A Retrospective Look 18th to 24th

February 18th to 24th A Retrospective Look There has not been that much happening to report on a daily basis. I am beginning to think that these chapters are going to find a natural death. Life is settling in and there just is not that much commotion to report. We will see what develops. One of the schools that I am teaching at has a teacher leaving for the States. The old Residency permit has raised its ugly head for Steven and he has outrun it for five years. He decided that with the changes as of January 1, 2002, that he had better get on the legal bandwagon. With his absence, there are classes that need to be filled. They asked me to take some of them. This will bring me up to a total of twenty hours a week teaching for two schools starting on March 1st. With travel time, this will fill thirty hours of my week. In the meanwhile, I have been going to some of the classes that Steven has just to be introduced to the student. Most of my classes are one to one. I only have one group of four and they are architects. One to one classes are just as appealing to me as a group, but with a group, you can do so much more. One of my new students is a Vice-President of the Hungarian Patent Office. He told me that his English is at the level that he is satisfied with and does not intend to learn more. His only interest in instruction is to converse in English, so he does not fall out of practice. His English is excellent, so I have no temptations to try to correct him. Our hour and a half is spent talking and I can choose whatever subjects I would like to talk about. I have no qualms about doing this and can cover many gamuts of cultural deficits during our times together. Most students here and in many other countries have the educational background of the student is a passive observer in the classroom and the teacher is the active lecturer. They sit and write notes, while I speak and pour knowledge into their brains. This was a common theme in the States also, but through changes in education, the mode is now slowly changing to student centered learning. Try to get the students to do some critical thinking and find the answers on their own with guidance from the teacher in the role as a resource specialist. My students come from the school of “Give me a list of vocabulary words or grammar rules and I will memorize them.” It does not mean that they know how to use them properly or if they come across something irregular that they know what to do with it. This approach is new and strange to them, so I have to tread slowly. Before Valentine’s Day, which they do celebrate here, I brought in some Valentine crossword puzzles and some other holiday related sheets to work on together, and build their vocabulary. I told them that I thought this might be fun for them to do since it was different from their book. The puzzles were for intermediate students and this was an upper intermediate group, but they still struggled with it. I think it more had to do with thinking in the classroom and not having the time at home to use their dictionary. After five minutes, it became a group activity and the sense of relaxation transformed their demeanors. I have not given up on ‘fun’ activities, but will stagger them. Ron received a call from the school agency that wanted to place him in the pre-school. They will not need a native speaker until September. He was disappointed. He called a few more schools, but the wind has gone from his sails. He is sitting around waiting for schools to call him rather than being as pro-active as I think he should be. I did get him a student from one of my schools, since it did not fit into my schedule. He is doing one one to one and one private student on a one to one basis. With my second school, he has started to do the teacher observations that they require before they assign any students. He has arrived to find three no show of either the students canceling at the last minute or the teacher being sick. With two students in a week and two evenings of Hungarian lessons, he has lots of free time. We figured that I would need to work at least twenty hours a week and he at least ten hours to keep the business expenses at a point where we do not have to tap into our other money. He also needs to work to justify a work permit and then the residency permit. We need to have an accountant for the business by law. Receiving dozens of names from well-wishers, we have followed up on all of them. Their rates run from $50.00 to $90.00 a month. This is not a drop in the bucket here, this is an unusually high expense. We have heard that we need to have monthly reports done for the tax office, plus quarterlies, and an annual. There is a Hungarian income tax both for the business and ourselves that has to be filed, plus we will be paying into Social Security here. The fees of the accountants sometimes depend on how many receipts or invoices we turn in each month, fifty being the magical cutoff number for a higher fee. We are still looking for a better deal. It seems that if you get an English-speaking accountant the cost goes up, but if we hire a non-English speaking one, we have to find and pay for an interpreter too. With all of this happening, I have been nesting in the kitchen with a book in hand. Hence, this is why this week is in retrospect. I have hardly been on the computer at all. During the last week, I have read six books all by the same author, Janet Evanovich. Actually, Daphnee is to blame since she turned me on to her with the book 7 Up, that I reported on months ago. With my Amazon.com order, I bought her first six books preceding the above and that is what I have been reading this week: One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, Four to Score, High Five, and Hot Six. These are my mind candy books, pure pleasure, no thinking, and no source of intellectual stimulation, just total enjoyment. I am running out of books again, since I am reading them too fast. It is time to move on to something more intellectually stimulating so I slow down a bit and most importantly to get back to my writing. There is something that is very soothing about sitting at the kitchen table being able to look out of two windows with lots of natural light flowing in and reading. We are getting ADSL installed for the Internet, but it takes 5-8 weeks after the application. Regardless of what company we chose, it would depend on the phone company to make the connections since they own the lines. At least then, I will have twenty-four hour access to the Internet and not have to worry about telephone charges, which are expensive and excessive. Tuesday night we hosted my Writer’s Group at our new apartment. Six of the members made the meeting and all were impressed and jealous over the new apartment. It was a regular gabfest and we never did get around to discussing our writing projects all that much, but it was enjoyable all of the same. They asked if we could meet here again next time and we were fine with that. Wednesday night, our new friend Aggie came over and taught Ron how to cook Chicken Paprikash. She is the Hungarian consultant that works with some of the projects that Dawn works with. Aggie had a catering business in a former career life, so she loves cooking and baking. She has promised to continue to teach Ron more recipes, so we have more variety than bean soup and kielbasa and sauerkraut for dinners. If you noticed the “teaching Ron” that is what happens when you only work ten hours or less a week. I am the dishwasher. Friday night we took Fernando out to dinner. On our corner is a Latin American restaurant and since he is Cuban, we thought he would enjoy it. The restaurant is lovely and they had a three piece live band playing. The food was good and would pass as authentic for the average Hungarian, but coming from California and all of our travels, we knew better. Fernando complained that the banana dish was supposed to be made with platanos and not sweet bananas, but they owner said he was not able to get them. This really made a difference in the dish. Fernando’s new mission is to find a source for the owner to find the real thing. Over dinner, Fernando, tired of hearing me complain about wanting to go to an Office Depot, told us about the Polush Center. They have an Office Depot, a Tesco (a British superstore/grocery store), and dozens of other smaller stores. He checked our maps when we got back from the restaurant and showed us how to get there via public transport. That was our Saturday agenda. I like knowing how to get where I want by public transport, because I hate having to depend on others to take us somewhere. Many times, people will make an offer for someday, but that day never seems to be on a calendar. Tesco reportedly has all of the grocery items we have not been able to find elsewhere. With that incentive and Office Depot, no amount of public transport was too cumbersome to hold me back from investigating. We had to take the Red metro to the Yellow metro, just a couple of stops, but then the Yellow Metro to the very last stop. From there, we had to take a tram for twelve stops and walk about a quarter of a mile from there. This was becoming a theme in my life, metro, tram for twelve stops, then walk. As soon as we stepped off the tram and it was past us, I had the first OFF sighting and my heart started racing. I get as excited about office supplies as some people do at seeing a chocolate shop. There was not much that we needed or had to have; it was just knowing that it was there, available and ready for when I needed a fix. I combed the aisles like private detective looking for clues. If I memorized everything they had, it would save Daphnee a lot of grief over having to send me stuff that I needed and could not find here. We bought a desk lamp and a few little odds and ends. It was just enough to satiate my cravings. In the mall, I found a leather briefcase for 30% off, making it under $40.00. I have been hunting for one since mine is in storage somewhere in New Jersey and did not want to ask Daphnee or Ellie to root it out. In the meanwhile, I have been using a plastic shopping bag, which I deemed beyond tacky, since all of my students are better equipped than I. We also found a protein powder for Ron that was $4.00 cheaper than we had seen it around home. He needs to add some weight. He has gotten too skinny and he has the ridiculous idea that he needs to stop eating when he is full. The things I have tried teaching him about food over nine years have just not sunken in. I on the other hand, have kept my weight off without really having to work at it. I am wearing a lose 34 inch waist and could fit into a 33, but I am thrilled keeping it at a standstill. Tesco was like finding Mecca. There were dozens of products that we were able to recognize if not by their Hungarian title, then by the packaging. Talk about packaging recognition, this is a case where you are grateful to have been indoctrinated by the advertisers. We still have not been able to find pancake mix, maple syrup, or peanut butter. We really miss pancakes and the restaurants have no clue what they are other than French crepes, which they do not serve either. I really want “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” spray only because I am tired of dry popcorn at the movie theaters. It is impossible to see a movie without a large bag of popcorn. Thursday night we are trekking to Tesco again to stock up. Fernando said he would drive us, so we have made a major shopping list. The store is like a Costco/Price Club without the huge quantities, but much lower in price than the smaller local stores. We are having our first party on Saturday, March 2nd as a sort of housewarming, but actually, it was an excuse to get Myrtis and Randall to come from Slovakia. It is a combo birthday party too. Damon’s and mine were in January, Randall and Dawn’s was in February, but March was the soonest we could all be together. We are expecting about twenty people, which is not bad for a couple that has only been in the country for less than three months. Saturday night, Damon called to say he was back from three weeks of traveling around for his job and wanted to get together. We had him over for brunch on Sunday morning. He asked me to be a conference presenter at a conference being held at a new university in Macedonia. The university is U.S. sponsored along with the U.N. and will be called Southern Central European University. They will open their doors to the first students in September. The conference is in April and the theme is “Teaching English from the Traditional to the Contemporary”. I was thrilled at the opportunity and his office is paying my airfare, hotel, and meals for four days. He also wanted me to look over the area, since there may be a fellowship there next year and wanted to know if I was interested. The three of us were going to go to an English (British) play, but the English newspaper messed up the dates and it had closed already. We thought about a movie at around 3:00 pm, but Damon decided he had better go home and get ready for work the next day. We went to see “Spy Games” with unbuttered popcorn. I could have used the time better to take a nap. I was not thrilled with the movie. Now to take a dip into my e-mail box and pull out a tidbit of something to share. Ron’s sister-in-law, Mary Ellen sent the following in response to my critique of the toilet paper in the last chapter. “You best check the brand of TP you are buying. I believe it to be John Wayne brand ---- It's rough and it's tough and it don' take no sh__ from no body!!” Yes, well, moving right on, Carolyn Swaim, a delightful woman that I had the pleasure of getting to know and work with during my years of AIDS work, sent this idea, which I think is brilliant and had gone into my “To Write List”. Thinking of Mr. MAP and children's books. What a great title for a book that teaches kids how to read a map, make a map and to follow a map. I am not currently an aficionado of children's books but I have never seen such a book even for adults. I am of course thinking of the US where there is some order, more challenging in the streets of Europe. Even numbers here being E/W and odd N/S. I did not know this until I took a trip across the US by car, that states have mileage markers and that the numbered exits start at a border. One of the most interesting maps I have followed was in the back country out of Nevada City, CA, where my great grandfather had a gold mine. Twelve miles in to the wilderness it is still marked as the Anderson Mine by the park system. Directions included, take the Bloomfield Ditch..... had to figure out that the ditch was used to carry water six miles to the mine site. Hand dug of course. This was a jeep trail that I managed to get a two-wheel drive Ford (hippie) Van down and back. Then we were to turn at the bird house, this was hard to find as it was over a hundred feet up in a tree........ had the tree grown that much? Not an ordinary bird house either, the equivalent of a much aged apartment house for our feathered friends. OK, now I am thinking of a series of books on maps........ The adventures of Mr. MAP. What happens when Mr. Map makes a (right or wrong) turn......... an adventure......... a short cut..........a surprise........ (There are no wrong turns :-) So many ideas and at the moment reading and nesting have taken priority. We found that we need to have a rubber stamp with our business information on it for our invoices to the schools that we will be billing. I had one of my schools give me a stamped copy of their stamp to see what had to be on it. I did it on the computer and then had Mr. I Have Too Much Free Time on My Hands to check out the costs at various print shops. Then we found out that we cannot just type out an invoice to bill our schools. Since we are now a corporation, we have to have real invoices, which means they have to be purchased from special stores that sell these things and the serial numbers across the top have to be recorded in their register for our business. While we are at it, I designed a letterhead too. I figured the best way to get teaching books from publishers is to request “Examination” copies for our business, but a letterhead would give it more respectability. I am still looking for our own niche so that we can build our own school and not have to depend on the other schools for work. The last thing is our business cards which are on the computer also, but waiting for our mobile phone numbers to be added before they go to the printer. With our move, we now have a different cable company. We no longer have BBC News and I really miss it, though we do have CNN. The basic cable that we have has HBO in Hungarian, a lot of good that does us, but we do have Turner Classic Movie Channel. Now you know the real reason I am spending so much time in the kitchen reading. One last tidbit of late breaking news is that our friend Dawn will be living with us when she is in Budapest. Up until now, she had been staying with her boss, but that has not been the best arrangement. Dawn is on this side of the pond 180 days a year, but not in Budapest all of them, so she will be occupying one of our spare rooms when she is in the city. This will not interfere with the throng of visitors we are anticipating, since we can always ship her back to her bosses for periods of full occupancy at other times, but it will be nice having another voice to hear. For the very few of you who are considering a visit, our away schedule is the following at this time. We will be going to Slovakia to see Myrtis and Randall on March 29th through April 1st and then we will be in Macedonia on April 18th to 21st. You would still be free to come and use the apartment, but the fun guys will not be here. It may be quite some time before there is a next installment, so thanks for reading and responding. If you have read from the beginning, you have read over 325 single spaced pages. Chow!

