Jack Botsci

We took the subway into Budapest last night for dinner.   We were sitting facing a couple who had a young boy in one of those slings where he was facing out toward the world on his dad's chest.  He was about 22 months old and really checking Jack out.  Pretty soon I heard him say, "Botsci " which means uncle and is a term of respect that the kids at school also use when addressing the teachers.  So, if we had chosen those terms, they would be calling us Jack Botsci  and Cathie Neni.  We started with Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, but some of my kids get a kick out of calling me Cathie Neni.  Anyway, I heard this little guy say Botsci and I said, "Igen" (yes) and pointed to Jack.  Then I pointed to myself and said "neni" and he repeated it.  His parents were beaming as we had this little exchange with their son. He kept repeating and Jack and I would just crack us up and I am sure it was a fun game and reinforcing for him.  It was quite sweet.

American treats from home

When I saw my brother and his wife in February I mentioned to them that I hadn't been able to find chocolate chips anywhere here and how much we were missing chocolate chip cookies.

So, yesterday there was a little notice in the mailbox (all in Hungarian of course) that we had a package to pick up at the post office.  I went by today.  Thankfully there is one woman in our local branch who speaks passable english.  I handed her my slip and in exchange I received a box from Oregon.  I left the post office and immediately tore into the box.  Low and behold inside was a box of graham crackers (which I have really been craving), the Costco size package of Nestles chocolate chips and some super sized Ghirardelli chocolate chips.  What a treat!!  As soon as I find some vanilla I will make our staff some cookies.  Thanks Kevin and Kim!!

Slovenia

Okay, Lake Bled speaks for itself in pictures.  It really looks like a postcard.  We stayed in a pension on the Lake, so that if I sat on the window ledge, I could look out at the lake and castle.  It has been settled since the Stone Age.

What I am choosing to write about is a day trip we took into the mountain villages.  Since we had a car, we decided to explore the area.  The Alps are looming, so you can't lose on a clear day.  At one point we could see a church up on a bluff.  Jack asked if I was up for trying to find it, of course, I said yes.  So we began to make our way up the winding, narrow rode.  Suddenly, Jack said, "Oh no!" and I got a glimpse of a yellow motor bike sliding toward us at high speed.  Then I heard it hit the car, scrape along the side, and nothing.  We jumped out of the car, praying that the bike and driver were not under our wheels!  Thank god, he had slid beyond the car and was laying in the rode.  As we ran to him, he was pulling the bike off of him.  "Are you okay?" we asked.  He nodded.  As he stood up I saw that he was in a uniform including a yellow helmet with the postal logo on it.  His pants were torn along the hip where he had slid on the rode and the bike was leaking fluid, but other than that, he seemed okay.  However, he spoke only slovenian.  He said something to us that sounded to me like "police report", so I nodded, yes.  He pulled his bike out of the rode and got on his cell.  We had to wait about an hour for the police to show up.  Meanwhile, we helped him put dirt on the spillage on the rode and nodded and smiled.  The cops showed up and luckily, they spoke some english.  Both Jack and the postman were given breathalyzer tests.  The cops and the postman did lots of talking which was weird because we had no idea what they were saying and if we were being blamed for the accident.  An accident report was filled out along with a diagram of the event.   I picked up no blaming body language from the postman or the cops.  We replied that it was an accident with no one at fault.  When the official proceedings (measuring, sanding the skid, etc.) were finished, the cops told us that we could go.  The postman came over, offered his hand and said, "Sorry".  It was a touching, human moment for me.

The lucky thing is that Jack had decided to buy the additional insurance on the car when he rented it.  He usually passes.  So it only cost us 200 Euros for the damage to the rental.

Condensed events

Yes, I have been remiss in my blog entries, but I have great excuses.  Things have been quite interesting here lately.  My aerobics teacher, Ilona, will be coming to spend September and October with us in Portland.  We are really looking forward to hosting her and she is ecstatic for the opportunity to be immersed in the language that she wants so badly to master.

Now, I know that my family reads this and I don't want anyone to be concerned.  I have decided to include this without lots of details:  I have been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism.  This means that I have had to go to hungarian doctors (who have proven to be very thorough and caring), make a trip to a hungarian hospital for some diagnostic tests, and am taking meds for the condition.  The hospital visit was a challenge because not only were there no signs in english, but I dealt with no one who spoke a lick of english.  When it was over, I felt as though I had really accomplished something difficult.  THEN, I had an allergic reaction to the thyroid meds.  I have include a picture.  Never been so uncomfortable.  I itched from my arches to inside my ears!  So now I am on meds to control the meds.  Will review my options when I talk to my doctor at home.

