O_o!!!!!!! I also enjoyed this particualarly sweet moment of an old lady and the same rhino.....

Ridiculously amazing stuff. Even better than the first time. We also saw some people feeding elephants. Nuts!!!

After the zoo we finished with a relaxing afternoon at Szechenyi furdo!!! It was great! What an amazing place to live in!

Back to Basics

I've been forgetting my video camera EVERY time we go out and do something interesting. There was a band playing in the metro last night and I missed it :P. I've also missed a couple of opportunities to show off some of the amazing places that we've gone to in Budapest. Last night we went to an amazing cafe in a book store. It's definitely a new hangout spot. The ceiling was huge and the music and atmosphere were ridiculously nice.
In school related news, Val and I have been adjusting to working at the school and it's started becoming second nature to us. It's nice because it gives us a chance to actually focus on other parts of our lives. Other than this, things have been quite calm. We try to keep things from getting routine and in Budapest it's not very difficult to do. There's always something new and exciting happening and I can't help but feel inspired by the city. It makes me want to create things and work on art all the time!
When we first arrived in Budapest, I loved it. Then I started to dislike it, due to culture shock and the language barrier, and now I feel like I love the city again. There's something special about it and I can understand why people love Hungary so much!
Today we'll be going to Gerbaud and a couple of other places to try and find some things we need. (I/E paint, pencils, and other things) Can't wait to see what happens today!
I'll start posting some more videos today.

That's all for now!

First Animation In Budapest

Well, I finally caved in and did my first animation. It took me about 15 minutes and I mainly did it to fill the need to do SOMETHING. So here it is. I'll start getting some much better one's done when I spend more time on them and actually have a consistent source of light (I/E not the sun).

It's very short but hey what can ya expect? I'll work on another one probably this week or this weekend. Get something done that is more presentable. It all depends on if I get an idea for something or not. If I do it'll be up here soon!

Sugar and Yet More Work.... With a Splash of Potential Stop Animation :D

Not this past Wednesday but the Wednesday before Val, a couple of friends (Amy, Jake, and Jamie), and I headed out for a night on the town. This is one of the places we went to!

It was called Sugar. It was crazy and amazing and very Japanese!

They also sold a bunch of random things. It was pretty cool!

This is what everyone ate. It was all quite delicious but I wish that I hadn't been so full at this point : /

This past Wednesday we went out with Jamie to the Pink Cadillac. It was a really good pizza place but a tad pricy. It was very fun nonetheless. (FYI: when I say pricy I really mean that it is what you would probably pay in the U.S.)

Other than this we have been working and we are going to work tommorow. By work I mean we have to cheer on a fun run. Next week we are also supposed to start our extra lessons. We will need to choose a day to do these and I haven't decided which day. It was going to be Monday but a lot of my kids said that they have Hungarian lessons that day...... bwah! So I'll probably do them on Wednesday or Tuesday. I'll teach some stop animation in class, in English, and I think it should be an enjoyable experience!

Workin' and More Workin'

Bwah! Val and I have been quite busy with working. I have some videos that need to be posted but I can't find the time. I suppose that that's good. A lot of the stuff that we have been doing has been fun things but, of course, we have also been quite busy with work. Today I have to teach a double lesson for one of my classes. It shouldn't be too hard, but my lack of experience is very apparent whenever I have to do anything that is even slightly more difficult than normal. However, I'm learning a lot so I think that these situations shouldn't be difficult for much longer.

Well, anyways, life is going well and our days have been packed with more things that we can even think to do. I'll post some videos today when I find the time.

Agi Turner's Hostel and the Bear Sanctuary

Ok. These are two different thing but they were both awesome and I didn't want to make 2 seperate posts for them. The first thing is that on Thursday Val and I went to the hostel, like I wrote about in my last post. We had some awesome food that Agi prepared and met some people fro various places around the world (Germany, France, Australia, and Scotland).

It was an amazing experience and was very fun. I'm seeing more and more that Hungarians are unbelievably hospitable. Like going out of their way hospitable.

Today, we went to the Bear Sanctuary (Medve Otthon). We had a great time and after speaking in pretty pathetic Hungarian to our waitress, a lady over heard us and asked us if we'd like to go into the wolf pin to see the pups in there........ ummmm hell yeah!

This was when we first went in.

Here I am getting an overkill of love!

There were some other people but they were really scared of the wolves. But seriously? How could you not think they were just really cute?....

Then, if that wasn't enough excitement, we got to feed bears with honey on a giant spoon!

What an amazing day it was! It took us about 2 and a half hours to get there but it is WELL worth the traveling. To anyone who wants to know if it's worth checking out, it is! I love how, in Hungary, you can get as close to the animals as is probably safe. In the US people would be too scared to let anyone do these things but realistically it's not usually the animals fault that they hurt people but really the stupidity of the people who get hurt.

This day was both the most amazing and unusual experience that Val and I have ever had.... EVER!

A Trip to the Countryside

Today we went with our contact teacher, Agi, to her countryside cottage. But before that we went to the Achaun (pronounced Ocean). It was a HUGE super market. Parts of it even looked like a mall with various stores in it. Then we headed to this small bakery a couple of towns over, on the way to her cottage. After that we went out for Langos!




I love Langos!!!!!