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Sunday, Sunday

February 17, 2002 Sunday, Sunday Ron went to mass this morning. He can be so fanatical with this. He makes it a weekly habit. Needless to say, I have not found a place that I feel a need to be on Sundays with someone preaching at me in Hungarian. His time away gives me a chance to read or write uninterrupted, so I cannot complain. Having a hot water pot that sits on an electric base has spoiled us. This is another common appliance in Europe that Americans are missing. Flip a switch and within minutes, you have boiling water for a cup of tea or for whatever reasons you need hot water. A burglar gets in the house, you flip your switch, and you scald him with boiling water. It is multifunctional. We could use the microwave to heat our water, but this is part of the coziness and romance of the ritual of making tea. We did not have a hot water pot here and we had to have one to feel complete in our kitchen, so we went off shopping. Shopping on Sunday is an exercise in futility unless you go to the mall, but you also know the prices will be higher there than other places. We went to various stores and window shopped since very often they put just about every item they sell in the display windows and there are prices on everything to lure you back during their opening hours. I had already scoped out about six places that had these hot pots for sale and had been keeping a list of where and how much. The best deal was a hot pot that also came with a little teapot. Inside the teapot was a removable loose tea strainer. Since we now drink more tea than coffee, this was perfect for us to experiment with loose teas, once we figure out what different names are in Hungarian. My favorite is Assam and there are a number of varieties of it that I have yet to try. With this pinned down; it went on the shopping list for tomorrow, when that particular store was open. The apartment has a phone with a built in answering machine. This was good news for us since the schools are always asking us if we bought our mobile phones yet. This was the next best solution for a temporary measure. The downer was that the answering machine needed an a/c adapter that was suspiciously missing. I had asked Timi about it, but she said she needed to question her father about it. Already, I knew her record of accomplishment was typical Hungarian. Manana or tomorrow in Spanish is translated into Hungarian as “I may get around to it sometime in this life cycle if the lunar position and the sun are in the right juxtaposition.” Nagging always helps, but hell, I give enough at home, I can give of myself with almost strangers too. Besides, she will be around every 7th day of the month for the rent check. Choosing my battles carefully, I decided the answering machine was a more justifiable tax write off the Hungarian tax laws than a comforter cover would be. We went shopping for that too. Finding the best model for the cheapest price without all of the bells and whistles, that went on the shopping list too. Ron being deprived of visual stimulation without a television wanted to go to the movies. Watching me cooking dinner like Julia Child or James Beard was not satisfying so we compromised on seeing Vanilla Sky. Settling on the 8:30 show, he took a nap and I read. Close to 7:45 pm, I had to persuade him to drag his meatless butt out of bed to get to the theater before they sold out of tickets. I stood in line for tickets and he went for the popcorn. As I approached the ticket counter, I asked for two tickets to Vanilla Sky, in perfectly enunciated English. I was told that they were sold out for the 8:30 show. My mind was mentally beating the buttless for now getting up and out the door sooner, but my immediate thought was to put a halt to the popcorn transaction. I was too late. We were now the proud owners of a large bag of butterless popcorn and no movie to watch while we munched. We sat at the table in the lobby and munched while people watching instead. This was not going to cut it. Having been revved up to see a movie, hearing other voices other than our own speaking English, there was no way were going home feeling cheated. We bought tickets for the 11:00 pm showing and set off to walk the streets in search of some action. Action to me these days comes in the form of window shopping in house ware stores, looking for the next missing link from our kitchen. It is bad enough that we cannot identify foods, but it is worse when we do and do not have the pot, pan, peeler, wooden spoon, or other domestic equipment to cook it. That is the new definition of frustration. We had popcorn, but no real food. We went to OK Italia and shared a pizza and salad. We lamented that Dawn was not here to join us. Every time we had been here in the past, she was with us. She introduced us to the place. We missed having her around. She headed back to Arizona for a few weeks and would be returning on March 1st. By the time we finished, we returned to the theater for the movie. There were three of us in a theater that had capacity for 80. They still assigned us our seats by row and seat numbers. At least they did not cancel the show. That would have made us really upset!

