Saturday afternoon craft class

Last Saturday afternoon found me seated at our kitchen table with three other women enjoying a time of crafts and conversation about  many things.  I think these few photos will share with you some of the joy my Hungarian friends found in recycling used greeting cards and old calendars into tiny boxes and pretty gift bags.  For some of the boxes we also used origami paper which was a gift to me from Japanese friends while we still lived in Canada.  And thus the cycle of blessing carries on....

Three crafty ladies around our kitchen table

 

 

Thursday, November 8th and Friday the 9th....

Since mid-September we have hosted an Adult English Club at our home almost every Thursday evening from 5:00 til 7:30p.m.  Usually we have about 25 eager students of all ages join us.  Some live right here in Tapolca and others drive from a distance to be with us for these evening lessons.  Preparing for these events means Ron makes sure the pub next to us is thoroughly mopped and dusted with the heat turned up and the place warm and ready for the Carlaw's beginner students who meet with them there.  Meanwhile Thursday mornings normally find me here in our kitchen tutoring a young woman from Budapest and preparing snacks for our evening sessions. Sondi always makes sure there is an abundance of good food to share with our students. There are also lessons to review as we prepare for our evening sessions.

 While I teach an intermediate group of students in the living room Ron gathers with his small conversation group around the kitchen table.  Our students come from all walks of life and add much variety and interest to our own lives.  Some tend to come and go; others are very regular and come every week to both the Thursday night classes and our Monday and Tuesday Bible studies too.  We are so happy to see some meaningful relationships developing as we spend more time together with these Hungarian friends.

This past Friday we  enjoyed having one of our students come for supper along with his wife and son.  Charlie faithfully attends our sessions on both Tues. and Thursday evenings; and son Balasz is one of our regulars for the Tuesday Teen Club too.  But we had not met wife and mother Edit before and understood that she knew very little English.  However, they all came and we had a delightful evening together here as we shared supper and played some of our favourite interactive games.   We also soon discovered that Edit likes crafting and thus she was back again on Saturday for our ladies' craft classes here, this time bringing me a pretty little hand-crafted ceramic angel.  This dainty angel is now part of my special Christmas display here in one corner of our kitchen...a lovely reminder of my new and crafty friend, Edit.



Friday evening supper with Charlie and family

Friday morning.... 

Our walk through the park to the train depot
 

But last Friday was not just work as we prepared supper for Charlie, Edit and Balasz.  We also made time for a special little trip away....another quick jaunt by train  to Lake Balaton and back again.  We left about 8:15 a.m. with a light rain misting down upon us. I decided this was a good time to try out my new umbrella!   But within an hour or so it as clearing and we were well on our way....this meant we were off the train and heading home again.  Yes, this idea of doing some kind of walking holiday in Europe has been a long- time dream of mine.  Last Friday, with some free hours and a forecast for sun, we gave it a try and found it to be a wonderful way to explore new territory, get some exercise and take in lots of the local culture too.  We figure we walked about 9 miles along the bikepath bordering the lake with several detours into small villages along the way.  But all of this is another story for another time!  For now we've shared with you just a few of our  200 pictures snapped as we strolled along on a warm and sunny afternoon.....could this really be mid-November in Hungary?!

Home again to Tapolca

After our many recent excursions, this  past week found us back and settled again in Tapolca.  This is a charming town of about 17,000 people that has gradually come to feel very much like home to us.  We thought you might like to view a map of  Tapolca and get a little peek at our situation here.

 If you look carefully you will notice a  green triangle towards the western side of town.  This marks the location of a large cemetery.  We live just across the road and slightly to the northeast of this historical site. On All Saints Day we watched as hundreds of people passed our windows en route to this memorial garden.  We have discovered that honouring the dead and tending the graves is of great importance to the Hungarian people and thus this cemetery seems to be alive with activity every day of the year.

Statues everywhere one turns.....

  Pansy beds brighten our walk to the bus depot.

Meet my new friend Elizabeth, a widow from Gyula in eastern Hungary.  She  and I "just happened" to meet at the mill pond one grey November day. After chatting awhile with limited English and many gestures, this stranger quite eagerly accepted my invitation to come back with me to our home for tea.  What a delightful way to pass a dreary autum afternoon!

 

 

 Farmer's market displays....bright and beautiful and always interesting the people we meet there too!

