Lunch With Frank and Jean

As I have mentioned in the recent past, one of the added benefits of blogging and posting on travel websites is that interesting people contact you for more information. About a month or more earlier, I had received an e-mail from an American named Frank. He and his wife were considering living in Budapest for part of the year and he wanted to pick our brains about how we coped. We set up a lunch meeting for the time they were to be here and today was that day.

We met at Café Eklectika, my choice since we were meeting after I finished teaching and it is easy for all of us to get to. Ron went along and we had a lovely lunch consumed in conversation to the point that we neither Ron nor I realized our B and B guests were directly behind us eating as well.

Frank and Jean have one major advantage that we did not have. Jean’s parents were from Hungary, allowing her to apply for citizenship. With Frank as her spouse, this limits the red tape he will need to go through to stay here long term legally.

Frank is a retired teacher and Jean hopes to retire next year. Then they will be free to follow their dreams to come and go as they please. Ron had to leave after lunch to do some grocery shopping, but I stayed and continued talking, something I thrive on. When we finally said our good-byes, it was difficult to comprehend that we had been there for four hours. The time flew by as it usually does when one is engrossed in a pleasant activity.

Later that evening, I received a call that the founder of the Central European Teachers of English as a Foreign Language was in Budapest for the IATEFL-Hungary conference. We wanted to know if I could meet with he and another teacher. My back was kicking up, so to go out yet again would have been too much, so I had to offer my regrets. Another time, another place, perhaps.

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