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Tea Pots, Answering Machines, and a Vanilla Sky

February 16, 2002 Later Tea Pots, Answering Machines, and a Vanilla Sky My new Ikea pillow is a dream machine. I slept like a charm and the bed totally caresses a body. Timi never returned with the pillows she promised or the other items she was supposed to get, so it is a good thing we bought the pillow. The linens here are different. The sheets are not contoured for the bottom sheet, but flat. Since the beds are not standardized sizes, the bottom sheet is usually not long enough to tuck in on the sides, but only at the top and bottom. Top sheets are not used at all. In place of a top sheet, you use a down comforter and cover that with a slipcover that buttons at the bottom. This is pretty standard throughout Europe. They come in various sizes and our bed has two single sizes on it. I hate these since if you roll the wrong way during the night, the comforter flips off you and the cold air attacks your sleepy warm body and there goes the heat. It takes another half hour of pre-heating your body oven to get warm and toasty once again. We have a double size comforter, but Timi has not brought the cover for it yet. This is one less conformity that they do not have to worry about to join the European Union. Pillowcases are some huge cases that you could put a sofa cushion in, but the pillows range from what we would consider a small decorative pillow to something that should be used as a sacrificial altar. The pillowcase also buttons at the end to prevent the trapped pillow from escaping in the middle of the night.

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A Shopping We Will Go, A Shopping We Will Go

February 16, 2001 A Shopping We Will Go, A Shopping We Will Go We had our list of what we needed for the apartment. We are in that nesting phase where we want to buy things for the household; things that were not here already or inadequately supplied. I was so excited about access to money; I was on the verge of drooling. It has been close to a year since I have done any real shopping. The thought that it would be put in storage or sold was not a great incentive to explore the stores. Now, it was possible once again. We went to a bank machine close to the new apartment on the way to the subway. It is one of those that you have to slide your card in a magnetic reader in order to gain access. I slid my card and yanked the door. It would not budge. Another swipe and a yank provided the same results. Out of my peripheral vision, I could see a woman behind me waiting to access the building too and there were three machines inside, waiting to spit out money if only we could get in. One more swipe and one more yank still proved fruitless, until the young woman flew around me and pushed the door open for me. I was over anxious, what can I say? The nice machine did give me money. I kissed it “thank you”. Off to Ikea, the land of wonder for the frugal shopper, we headed. They are building yet another newer Ikea, but of course it is where no public transportation lines have been established yet, so it is fruitless for us. Grabbing our big yellow Ikea shopping bags, we walked through the displays with wonderment in our eyes. All this good stuff for sale and we have money! We bought storage containers, candles, new hand towels, a couple of good bath towels since Myrtis and Randall are coming for a weekend, a set of large glasses, a tester bed pillow, and a bunch of other goodies for our home. The daughter had not shown up with the other bed pillows she promised and I cannot sleep on the pillow that is here. It is the thickness of a mouse pad and if you fold it up to scrunch it, it is like sleeping on folded cardboard. Besides all of the wonderful things we carted to the cash register, we saw lots of other things that we wanted to return for, like a plastic cutting board. Our bags were so full, that I was panicked that we did not have enough money. When we checked out the subtotal shows as they ring things up and all that we acquired did not take a half of the money that I withdrew. Ron insisted on bringing all of this stuff home first, but he was agreeable to continue shopping. The next stop was one of the malls. We had gone to this mall a few weeks ago and scoped it out. There was a store there that had men’s shirts on sale and I was hoping they still did. We went directly to this store like homing pigeons and the shirts were still on sale. One shirt was $22.00 or you could buy two for $34.00. We found four that we liked. It is sickening to see us in the same clothes over and over, plus the less you have the more they need to be washed and the faster they will wear out. I was a happy camper. This load was dropped off at the apartment and the next stop was to do grocery shopping. Being it was Saturday, the stores outside of the malls close early. We went to our local supermarket, which is only a block away, and it closed at 3:00. We walked two blocks in the other direction and found the same thing at that supermarket. We knew of one little market that was open until 6:00 on Saturday, so we jumped on a tram and went there. As we were going, Ron asked what I was hungry for, for dinner. I responded to my surprise as much as his, that I would like meatloaf and I would cook it. There was an ‘if’ clause. I had to be able to find breadcrumbs first. Since that seemed like an impossibility, there was no chance of it for dinner. Ron suggested we get stale bread and bake it, to which I replied and then we can throw it in the food processor and laughed. We entered the supermarket, which is really a misnomer for this store. It is barely larger than a convenience store, but they pack a lot into it. Just as we walked in there was a display case with Shop-Rite brand cooking spray, a generic PAM. We laughed over this since I had just told Ron a couple of nights ago that that is what we needed most from the States. He is the King of baked on food. He is the only one that I know who can make Teflon coated pots and pans into a three day soaker, before they get clean. The other funny part about this is Shop-Rite with the same logo is the grocery store that I worked at for two years as a teenager. This must have been their imported food shelving since there were assorted Asian products in Asian languages and right underneath them were Italian flavored breadcrumbs. Who would have ever thought breadcrumbs could excite you? The next challenge was finding ground beef and there was none to be found. They did have ground pork. I remember reading in a cookbook back in the days when I did read them, that meatloaf is supposed to be equal parts of ground beef, veal, and pork. In the absence of the other two, why not just pork? We decided to try it. If it was too fatty, I would skim it. There were no fresh vegetables, so we opted for frozen broccoli and instant mashed potatoes. At least we hoped they were mashed potatoes, by the packaging. It looked different from the last instant mashed potatoes we needed. We went home and I was about to make dinner. The ground meat mixed with the breadcrumbs and eggs was all formed and nicely shaped sitting in a pan baking in the oven. The oven only has single digit numbers for temperatures, not 325, 350, etc., but it does have a built in timer. Ron went for a nap and I set myself down at the kitchen table to read. When the time went off at 50 minutes, I started the broccoli and potatoes. The directions on the potato package were in Hungarian and English, thankfully. At least I was thankful for a moment. The quantities were still a mystery to me. How much is 4.5 dl of water that needs to boil? We have a measuring cup, but there is nothing with dl’s on them. Yell to Ron, “Hey, Ron what is a dl?” Foggy from waking from his nap, he yells back. A bottle of beer is 5 dl, but I don’t know what it stands for.” With that tidbit of knowledge, I took a bottle of beer out of the fridge. Sure enough, it was 5 dl. So, I emptied the bottle of beer into a glass and washed it out. Then I refilled it to where the top of the beer once was and emptied what I guessed was .5 from there. I had the water boiling, now I had to do the same thing for the milk. Getting 3dl was a bit trickier, but we had mashed potatoes with the meatloaf, which was delicious if I do say so myself. This was our first meal in our new apartment at a kitchen table in the kitchen. While sitting in the kitchen reading, it occurred to me that this was the first time that I have had a separated kitchen room since I lived in Philadelphia. Since then, the kitchen had been too small for a table and chairs or it was part of the dining area and family room. Now we had a kitchen. The kitchen has always been like the heart of a home for me. This is the comfort zone, the area where people cozy around the table and talk, snack, and really pour their hearts out. Some of my life’s most memorable conversations took place around a kitchen table and not always my own. There is informality about sitting around a kitchen to talk that is different than a living room conversation. Living rooms distance people regardless of how close you sit together, but hunkering over a table in the kitchen lends itself to intimacy. That is where I want to be on a cold day with the snowflakes lazily falling from the sky and the smells of home baked bread finishing its browning touches in the oven. It is nice to nest!