We  are thankful to live not far from the farmer's market which happens twice a week on Tuesday and Friday mornings, rain or shine.  We often shop there for everything from pots and pans to potatoes and pansies. This week we bought squash, potatoes, apples and almonds.

 And almost daily we make our way along the main street which runs right past our house.  It is a short walk to the post office, town hall, bus depot, train station, hospital and firehall.  In fact most everything here is within easy walking distance.  Yes, we've now survived for nearly three months without a car, a clothes dryer or ice cubes in our refrigerator!  It's a simple life with many hidden side benefits.

TO BUDAPEST AND BACK AGAIN BY TRAIN --- November 3-5th

Reflections....Musings on a Monday morning train.....

Right now our train has paused in Balatonfured. Budapest lies two hours behind us. Memories of our wonderful weekend away to the city warm our hearts on this damp, grey November morning. Budapest was beautiful! Our young hosts were so hospitable, taking us gladly into their family circle with such kindness and love. Now just two more hours and we should be back again to our flat in Tapolca. One more month and we'll be flying home to Canada!

So who are we? And what are we doing here in Hungary as another winter season steals in upon us?

Most tourists left these parts long ago. Lake Balaton is too cold for swimming now. Bikeways no longer beckon as they did on the warm, summer days. Sidewalk cafes are closing for another year. But still we are here!

We are two mostly-retired teachers from British Columbia, Canada. On September 8th we left our homeland and family to travel to Eastern Europe. We flew Vancouver to London and on to Budapest where our Canadian friend met us and whisked us off by van to our new home in the charming town of Tapolca. We had travelled before to places like Hawaii, Japan and Burma. But this was our first trip to Europe and our first time to leave home for so long. We had come to teach English and we planned to stay for the full three months allowed to tourists in Hungary.

Our first day in Tapolca was Monday, September 10th. The welcome was very warm as temperatures hovered near 33 degrees C. We were quickly introduced to our new home and community. It was a quaint and charming place. But to dwell in a gated house with ornate iron bars on our kitchen windows was a new experience for us. We soon realized that we must never venture far without our full set of keys.

Our ground-level apartment was lovely--clean, cool and comfortable with two toilets, one full bathroom, one bedroom and a huge living room perfect for hosting our English classes. But then there was the kitchen with its small sink, short counter, mini-fridge and two- burner electric hot plate--- all much more "compact" than my kitchen in Canada where I enjoy the luxury of a full-size electric range with oven; a dishwasher; microwave; large fridge and freezer and lots of counter space. In time our tiny hot-plate was replaced by a small gas range with oven. I was thrilled! Now I could really bake and make more than stove top cookies for our students. But then I tried lighting our new gas burner and soon discovered that matches didn't work so well. So my husband bought us a long lighter, and presto -- we were in business---most days! Other times my stove is determined to be self-willed and tempermental and stretches my patience very thin. At present two burners light well. or sometimes just one.  The others are off duty at present so I find myself often being a creative cook and using our toaster as another source of heat and cooking space.

Then there was the laundry room next door to our flat. Here we discovered a small sink and miniature washing machine with a very long two-hour cycle. With no dryer available we have learned to use a laundry rack which we move from room to room and often outdoors on sunny days. The extra heavy jeans and towels are draped over chairs, and shirts and nighties we sometimes suspend from our living room lights. It's a new way of interior decorating! Everything, everywhere does eventually dry in its time!

In so many ways we soon learned that life moves slower in Hungary. We take time to wash and dry our clothes...we take time to walk to the shops or farmers market for fresh produce and bread almost every day. We tote home miniature 1 kg. bags of flour and sugar and huge bottles of purified water. We now know where to buy the best pizza, yogurt and somloi galuska. We stroll often past city hall, past the bus depot, along the main street bordered by beds of bright pansies... down to the mill pond and fountain in the center of town. This is our favourite "retreat"---a peaceful place to relax and reflect on our new life here in Tapolca. Here we often sit and peruse our maps and plan our next trips to other villages like Sumeg, Keszethy and Heviz. We are always glad when the names are short and easily pronounced. Too often we find tongue-twisters like Szabadbattyan or Szekesfehervar. How then do we explain to the ticket agent or bus driver where we really want to go?!