Okay, for the good part . . . we had spring vacation last week.  Due to my health issues, we were unable to do much preplanning not knowing if we would be able to leave town or not.  So we ended up renting a car and decided to drive down to the Dalmatian coastline of Croatia and then to Lake Bled in Slovenia.  We had no reservations and not much itinerary, so we  just drove where our inclination took us.  We stayed in sobes (rooms in people's home) in Croatia.  In Senj, we were approached by a middle aged man who spoke a little english.  He asked if we needed a room.  We told him that we would look at it.  So we followed him to his home where we were met by his wife who smiled a lot, but spoke no english and his daughter who told us she was studying engineering at university and spoke excellent english.  The room was clean as was the bathroom.  What impressed me the most was that the sheets had obviously been ironed, because dryers are rare and I know what our sheets look like in Budapest after we take them off the drying rack.  We told them we would take it and paid them 30 euros (about $45).

The next morning we just started driving the gorgeous coastline and saw signs for the ferry to the island of Rab which we had read about.  We looked at each other and said, "Want to check it out?"  So we did!  It was such a beautiful place with medieval buildings and the remnants of a wall which used to ring the city we decided to spend the night and began our search for a place to crash.  It is a resort town where lots of Germans and Italians stay so we  knew that the motels were going to be spendy, so we decided to search for another sobe.  We discovered this one above a restaurant and found it to be just as clean and well cared for. From the little balcony, we even had a partial view of the Adriatic.

Then, on to Slovenia!

English proficiency testing

Yesterday our 7th grade kids (at least the majority of them) took the preliminary english test PET.  The halls were almost buzzing with their nervous energy.  I thought it interesting that they wore their formal attire (black bottoms, white tops and the school tie or scarf) for the occasion.

British testers come into the school to administer these tests which consist of a listening component, reading comprehension and a speaking test.  I think that would be a great job, traveling within Europe to administer these exams.

Eger

We had a three day weekend last weekend, so we took the bus to a town in Hungary called, Eger.  Many of the hungarians that we told where we were going replied that it is one of their favorite cities.

I have not traveled in Hungary much yet, but each time that I do I have noticed nuclear power plants which looks so strange to me now that Trojan has been gone for several years.

Eger has a long history of human habitation which actually goes back to the Stone Age.  The current city was founded in the 10th Century by the first Christian  king of Hungary, St. Stephen.  It is a site of interest to us for two reasons.  First of all there is a castle shell still standing which you can walk around (for free).  There is a famous story written by a Hungarian writer named Gardonye Geza about a siege of the castle by the Turks in 1552.  I have tried (unsuccessfully) to read it.  Now that we have been there I will make another attempt. Anyway, as the story goes, the Hungarians were defending their castle against attack by 80,000 Turk soldiers.  They numbered only about 2000 and that included women and children.  They were successful that time, but the Turks succeeded on their next attempt in 1596 and took over the town.  They ruled for 91 years converting the churches into mosques and erecting minarets.  One still stands and we paid our 250 forint (about $1.25) to climb the very narrow 97 steps to the top for a view of the city.  It sounds better than it actually was.  Both Jack and I experienced some claustrophobia in the tiny passageway and turns out the view wasn't any better than castle hill. As I breathlessly arrived at the top viewing point, I remember thinking, "What would happen if someone freaked out and could not take those stairs back down for fear of falling?" One man who was in the group ahead of us carried his son who was about 3 years old all the way up and back down again.  He must have been in great shape!

Okay, the other reason that Eger is famous is for the wine.  The region has been growing wine since the 10th century.  The wine tasting rooms were clustered along a hilly part of town where they had dug the tasting caves right into the hill.  They were small and not at all plush.  The visible wine storage was in these metal tanks which had spouts which had to be primed by someone sucking on a tube.  The really interesting part is that people can bring in plastic jugs and have them filled from these tanks with the wine of their choice.

My favorite Hungarian wine is call bikaver which is a blended red.  It's nickname is "Bull's Blood".  The story goes that prior to the first attack on the castle by the Turks the soldiers were fed well and given lots of wine which stained their beards.  The Turks were so amazed by the resistance to their attack that the rumor began that the soldiers were drinking wine which was mixed with bull's blood to give them strength.

We didn't taste anything that we liked well enough to shlup back on the bus however.

The bad news is that Jack left his camera on the bus from Budapest.  So, our pictures of Eger come from the Wikipedia.

The Weather

I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for my entire life.

I don't remember being bothered by the rain as a kid.  My memories are of going barefoot in the grass in the summer and popping the tar bubbles that would appear in the street.

But, as an adult, I have been bothered by the frequency of cloudy drizzly days.  Jack and I have been saying for about 10 years that we want to explore retiring somewhere other than western Oregon, but what would be a good fit for us weather wise?

Well, now we have had a chance to experience a completely different climate and I have to say that we are enjoying it!

When we first arrived in August it was really hot.  It stayed on the warm side throughout Sept. and was pleasant in Oct.   It started getting cold in November and the snow arrived in December.  We had snow on the ground most days through February and it was really cold for about 8 weeks straight.  But what we have not had a lot of is rain!  How refreshing that has been.  Now that spring is approaching, it seems that there will be one rainy day followed by a couple of sunny ones.  It is still cold, but what an upper to experience the sun consistently this time of year!

So now we know that there are climates that we would enjoy other than that which we have spent over 50 years with!