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The End of the Countdown

Chapter Twenty-Two The End of the Countdown February 15, 2002 From the time we had decided on the apartment to the time we were to move seemed like an eternity. This was especially true at three in the morning, when our neighbor child woke the dead screaming at the top of her lungs. We started counting days, hours, and minutes until the day arrived and this was finally the day. I had to teach in the morning, and I must have been overexcited last night and had difficulty sleeping. My butt was dragging going to meet my class, but as soon as I found my way into the hallway of the building, I became energized and then jazzed about being there. Getting home seemed like a longer than usual ordeal. This was not due to the anticipation of moving, but to the lack of trams. It seemed like every tram that passed me by was every number except my #49. They usually run every eight minutes, but I waited for close to twenty before one appeared. When I reached home, I was ready to roll. Somehow, mental plans are never telepathically transmitted in their entirety to the intended person, regardless of the number of years you have spent together. I thought I had shared with Ron that although Fernando had promised to help us on Saturday, he also had many other plans and I did not want to have to depend on him. As it turned out, Fernando had conjunctivitis earlier in the week, then the flu on top of it. I had in the back of my mind that if he had been better by the end of the week, I did not want to bother him with helping us move. Fernando is a great guy and comes through in a pinch, but his latest hobby happens to be trying to find the love of his life. No one is worth a used tissue during the infatuation stage of a relationship and Fernando is no exception. Unfortunately, he is so desperate for love that he falls to any man who will look at him twice and then falls to the depths of depression when it does not last more than two dates. His reasoning is beyond our comprehension. He is very good looking, intelligent, well employed with IBM, owns his own flat, is trilingual (speaks three languages, get your mind out of the trash), and has a charming personality. His self-esteem runs on empty. With all of these factors, it was a wise plan to move by taxi, a concept that Ron never fully comprehended. We had the four suitcases packed plus large heavy duty bags that the postal service delivered packages in. Every Amazon.com box was recycled into service. We had only been in the first apartment for two months and already we were ready for a U-Haul truck to move us. Thank the heavens that we did not need to move furniture. With the first load ready to go, I went down the ground floor and took the elevator to our first floor. There is no elevator call button on our floor. We loaded three of the suitcases and me onto the elevator and Ron went to call the taxi asking for what he thought was a large car. By the time he reached the ground floor, the taxi was waiting for us and we made the first trip to the new apartment. It was a regular sedan that would only accommodate one of our large suitcases and one of the carry-on pieces in the trunk. As we drove off, the driver pulled next to a station wagon and said “cumbi”, so we would know what to ask for next time. The cost was 650 forints with a tip. Timi, the daughter of the owner of the apartment met us at the door and gave us two sets of keys. We had her sign a Hungarian version of our lease, as we would need it for getting the cell phones after we get our tax certificate. She still had not purchased the extra pillows we had agreed on and said she was going to go directly to Ikea when she left and bring them back. We assured her it would be okay to bring them back with her spare key, as we would need to make another trip back to the old place. She slyly told us there was a problem with the television. It seems that had not paid the cable bill for some time, since no one was living here and it was disconnected. The cable company was scheduled to be here on Monday and she could not get back to Budapest, so she hoped one of us could. She assured us she would pay the reconnection fee. No television meant no Winter Olympics. It did mean some peace and quiet though and a lot more time to read. That was not a bad trade-off. As soon as she was gone, we unpacked and put away all of the contents of the four suitcases. With luggage empty, we took the two carry-ons and headed for the tram to make another haul. The tram was beyond crowded and it would have been almost impossible for us to get on empty handed, let alone with the luggage, so we walked most of the way back. Normally, this would not be a bad walk, but after lack of sleep, getting up at 6:15 am, one trip of moving, unpacking, and carting a piece of luggage, it was not my idea of a pleasure trip. The second load, we filled the two pieces with more stuff. The coffee pot filled half of one suitcase. The heavy-duty bags were filled with things, as were boxes that did not fit in the suitcase. We filled the elevator after I ran down to the first floor and rode it back up to the first. We filled the small cavity excuse of an elevator and I took the trip down to the ground floor. The capacity of the elevator is four people. They would have to be four anorexics that were intimately acquainted and all made a mutual agreement to lift their arms in the air and hold their breath to fit in at the same time. One would then have to hit the needed floor button with their tongue, since there would not be the wiggle room to maneuver an arm and hand to that position. Again, the taxi was waiting for us as we approached the front door. They are so fast, you would think that they had been stalking drug dealing waiting for the drop to zoom in and make an arrest. We were nowhere close to that dramatic with our pitiful belongings and we did not get the station wagon either. It must be something in Ron’s Hungarian accent or they had bigger movers to transport. The driver thought he was looking for a ‘Tom’. He settled for a ‘Ron’ when no Tom appeared within the mandatory ten-second wait time. We had involuntarily become part of the Hungarian taxi team of the Winter Olympics. This taxi got us to the new apartment minutes faster and cheaper than the first running us 600 forints with the tip. The same scenario played itself out. We lugged the stuff into the new apartment’s elevator having to do this in two trips. With stuff sitting in the hallway as unpacking central, we carted the goods to their new points of display or storage. Like happy little worker bees, we were arranging the hive, preparing it for the Queens to move in. Ta, da, ta, da! Hive, Sweet Hive! One more trip to the old apartment should clean it out sufficiently. There were still two boxes of towels, books, my computer, printer, and other small miscellaneous items. With the suitcases in hand, we learned from the last trip not to try the tram, so we took the subway. As the last of the items were being packed to transfer, I had a sentimental moment about all that we had experienced in this apartment in the course of two months. We moved in, bought some household items like a coffee pot, changed our thinking about being in Budapest temporarily to more permanent, entertained guests for a weekend and guests for coffee on a dozen occasions, found jobs, fretted over diplomas, cursed the neighbors, and wormed our way into the hearts of the women at the little corner store to the point where they will transform their faces from the usual frown to a half smile when they see us coming. Aside from our parties, we had more social events in this apartment in two months, than we did in Modesto in nine years. We used each opportunity to pack up the apartment as an excuse to watch some of the Olympics. The cable is not hooked up at the new apartment and we are suffering from sports withdrawal. Did you ever think you would have seen those words come from under my typing fingers? The sad part was that on the third trip, the cable company was installing new cable in the building and there was no television at all. We were left wanting. Just like the movie ‘Groundhog Day’, the whole thing went as it had the first two trips. The third driver won the Olympic gold by getting us here for 540 forints with tip. The total cost of moving was $6.39 and we did not have to steal time from our friends. By 3:00 pm, everything was unpacked and put away, the suitcases were in the pantry, and we were in relax and enjoy mode. We could not help but look around and feel like we had hit the lottery and then wondered what we were going to do with all of this room. We need intercoms to communicate with each other when we are in different rooms. There are dozens of empty bookshelves screaming, “Fill me” and the sounds are deafening. Be patient my pretties, your time will come. After a day filled with activity, Ron was not dissuaded to walk to the old neighborhood to see if they advertised Masked parade for Lent, was going to happen this night. According to the paper, they had two different dates one of which was tonight and the other a week from now. We went down to the street that was to host it, but the traffic was flowing without incident and there were no signs of anyone looking out of the ordinary. One hotel we passed on the way, looked decked out for a big ball, but there were no signs of attendees at this point. After hanging out for a short while without any signs of the streets changing from normal to festive, we decided to go to dinner at the Amstel Restaurant, a bit of Holland in Budapest. The Amstel is advertised as a gay restaurant, but the food is good and the prices are reasonable, so therefore it is popular amongst the non-gay crowd too. It is almost necessary to have a reservation in Budapest restaurants from Wednesday to Sunday, so we were lucky to find one small table available. We had a relaxing dinner and realized that we had not cleaned out the refrigerator of food. This was not a big deal, but there was a fresh carton of milk and our tubes of spices that we would want. We stopped there on the way home and filled a shopping bag. One of the most ingenious things that I really like here is that you can buy garlic paste in tubes for about seventy-five cents. It tastes just as good as fresh garlic when used in cooking and it would probably make great garlic bread, though we have not tried that yet. The other tube features are hot chili paste, which we do use a great deal, ketchup, mustard, and pizza sauce. Ron found caviar and sardine paste, but they stayed right there on the shelf. All of what was in our freezer was coffee, Starbucks and Hawaiian blends, but they are our coffee of choice at home, so they are getting depleted too. The eggs were trashed. They sell them unrefrigerated in the store and they were in our cold storage for two weeks. Why kill ourselves for five eggs? Did I mention in the past that the eggs come in cartons of 10 and not a dozen? They are all brown eggs too, not white. While on the Internet, I checked Global Currency. They finally credited our $300.00. YOU’VE GOT MONEY!! Tomorrow is a shopping day for sure.