Next was our final destination, the cottage. It was unbelievable! I love how, in Hungary, you can go 10 minutes outside of the city and be in a quaint country village. I have to be honest, my jaw dropped when I saw the amazing view from her cottage!

See..... pretty awesome huh? Val and I were so honored that she took us to see it. We even sat out on the patio and ate food and drank wine with Agi.

Great times. We can't wait to visit people in the small towns :D

The End of Orientation

Yesterday was the end of orientation for Val and I. We went to the various classes, we missed Hungarian because my back was causing me problems, and then everyone went out to the Bagolyvar (not sure if that's the spelling on that one) and it was really good. They have it set up so that you can order a "Menu" and they bring out different courses depending on the Menu you get.
When we fist walked in there was a guy playing the hammer dulcemer, which seems to be a popular thing in Hungary! It's very cool.

You can also see how nice the restaurant was in this video. Very swanky! The other night we also just stumbled upon St Istvan's Basillica. It was unbelievable. I can't get over how amazing the architecture is here. Budapest is truly a hidden gem of a city!

This was walking towards the basillica.

I love the very artistic lighting on it. It adds to the dramatic ambiance and made for a beautiful scene.

Anyways, skip ahead to the present. We are currently sitting in the computer room waiting to meet our contact teacher for our school. We shook hands with her and she seems incredibly nice. Val and I are both scared and excited to see our school, apartment, and potentially our boss and coworkers. This will probably be the last time that we'll be able to easily access the internet until we get it in our apartment so there should be many long posts to come about the first day of school and about the continuing saga of our lives.

(On a side note: I suck at spelling so if you see a typo know that I can't spell check because the computer thinks that I spelled everything wrong in Hungarian)

Gellerthegy and a Hungarian Speaking English

So we finally figured out how to pull out money. Thank God!!! We paid the rest of our money that we needed to and we're now debt free. Hurray! So the other day we climbed up Gellert Hill and took some video.

It was pretty tough but the view was worth it! This was mostly at the top. We didn't go ALL the way up but that will be an adventure for another time.

And finally for a little something extra, this is Maria, one of the instructors, speaking english. This gives you an idea of what the Hungarian accent sounds like!

The audio is pretty quiet but you can still kind of hear her : /.

Last night we had some pretty awesome experiences though. We showed some people the movie "Kontroll" and we also hung out in front of the hotel with some people and that was pretty fun as well. We and Val also drew some monsters. I'll be sure to post them! O_o

That's all for now! I haven't been carrying around my camera for some bizarre reason so my future posts will have much more interesting things in them!

Orientation

Just a real quick update. There hasn't been too much to blog about. Mainly because we've been trying to take it real slow. After all, we do LIVE here so we don't want to burn ourselves out on everything.
Today was ok. Actually it kind of sucked. It turns out the bank's debit card stuff isn't working. Whatever that means and they have no idea when it will be back up. Kind of annoying. Other than that orientation was actually pretty fun and we learned a lot.

Day 2 And There's a LOT To Talk About

Ok. SO it's really the next day here but I couldn't find the time to blog yesterday. I did want to make sure to do it at all though. Yesterday we went to the zoo, even though we originally planned to go on a paddle boat ride.










The plan kind of fell through when the park ponds were all dried up and hence unusable for a paddle boat. However, the zoo was amazing! I've never been to a zoo where you can get closer to the animals! You can even feed most of them, which would be unheard of in the US. Here's a look:

These were the hippos that we saw. They would open their mouths whenever someone would put their hand up. They were always expecting some sort of food.

A Giraffe!

There were these amazing baboon babies. They were really playful as you can tell. I'm amazed at how people are allowed to feed the animals or at least I think they are..... regardless, everyone did feed them and it makes for a much more enjoyable experience than American zoos.

This was another instance of something that would NEVER happen in the US. These rhinos were in an enclosure that was seperated from people by a few flimsy wood poles and pieces of metal. It makes for both dangerous and amazing fun times :D.

We didn't really do much today so not much to post about on that. Anyways, anyone who's in Budapest MUST MUST go to this zoo. It's deceivingly large and full of amazing things!

Been a Crazy Past Couple Days!

Val and I have been in Budapest less than 24 hours but we have already done so much! Today is Szent Istvan day and there has been a lot of activities around the city. Val took a bunch of pictures of some funny things that we saw on the plane on the way over so I'll let her handle all that stuff.
Val and I had a long conversation about how scared we were last night and this is what conclusion we came to:




This morning, when we went out, we were terrified to do even the simplist thing, order breakfast. We walked around for a good half an hour, past cafes and etterems (restaurants), because we were too scared to speak Hungarian to anyone. We settled on a small place on Vaci Utsa (Vaci street) and went inside. the people were very nice and we got a reasonably priced meal. It was very enjoyable and the girl at the counter spoke English to us while we spoke Hungarian to her. After breakfast we decided to head over to the area around parlaiment and have a look around. Well, to our astonishment there was a little celebration going on!

This was a little area on the road. There was a lot going on there!

This was some of the opera that was going on!

Here is the greatest thing I've ever eaten! Langos!

and to top it all off a sweet gypsy band!

This was pretty much our day today. We did a lot and now we're too exhausted to even leave the hostel for the fireworks. Oh well, it was worth it! We're having an amazing time so far and Budapest is really an amazing city!