This past weekend we finally made it back to the bustling city of Budapest where we first set foot on Hungarian soil some two months ago. These have been months of many adjustments and many new adventures...and several spells of homesickness too. They have been days of discovery as we worked with our students, teaching adults, teens and children much about English and about our Canadian homeland. We are well-seasoned Canadian citizens, proud of our heritage and excited about returning home soon. Yet we also sense some sadness creeping in as we think about our departure...for our roots have begun to grow deep into European soil and our hearts have been warmed by the love and generosity of so many of our new Hungarian friends.

The train moves on now, gathering speed as it goes. And life moves on too. We look back and are so grateful for this opportunity to live and serve here. We look ahead and wonder when we will be back again to embrace the simplicity and beauty of this amazing land with its wonderful people.

This Christmas season, with life moving at a slower pace, I've decided to take time to again write Christmas cards. It's a tradition that I used to love but had somehow lost as our lives in Canada got busier and e-mailing seemed easier. But now I want to step back in time again.

I bought the cards this weekend in Budapest. They are cards featuring a collection of candles burning brightly. Cards with a greeting written in Hungarian! The Scripture references on the cards are familiar to me; the Hungarian script not so! But we have Hungarian friends now and they have interpreted for us. Thus we know that the message of our cards is simply this: "Immanuel...God with us!" For sure this is the message of hope and life that we desire to share with our friends everywhere as another lovely Advent Season approaches.

An evening in Sumeg.....

Making the decision to spend most of our holiday week at home in Tapolca proved to be a wise one.  This meant more days with our new friends here.  For sure we had some great times with Miki and Szilvi during this week.  After our Wednesday outing to Heviz they had yet another suggestion for us....why not come with them to Sumeg on Friday evening?  So off we went with them on another little trip.  This time they had a meeting with Silvi's boss at Sumeg's large, luxury hotel.  So their idea was that we relax and swim in the hotel pool while they had their meeting; then we'd have dinner together later on in the hotel dining room.  As it turned out there was a program to follow after the dinner, so we had a great evening out as a complete and generous gift from our young friends and Silvi's boss.  For sure we are discovering that so many Hungarians are kind and caring people.

An afternoon in Heviz....

Keszthely was a wonderful experience as we explored the town and visited five different museums connected with the grand palace there. And all this on a warm and sunny mid-October day that left us feeling like we'd been on a brief summer vacation.

While in Keszthely we heard about a town called Heviz, just a bit further on, up in the hills away from the lake. We decided that we'd like to see this place sometime and enjoy a swim in the famous thermal lake there. This wish became a reality two weeks ago when our new friends Miki and Szilvi suggested we head over to Heviz for the afternoon. So this we did, taking in the lake (yes, we actually went swimming there on Oct. 31st.) The lake is lovely and so natural with lily pads growing all around its edges. Then inside we soaked in the warmer waters of the mineral springs, finishing up at the spa with some R&R time in the salt air "cave" (actually a special room where you sit, relax and breathe in this air that is supposed to be good for relieving all respiratory ailments). All of this was quite a new experience for us, but for sure a very refreshing way to spend an autumn afternoon.

Later we strolled around the streets of Heviz which some have told us is the richest town in Hungary. For sure the little shops lining the "walking streets" were filled with a wealth of treasures! We came away with three pretty little ceramic eggcups...a special reminder of this time shared with Miki and Szilvi who happen to be chicken farmers too (keeping us often supplied with fresh farm eggs, and now this week we enjoyed feasting on one of their roosters!)

Here now are a few photos from our afternoon in Heviz......

Looking back....November 9th

Before we ever set out on our trip to Hungary several asked if we planned to do some sightseeing or travelling while in Europe. At that time we weren't sure. We knew we were coming to Tapolca to teach English and we planned to make this our main focus. However, upon our arrival we soon discovered that there would be some free weekends and a one-week mid-term break, so we should begin making plans! Thus we pondered several possibilities and made inquiries re possbile trips to visit friends in Holland, Italy and Germany. But in the end it somehow seemed simplest and wisest to just stay closer to home.

Thus the past few weeks have found us making several shorter excursions as we continued to explore this amazing country of Hungary. These little jaunts included our two-day retreat to Keszthey; an afternoon at the famous thermal lake and spa at Heviz; an evening out at the luxury hotel in near-by Sumeg and our recent weekend away to Budapest.....Let us share some highlights with you now as we take you on a pictorial tour of our new and favourite tourist destination -- southwestern Hungary!

For today come with us to the Muschel Pension B&B in Keszthely where we enjoyed a relaxing two-day stay three weeks ago.....

more to come in future posts...