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Business Umbrella, The Good, and Bad News

February 13, 2002 Business Umbrella, The Good, and Bad News First, a shock of the day for those who know me, i.e. all of you, I am glued to the Winter Olympics. Every chance I get, I am watching downhill skiing, ice skating, hockey, bobsledding, and any other sport that is showing. It is not for the value of hearing English, since it is over voiced in Hungarian. As you have read in past chapters, you could only get me on a pair of skis if my life warranted it, but if I had to go down a ramp on them, you might as well just kill me. I would not do it. Not being a sports fan, I think freezing in the cold wet snow to slide down a mountain is close to insanity. It ranks right up there with golf as being a waste of valuable time and skydiving (NICK) with being too dangerous to consider. With this attitude, why am I watching these people risk life and limb to slip and glide downward at amazingly rapid rates? Because they can! They do it so gracefully and with the look of it being effortless, though I know that is hardly true. If my body is going to be racing faster than a speeding bullet, it had better be in a train or plane not on a couple of flimsy sticks. When I was a child and the original Superman was on television, I used to fantasize about being Superman. While other mothers feared that they child would try to imitate him by jumping off the roof in an attempt to fly, and they did, my mother had no reason to be concerned. She knew that the second step on a ladder made me woozy, so there was no foreseeable danger of my getting up on anything to try defying gravity. Of course as a child, I made the Pilsbury Doughboy look undernourished. I had enough sense to know that comparing Superman to myself was like comparing a sparrow with an ostrich and ostriches cannot fly either. I do love the skating too. Watching them individually or in teams is a lesson in grace, determination, agility, and years of hard work. The Canadian couple should have won over the Russians. I believe the roux is justified since I watched them both. There is a great deal of suspense in watching, watching to see if they get through their trial without error or mishap. When someone loses their balance or falls, my heart leaps for them. I can only imagine the concentration it must take to perform in front of millions worldwide while trying to perform your absolute best. Aside from the Olympics, I watch soccer whenever it is on and I come across it. It is exciting to watch the moves and the agility of the players. Since it is without intended violence, it is easy to adapt to. These changes have made me continually go to a mirror to see “Who is this guy?” someone I do not recognize. It is funny how life changes you. We had our appointment with Mona today at Business Umbrella. There is more grief and obstacles to overcome for the work permits and residency permits. It seems that our business has to apply to the unemployment office in our district for Hungarian employees for thirty days before we can assume the jobs ourselves. If they do not send any applicants for the jobs in the thirty days, we are home free and thirty more days later we will have our work permits. If they do send applicants, whether or not they meet our requirements for the positions (which I set pretty high and matched our own) and we reject them, our permit could be rejected and we will have to go through the whole process yet again. Mona said that if any applicant calls from the unemployment office, to call her immediately so she can fill out the form. She explained that some applicants might show up and ask to be rejected just so they can get their unemployment continued. That could also be a red flag for having our own applications rejected. Our first step is to have our diplomas translated, which she is arranging for now. When we get our official tax certificate, she can send the forms to the unemployment office. In the meanwhile, we have to leave the country every ninety days (Myrtis and Randall, guess who is coming to visit) and make sure our passport is stamped on leaving and on entering. Once we get over the hurdle of having Work Permits, we have to apply for Residency Permits. She called the Hungarian Embassy in Canada and they are accepting them through the mail. It takes sixty to ninety days to process them since they have to come back to Hungary to be issued, then back to the Hungarian Embassy in the country of the applicant. She is not sure if the Hungarian Embassy in the U.S. is accepting them via the mail, but said that could be checked out later. If they are, we will not need to come back to the States to start the process, but we will have to return to collect the Residency Permit. Up until January 1st, we would have been able to go to any Hungarian Embassy outside of Hungary such as Austria and complete this, but not any longer. This is still better than what my friend Howard found out when I asked him to call the NYC consulate. The woman there told him we would have to apply in person and stay in the U.S. for sixty days before returning. That would surely be a financial disaster. It still is not in our financial best interest to fly back for a couple of days to collect the permits and return, but with our teaching and just getting started, we do not have the time or money to come and play around either. The bright side of this is that we can come with empty suitcases and return with filled ones. I already warned Ron though that I will not set foot into my father’s house with Michelle (or S.W. as I call her) there, so the task of going through our stuff there will be his alone. I will attack the other storage unit. So I am now off for a nap, before I have to teach tonight, so I will sign off now so that I can get this in tonight’s e-mail. TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)! There goes the nap the phone just rang. It was another school that has been trying to reach me. They asked me to come for an interview tomorrow. I told them that my mornings and evenings are filled, but I would consider during the day if they had something. She said they did not now, but are always getting new contracts. They want to have a supply of native speakers. I will speak to them with a copy of Ron’s file in my hands. Ron will start with a private student next week, getting her ready to pass an English exam for law. Here is a story about the teacher making a big mistake. I went to teach my class tonight at a building I had only been to twice before. When I entered the elevator, I could not remember if this was the building where I had to go to the fourth or fifth floor, so I pressed four. When you get off of the elevator, there is a small hallway that goes to the left and right in front of you, but all of the offices or apartments are off of balconies beyond the hallway. I turned left, walked through the door to get the balcony and when I looked up to the fifth floor, it was apparent my destination was one flight up. The problem was that the door to the hallway locked behind me and I could not get back into the hallway to walk up the flight of stairs to the fifth floor. No matter what I tried, I could not work the lock, spring it open, or yank it without breaking something. Standing there is a panic, wondering what to do, I thought I could go to someone’s apartment and ask them to open the door, but how? I did not want to further humiliate myself moving my pantomime act onto balconies in front of strangers. My only hope was to wait for someone to come up on the elevator or the stairs. Within five minutes, I heard steps on the stairs. Help was on the way. I was saved. No one but some stranger and me would know what happened and I could save face. As the steps got closer and closer to the fourth floor, I was thrilled that they would pass the door window where I could signal for help. I could see the feet ascending through the grate of the elevator. It was a man. He was getting near. His face appeared. It was my oldest student. I waved to him for help and he waved back with acknowledgement. I asked him to open the door for me and he found it was locked on his side too. He rang someone’s apartment bell and I was buzzed out. As we climbed the last flight of stairs, I explained what I did and he laughed. When we reached the fifth floor balcony, the woman from the apartment we buzzed was looking around to see who buzzed her bell. He explained what I did and she laughed too. Then he shared it with his classmates, who also had a good laugh at my expense. Today’s lesson is: “Teachers are only human.”

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On Your Mark, Get Set, …

February 11, 2001 On Your Mark, Get Set, … Call Visa! The first thing I needed to do this morning. When I said that I had a question about my statement, the customer service rep. said that the security department wanted to speak with me also, not a good sign. It turned out that the charge for $600.99 was from a grocery store in Fremont, CA. I asked how they could have charged with my number without the card. I was told they may have called it in. This is a traditional grocery store that I am familiar with and there is no way to call in an order that large. On the same day, they, whoever they are, tried charging $350.00 plus change at Borders Bookstore. Visa had the sense to deny this charge due to the suspicious behavior on my card. They said they will credit my account for the charges that I did not make since I said I could prove that I have been in Europe since August. My card is now cancelled and they will send me a new one to the Hungary address and continue to send my statements to New Jersey. Anyone want to make bets on where my card is delivered? In the meanwhile, both of our Amex cards are maxed out with cash advances for the business bank account that is being held in escrow and my Mastercard does not have cash advance capabilities. I had already transferred $8,500.00 from savings to checking in the States and paid it on the Amex, but until that is credited, there is no using it for cash. Few places take the Amex card, so we can not use it for services or goods. Global Currency has not credited us with the $300.00 that I transferred to them and Bank of America still has not put it back in our account. We have had to heavily tap into our checking account to pay rent at the old apartment and half a month’s rent at the new place, plus having to pay $1,000.00 deposit on the new apartment and having $900.00 tied up in our current apartments deposit. If we could find Ramen noodles here, that is what we would be living on until this mess is cleared up. Ron was waiting around to get a call from the pre-school that he had applied for. I was planning to write most of the day, but the first agenda item was to go to the office supply store that I had discovered last week when it was closed. We are accumulating piles of papers, receipts, forms, and other assorted items on top of what we brought with us. Lack of organization makes me crazy under normal circumstances, but under these conditions it is magnified x 10. If we lose an important piece of paper here, it may take six weeks to six months to replace it. It could also mean the difference between our staying here and having to leave. There is much riding on it. Regardless of our financial woes, I had set aside money for the purchase of supplies. I figured we could go without food easier than if we lose some of these documents. With the move, I had fears of things getting lost on the streets as we shuffle our things around. The office store was not all that I had hoped for, but I was able to get some organizers to start with and a piece of equipment that you do not realize its importance until you are without. I bought a stapler. They had seven different choices, so when I decided on the one that I wanted, I had to get assistance in deciding what staples to buy. They are not uniform, but depend on the brand, style, and size. It was enough to take some of the tension off my shoulders. It is without reservation that I freely admit that I am an office supply store junkie. I would rather be let loose in a well-equipped store of office products than I would in a chocolate shop. Pens of every color from fine point to medium, binders, printer paper, organizers, pads, post-a-notes, and self-stick labels are just some of the things that I could buy in huge quantity and then days later need another fix. There are hopes of getting some of the boxes of supplies I have in storage there to here someday. They use different size paper here, the A4. It is a little longer than our standard sheets, but not as long as a legal size. It is also a smidge narrower too. The printer paper size needed to be changed when I used the labels that Daphnee sent. It was a busy day of running around, paying bills, trying to get information, and mailing forms. I received a letter from one of my CA contracts that they needed a new IRS tax form before they could send me my end of year 1099-R, but the letter was dated October 2001 and was probably sitting at my father’s all of this time. Daphnee included it in my package. We called around for Internet connections for the new apartment. Regardless of whether or not we have the ‘economy’ package, we still wind up paying for telephone connection charges and other charges that were never interpreted prior to our signing on. We are looking for an ADSL line since it is only one rate a month without additional costs after installation. However, there is the problem of finding the companies that provide services to our district, then our street within the district. Those that do, have a six to eight week waiting list. The cost is about the same as what we were paying in the States, around $50.00 a month. Again, it will be a tax write off. In the meanwhile, we will remain on the economy plan and pay exorbitant phone charges. Due to the difficulty of transferring utility bills, we are paying a service to put the gas, electric, phone, cable T.V., Internet connection, and insurance if we decide to get it, in our business names. Under normal circumstances, this is time consuming according to other Americans. You have to stand in line for hours, only to find out you are in the wrong line and have to start again. This service will cost under $100.00, but will be worth it. Even at this, it could take weeks for the companies to make the change. The other thing that we learned the back way, was that we need an ‘accountant’ for our business. The reason I quote it is because after speaking with my student who is a controller for a large international company, it seems that they do not have a distinction between an accountant and a bookkeeper. I am not sure there are the two professions. She only had to go to one year of a technical college to assume the title of an accountant and she did not have to pass an exam to ply her trade. Now because we have a Kft, which is a corporation, there are forms that need to be filed with the government on a monthly basis whether or not we have had any business that month. Then there are quarterlies and annual forms too. We have been gathering names of accountants that different people use and Ron has started calling them. The general fee is running around $90.00 a month for up to fifty items. He did not have the nerve to ask if that meant if we turned in fifty-one receipts in a month that counted or if items mean something different. At this rate, we will both need to work full-time just to pay business expenses without making a profit. We earn 1,800 forints an hour average and the accountant fees are 25,000 to 30,000 a month. You can do the math, but do not share it with us. Ignorance is bliss if only temporarily. It looks like our lawyer has jumped ship on getting our work and residency permits. Fearful of being shipped out of the country, which would prevent us from returning for five years, we asked around for other businesses that assist with this service. Another teacher, originally from Israel directed us to Business Umbrella. We have an appointment with Mona tomorrow. My one to one student wanted to role-play a job interview. She is thinking of changing jobs and the second interview will be with an American. I was able to spend an hour and a half playing Finance Manager interviewing her and correcting her English along the way. While I am doing this, I kept wondering if her new employer was going to pay the bill for her continued English lessons or would I be losing a student. Mentally, I was pleading, “Don’t leave me! I need you to pay the accountant.” After Ron’s Hungarian class and my lesson, we met up at the mall where we were going to forego bothering Fernando to translate and find an English speaker at the mobile phone company ourselves. We went to the company that is known all over Europe, but is the newest player in the Hungarian market, Vodaphone. We were told that they had the sweetest deals since they wanted to build up their subscribers to the three million mark of the other two major competitors. They are currently at one million. They have a machine with different services that are available and when you press the service you are there for, the machine spits out a number. You wait for the number to be called. The one that called our number is the only non-English speaker in the place. What are the odds, but that is our luck. We had to wait for the next one available. With all of our business papers in a neat file, we proceed to make our requests. Since it is a business account, we do not need a Residency Permit first. They will be assigned to the business. Ah, there is a catch though. We do not have our final court paper that looks like a stock certificate with our tax number on it. All that we have is our stamped letter of application that shows a tax number has been assigned. The other thing that we need is a utility bill in the company name. For this I found a loophole. The small print states that a lease can be used instead of a utility bill, but unfortunately, our lease is in English, not Hungarian. We do have a copy in Hungarian since I had the foresight to think it was important, but it was after the fact (okay, not enough forethought, but give me a break here) and now we will have to gather signatures. We were told it may be a couple of months before we get the tax form. I am not a major fan of mobile phones, however, they are part of everyone’s life here since they are cheaper to use than a home phone. Since so many people use them, we are supplied with everyone’s mobile number and not their home or office number. To call a mobile from a regular phone is three times as expensive as to call from a mobile. In the end, we will have convenience and lower our phone costs. We were told that it is cheaper to call internationally with a mobile than a regular phone too, but do not sit by the phone waiting unless you can justify being a Hungarian tax write off. Speaking of chatting, here it a free service from Yahoo that we would like to take advantage of and if any of you do it too, we can ... Talk for Free! Does typing take too long? Are phone bills driving you crazy? You can use Yahoo! Messenger to talk to your friends just like a real phone! To start a voice conference, you need to be using a Windows 95/NT/98 computer that is equipped with computer microphone and speakers. You will also need the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger that includes the voice chat feature, which is FREE. Download Now What is a voice chat? The voice chat feature allows you to talk for free to anybody else on the internet. If you have a microphone and speakers, you can talk to other people on Yahoo! with no long distance charges at all! It's free - You only have to pay the cost to be connected to the internet. No long distance charges to talk to anybody anywhere. Talk to several people - You can talk to several people at the same time. It's a great way to do long distance family reunions. Great sound quality - Try it and see how it works! The sound quality is great even if you are talking to somebody on the other side of the world! What do I need to get started? The voice chat feature doesn't require a lot to get started. Here's what you need:

• Yahoo! Messenger - You need to use the windows version of Yahoo! Messenger. Sorry, but we don't have a version for non windows users. Get the latest version here!
• Microphone - You need a computer microphone so you can talk to other people. You can find computer microphones in Radio Shack for $5.00 or : Yahoo! Shopping.
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How do I use free voice chat

• Make sure you are using the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger. You need to be using the Windows version of Messenger to start a voice chat. Get it here.
• To enable voice chat, click the voice button in any instant message, conference or chat room. (image placeholder)
• The audio control bar should appear. To start talking, just press and hold down the Talk button! (image placeholder)
• The indicator will turn green when you are talking.

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New Beginnings

February 9, 2002 New Beginnings We were meeting Ildiko, the woman we had met in Brussels at noon. Dawn called and was free for lunch, so we invited her along. The four of us met at the Europa coffee house. Ildiko is in her late twenties or very early thirties. She spent eight years as an Au Pair in New Jersey, close to my hometown. She then went to Peru for a year and traveled around Europe before deciding she needed to return to Hungary and find work. Prior to her leaving for the States, she was a professional handball player and was on the professional Hungarian women’s league. She is a beautiful woman who has the grace and charm of a model. Dawn met us there and we had a wonderful, relaxing conversation over coffee. I told Dawn that Ildiko should meet her friend Aggie. Ron and I had met Aggie once at Dawn’s dinner party for the four of us. Aggie is a young Hungarian woman that is a business dynamo. She was pursued by Audi Automotives to be their European Sales Director, but she decided she did not want to be owned and refused the position. She wrote a grant to do trainings in Indonesia and her proposal was accepted. Dawn thinking this was a great idea called Aggie to meet us. She had company, but insisted that we come to her place in two hours. Meanwhile, Dawn was having computer problems and asked if I had Windows 98 with me. She needed to reinstall it and hers was in Arizona. I thought I did, so she, Ildiko, Ron, and I went back to our apartment, but I did not have the CD Rom after all. I called Fernando, who works for IBM. Of course, he had it as well as 2000, Millenium, and XP. He could bring it over, but not until 7:00 pm. Dawn had to go home and make calls, so Ildiko, Ron, and I went for a walk until it was time to go to Aggie’s. Aggie was thrilled to see us. She said she loved having company with as much enthusiasm as a child that gets a bundle of presents. We truly felt welcomed. I introduced her to Ildeko and said that she was looking for employment and thought Aggie might be able to assist her with ideas. Her apartment is great and she did all of the restructuring herself. She knocked down walls and rebuilt them, rewired, and put walls back up. She is amazing. Currently, she is a Consulting Program Director for one of the Soros Foundation’s educational programs. She immediately spotted Ildeko’s grace, charm, and intelligence. After a relaxing afternoon of socializing and discussing the problems of the world, Aggie gave Ildeko a business card and asked for her to call her on Monday morning in regard to a position that she had open. She said they could discuss it. Ildeko was thrilled for the opportunity, Aggie was thrilled that she may have found a likely candidate, and we were thrilled to have been a part of this. Back to the subway, Ildeko was going to head to another engagement, Dawn was going to run home and get some work done, and we were going to go home and wait for Fernando to come over with the CDs. Fernando called just as we walked in the door and he was going to arrive at 7:00 pm. I asked if Dawn had her computer with her if he could assist in getting it to run better. He said he would. I called Dawn and left her the message. Dawn arrived with the computer and Fernando diagnosed and fixed the problems, much to Dawn’s delight. She wanted to take all of us to dinner, but Fernando was not feeling well and went back home to bed. I installed the Windows 2000, but it would not work properly and had to revert to the ’98 version. That is our task later, when Fernando is feeling better. Ron and I went for dinner with Dawn treating, at her insistence. If she had not treated, we could not afford to go, so it was lucky for us. We went to an Indian restaurant and ordered a couple of appetizer platters and some extra fancy breads and that was plenty for all of us. From here, Dawn took a taxi home and we were able to walk the short distance. She is leaving for some other Eastern Europe country tomorrow, then will be back in Budapest for a day and then off to the States again. It was a pleasant ending to a difficult week and prepared us to start yet another. It was late before I was able to check the e-mail, do banking and other tasks. Although, I have a standing payment set up to pay on my Visa card, which is well over the minimum amount, so part of my intuition told me to check my statement on the website. When I did, there was a charge for $600.99 for an Albertson’s for February 1st. What this was I had no idea. Checking our appointment books did not provide a clue either. Ron said it did not ring any bells with him either. I was too tired to deal with Visa Customer Service, but put it on my agenda for the morning. In the e-mail sack tonight there was a note from our new friend Damon, the Regional English Language Officer for the U.S. Embassy. He might need to fill a four to five month fellowship in Moldova for a Teacher Trainer. He wanted to know if I was interested. Even if I do not know where Moldova is, of course I would be interested. I would love to do something like that. The problems are insurmountable though. We have too much to get done here with permits, visas, and the like. We have a business that needs to be looked after and there is no way that Ron would be able to do it all alone, just as I could not if the situation were reversed. Then there is rent and utilities to be paid here and the list goes on. The carrot was dangling, but I could not bite. The timing was off. I did remind him that he wanted curriculum written for English for Police Officer Training and I was willing (ecstatic at the opportunity) to do this if he still had the need. We will see.

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Here We Go Again

February 9, 2002 Here We Go Again The business and the new apartment is going to provide many beneficial changes in our life. With the business, we will be able to contract for the cheaper mobile services; so we will each have a cell phone. The business will also pay for DSL Internet services, so our Internet service will not be limited, and our phone line will not ring busy when we are surfing the web. The apartment has a phone with a built in answering machine, which hopefully is working well. Once this is in place, we are not going to make thousands of calls to the others to arrange our social calendar. We will be accessible through some technological means. Thinking that we would be meeting Dawn for lunch at 1:00, we went shopping for some office supplies to organize the hundreds of papers we have accumulated for leases, businesses licenses, permits, and other stuff. Unfortunately, the stores here are closed on Saturday as well as Sunday with the exception of the malls. This is still something that is difficult for me to adjust to since I am used to being able to shop any day of the week. Some grocery stores are open until 1:00 pm and the larger books stores are open until 3:00, then it is slim pickings. It was frustrating to see all of the supplies that I had wanted in the store window longing to come home with me, but knowing they would still be orphaned until Monday. It was a heart-wrenching scene. To fill in our time before calling Dawn, we went to a bookstore that surprisingly had a large selection of TESOL books. We were able to while away our time there without a problem. Calling Dawn to confirm lunch was another exercise in frustration. She had to do things with her boss, so she could not make it. Ron and I found a cheap Chinese restaurant and had a light lunch by ourselves. We filled the day with various activities and planning for our move. Then the phone rounds started again. Dawn could not do anything. She had work commitments. Damon was unsure if he would be worn out from his continuing conference. His office was hosting it hence; he and his assistant were the organizers and the hosts. Fernando did not want to do anything until late. We decided we would go to the movies alone and meet Fernando later. Ron had found a mass in English served by a Jesuit priest, so he went to that. We missed the last Vanilla Sky again, so went to Don’t Say A Word. Same theme/different actors, it was a boring movie. When we got home, Fernando was waiting for us to take us to a local gay bar. The bar was downstairs under an art gallery. A German and Hungarian own it. The walls are all brick that are shaped in an arc as it approaches the ceiling. The chairs are aluminum and there is one long bench that runs the length of the room in aluminum also and is situated opposite the bar. It is immaculately clean, nicely lighted and the music was in a range that you could carry on a conversation. The adjoining room was a small dance floor with a little jail cell type enclosure in the back that looked like Go-Go cages of years ago. Fernando explained that when some of the patrons drank too much, they get in there to dance. We were not there long before Fernando had at least ten different people come to say hello and he introduced us to all of them. It did not do a bit of good, since only one spoke English. He is a Presbyterian minister student and works with HIV clients, so he is interested in speaking with me about my work experience. When he found out that Ron was a former priest, he was very interested in getting together again to talk. Not far into the evening, a very young man started doing the dance of Salome and the Seven Veils by himself on the dance floor. After an hour of non-stop dancing, he was joined by another twinkie and they performed live it was a paid production. The only thing missing were the curtain calls. We appreciated their energy levels for the extended performances and we all wondered if we could have matched it in our own youth. The bars have no restriction on what time they have to close. This bar generally stays open until 6:00 am, but shorter or longer depending on business. By 1:30 am, we old guys were ready to leave, but Fernando was not. We said we would walk home and did. The weather was mild and it was long, but pleasant walk. If we were in the new apartment, it would have been ten minutes away.

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TGIF

February 8, 2002 TGIF The second class of the week for the architects is at 7:30 in the morning on Fridays. The class went well and the four of them are really nice people. I was home again by 9:45 am and was ready for my nap, but there were phone calls to make and other things that needed doing. While I was at class, Ron had made a number of calls and accomplished a great deal. Dawn, Fernando, and Damon wanted to do something with us tonight, but nothing had been arranged with any of them. Each said, “Call me and we will discuss it.” Dawn can be reached at her apartment and by mobile phone, Fernando has the home number, which is not tied up when he is on the computer, has an office number, and a mobile phone. Damon has an office phone, an apartment phone, which will also receive calls when he is on the computer. We being the most technologically impoverished only have one phone and no mobiles. When six o’clock rolls around, I am ready to check e-mails, do banking, check teaching sites, and the list goes on. Then I have to share that evening time with Ron since he fades earlier than I, he needs computer access earlier in the evening. With all of this, the efforts of coordinating everyone are on us. We have to make the phone calls since those trying to reach us will get a busy signal while we are on the Internet and there are no alternatives for now. The social merry-go-round started. The first round of calls was to see who was still interested in doing something in the evening. Dawn was not sure what she might need to do for work that night, call her later. Damon was starting a conference and did not know what his energy level would be like so please call him later. Fernando might have to do something for another friend, call him later. I wanted to see Vanilla Sky, but was willing to be flexible for other people’s suggestions. Dinner together was out of the question due to our financial condition. With a harried week behind us, I decided to go to the thermal bath and let the medicinal waters carried off my stressors to some another place. Amongst all of this confusion, the doorbell rang. Many times people will ring our doorbell to be buzzed into the building. We say we do not speak Hungarian and they buzz someone else. I expected this to be the case. The person ringing mumbled something in Hungarian or perhaps he was not mumbling and it was just Hungarian, but I had this feeling I should let him in. It was a DHL delivery person. My diploma had arrived. When I got home at six, Ron had not heard from anyone and it was Internet time, so I checked e-mail and logged off to make calls. By 7:30, we found out that Dawn’s boss had work people over for dinner and she had to be there. She wanted us to call her tomorrow for a late lunch since she had a massage appointment at noon. Damon was too tired to go out, but please call him to do something on Saturday evening, and Fernando had to do something else, but call him about Saturday evening also. By this time, we had missed the last showing of Vanilla Sky in English, so we just went for a walk instead. Deciding I had better be pro-active, I placed a collect call to Global Currency. Bank of America made out the check incorrectly, so they mailed the $300.00 back to the bank. However, the bank has not credited the check back to our account, so this money is in limbo somewhere and we do not have access to it. Shortly after hanging up, the phone rings and it is the Hungarian woman we met on our day tour to Brussels. She will be in Budapest this weekend and wanted to know if we wanted to get together this Sunday. We arranged to meet at a coffee shop at noon. The phone rang at 11:30 pm. Assured it was a wrong number, I answered it with the words “Nem Hungarian” perched on my lips. It was Anthony, the supervisor from Bank of America who promised to get back to me about the missing days on my bank statement. The missing money was one payment to a credit card company and that made the difference in the account balancing. I thanked him a million times to taking the task into his own hands and getting done what I had been given empty promises for in the past. When I hung up, I remembered I should have asked about the missing $300.00, but the moment was lost. Tomorrow is another day.

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Marathon Day

February 7, 2002 Marathon Day Today I had an interview with a gimnazium. Do not panic about my mental health, this has nothing to do with physical education, pleeeaasssee! A gimnazium is the equivalent to our high school, a fact that bypassed me when I sent the initial e-mail stating I was interested in a position. The Director of the Bilingual Program called me days after and asked that I call her in the middle of January to set an interview. It was difficult reaching her since she was never in her office, so I finally resorted to sending a second e-mail and we connected. The position will be available for September and is for one year and renewable based on work performance and the teacher’s desire. Did I have any aspiration to teach high school? That question kept rolling in my mind as today was approaching, but I still had not come to a definitive answer. The experience would be wonderful if and when we return to the States to live. I had taught elementary and also had a stint in seventh grade for one semester, but this was the age when the hormones and cocky attitudes were in full swing. It does not hurt to interview, so I decided to go. Due to my paranoia of being late for an interview, I set out at 8:00 am for a 10:00 am interview. After consulting our new Budapest book of maps that is the size of the Encyclopedia Britannia, I realized this was going to be a journey. After getting on the blue metro for twelve stops, I then had to catch a bus or tram for further travel. Deciding the tram was a better way to negotiate the terrain, I hopped on. Trams stop at their stop for a little longer than the buses do and it would give me time to see the sign at the stop to figure out where I was. That was the logical thinking part anyway. The signs at the stops were in one area of the platform only. If you were not in the correct tramcar, there was no chance of seeing the sign from the window. Then I realized that if I were sitting directly in front of the sign, I would still need a giant magnifying glass to see anything written on it. My only option was to hop off, read the sign and hop on again. The stops did not coordinate to anything I had written down when the director have me directions, so I had to keep referring to my map. One of the problems is that we have a tendency to write names down phonetically, but they do not even come close to matching the real spelling, so you are lost yet again. After three times on and off the tram, checking street signs on the side of buildings that look like pre-WW II, the fear of being late was making my heart race. On the verge of hyperventilation, I found my stop with fifteen minutes to spare. Now I had to walk the rest of the way. Walking down the street, there was a lovely old park on the left hand side, however, the statues looked like a throw back to the communist era. My side of the street looked like industrial complexes without the hint of an educational institution that I could recognize. The school street number was 7, but knowing this city, that could mean six blocks down the street. I was about to try to question someone, until I noticed a young man with a backpack on his back. Clue number one, perhaps he is a student at the gimnazium, so follow him. My love of reading mystery novels paid off. He indeed led me to the school. As soon as I walked in, I knew I wanted to be part of this atmosphere. The lights were turned off, but the skylights lit the hallways. The energy level in the building was apparent from the first moment. The Director of Bilingual Studies is a charming woman with excellent English and we had a wonderful hour together. The Director of English Studies dropped in and she gave me an abbreviated tour since she had a class shortly thereafter. The school is the first in Eastern Europe to have been selected by the Hungarian government and the United Nation’s World Bank to teach the International Baccalaureate program, a globally accepted university entrance examination. They boost that the grades of their IB students are the highest in the world. Their English students have surpassed the English requirements for entrance into Harvard and Yale. The school has 650 students in the bilingual Hungarian-English program and 350 in the Hungarian-German curriculum and 200 in the Hungarian only. Rigid entrance exams have to be passed prior to admission, but they do not need to know English to enter. For those that have not had English instruction, they start at a zero year, which is intensive English only for one academic year. They then follow that by the normal four years of high school with 50%-50% classes in Hungarian and English. Math and Science are taught in English and Hungarian to prepare them to compete worldwide. They have a well-equipped English library to complement their Hungarian library. After my tour, I met with the director again who handed me a folder from University of San Francisco. She asked if this looked familiar. She said that one of the deans from the School of Education was there to arrange sending teachers in training there on an exchange program basis to study their bilingual program techniques. That made my heart warm, thinking that the connection would further advance my chances. From going as an exercise in interviewing, I went the full gambit of wanting this position. The director said that she would know for sure who was returning and who was leaving from the staff, in a few months and would be in touch with me. She gave me a school brochure and asked that I look at their website for more information about their programs, which I accepted as a good sign. Returning was a breeze, since I knew the tramline started at the subway, so that was a no brainer. It took an hour to return home, a commute that I would do with bells on if I were offered this position. Back in the city center, I had to run over to one of the schools and pick up books for a new student for one to one classes. The director was not there and no one else knew what books she had in mind, so this would mean another trip back to the school before 5:30. With what I thought would be a couple of hours to spare, I returned home. Ron had interviewed with what he at first thought was a pre-school, but it turned out to be a business that places teachers in schools throughout the area. They told him they had a pre-school that needed someone to do conversation classes. They are going to set up an interview if the school is still in need. In the meanwhile, one of the other teachers at one of my schools gave me the name of a student who needed private lessons. My evenings were filling, so I gave it to Ron. He will be meeting her on Monday for a mutual interview. As we were sitting here discussing our plans, the attorney called. He anticipated having our tax number from the court today, but the court lost the connection to the fiscal office and they could not verify our bank account. It seemed pointless to question this further since we have learned that just because he speaks English there are many deficits in our comprehension of each other. The point was that our three million forints were tied up in the bank until Monday at least. It was going to be tight weekend financially. After paying all of the fees to the court, lawyer, notary, publication office, and assorted other agencies, we were depleted. We had transferred $300.00 to our Global Currency card a couple of weeks ago, but it never appeared and that was running on empty also. The attorney assured the court has approved our business, we were now incorporated, and as soon as they could verify our deposit, we would have our tax number. That would complete the process. We verified that he was still working on our working papers, residency permits, and he made noises and mumblings to give us the impression that that was an affirmative answer. This was followed by, “They are very difficult to get now, after January 1st.” Hmmm, we have a corporation in Hungary and possibly cannot stay to run it, therefore not generating income for the economy. That would not make sense, but it could be the scheme of things. Before we got to do anything else, Federal Express was at the door with the package from Daphnee. Ron’s TESOL certificate had arrived. We were half way there for the things that we needed. Now I just needed my diploma, which was requested in mid-January. I had to run out again to visit one of the schools that I had observed classes for and give them my impressions. They assigned me my first student, a one to one with a man who had studied with them for years. My schedule is building for the mornings and the evenings, but no one seems to want classes during the day. Thinking of those that we have met at various schools who have not yet applied for anything and have been working illegally, I questioned the director about what others have done and she assured me the work permit is less than $20.00 and obtaining one is relatively simple. She gave me the name of someone who has gone through the experience and used an agency. Armed with information, this was to be my evening project. By Hungarian law, we have to have an accountant within seventeen days of having our business papers accepted by the courts, so that is Ron’s project and he is supplied with names and numbers. Just as I got back home, the other school called and said the class was to be 5:00, not 5:30, so I would have to rush over for the books, then get keys to the building where I was to teach since it was in another building. This turned out to be a frantic week and my good intentions of writing every day have gone up in smoke for a while. Writing in retrospect has been a strengthening exercise for my memory. My one to one student wanted Accounting English, but after the first lesson, she decided that that was too boring for an hour and a half, so we agreed on half accounting and half regular English lessons. I will have to go back to the school and get her more books. Hungarian only has three tenses: past, present, and future. Our array of tenses confuses and frustrates them, but having to remember the names of them is something they hate doing. I do not blame them in the least, but when the company is paying the bill and wants them tested on it, it is a necessity to study. Beata, my student has an enlarged ego and thinks her English is better than it is. It puts the onus on me to suggest corrections in her grammar in a gentle way, so that she is not leaving with a bruised ego. At the end of the session, we were both exhausted, but assured each other that we were looking forward to the next class with something other than pure accounting to stimulate the class. That evening, I called Schule, a woman who was recommended by a school for having used a business to obtain her permits. The first call was unsuccessful since she was at the hairdresser and could not talk. She asked that I call back at 10:00 pm and I did. Schule was not concerned about the hour and kept me on the phone for quite a long time. As important as her information was going to be to us, my mind kept the meter running. Calling a mobile phone is three times as expensive as calling a residence or business and everyone provides their mobile phone rather than their home number. I did not allow her stories of being sent back to Israel by the immigration authorities upset me too much, but keeping the smelling salts under my nose was a great help. She gave me a business that she used and others that she has recommended and feels that they are the best. We will check them out.

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