Hungarian Travel

This is now old news, but still interesting. I had saved an article about Hungarians' summer travel plans and then forgot about it, but here is it anyway.

According to a survey conducted by the state tourism agency, of all those surveyed who stated they had plans to travel, 62% of them said they will stay exclusively in Hungary. An additional 10% said they will shake it up a bit by mixing Hungary travel with some international jaunts. 

Those who plan to stay within the country can be found at Lake Balaton where they will spend 7.5 nights, with no one planning on extending it to 2 weeks or beyond. 

The 3 foreign destinations of choice are Austria, Croatia, and Romania. 

There were quite a few on our flights to and from Bari, Italy I must say.

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Flow of Consciousness - It All Comes Back to Hungary

Flow or stream of consciousness is the continuous flow of ideas, thoughts, and feelings forming the content of an individual's consciousness. The term was originated by William James. Today it is used both as a psychological term and as a literary term and technique. Here is my stream of consciousness. Follow me on my journey of a few hours time.

Years before I went back for my doctorate, I bought a book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikzsentmihalyi (Try saying that three times fast). It sat on my office bookshelf for a number of years and when I was between clients, I would browse these books, but this one never came off of the shelf.

During my doctoral studies, I took a course called Creativity, taught by Dr. Matthew Mitchell. Matt was one of the most inspiring instructors I have ever had and I took five of his offerings, giving me a specialization in Teacher Training and Curriculum. Setting this flow of consciousness aside a moment, one of many books required for Creativity was the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. It was such a great book, I wondered why I had not pulled it off of the shelf earlier, but perhaps, I would not have appreciated it as much as with Matt Mitchell being the guide on the journey. As I wrote this today, I am finding that Csikszentmihalyi was born in Fiume, Italy, which is now Rijeka, Croatia, but his parents were Hungarian.

What started this whole stream was an e-mail from Anna, our wonderful angel who has been repeatedly coming to our rescue. She sent some pictures of her children making snow people in their courtyard. Here are some of the cute photos that sent me on my stream of thoughts. 

At 6am, I woke this morning wondering about the history of snowmen, now called snowpeople to be politically correct. My groggy early morning theory was that children of earlier times did not have the luxury of making snowmen. They were forced into labor at an early age; therefore, not having time for the playfulness of today's youth. After my first cup of coffee, I did a Google search for the history of snowmen. Seek and ye shall find this snowman site. If you missed it, click on snowman in the last sentence to be redirected. Here I found the book The History of the Snowman by Bob Eckstein. I had to put it on my Amazon Wishlist. 

If you are really into snowmen, here is the link for the world's only online magazine dedicated to snowpeople called Today's Snowman.

Recapping, the photos Anna sent made me think of snowmen. Snowmen made me wonder about their history. Thinking about their history set me off on a search, leading me to the book and magazine of snowmen. All of this made me realize that it was all stream of consciousness, which reminded me of the book Flow, bringing my thoughts to the Hungarian/Italian or Croatian author who wrote it. Last, but not least, this led to thoughts of Matt Mitchell, who I truly admire.

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Choo Charlie at it Again

Ron and I were going to train down to Szeged, far south in the Hungarian plains so I could do some current research for my next book. The Divineless Mr. M decided he wanted to go with. He came to meet me and after an errand he needed to run on the way, we went to the MAV office, the Hungarian train official office. As it happen, it was raining yet again, our seventh or eighth day of rain. I cannot be sure, my calendar is too soggy to read the exact number of days. Mr. M still has not bought an umbrella, though he has been here since August. Not tempted to share mine as it is only a one man size, when we passed a brolley dealer, I pointed out to Mr. M the divine color arrangements, sharing which would complement his complexion while keeping his shaved dome dry. He was all atwitter for a whole two minutes until he asked the price. The poor dear who spends her day out in all elements trying to make a living wage, whips out her calculator and punches in 800. From the reaction of my walking mate, one overhearing his reaction would have thought she asked for his first born. "Four dollars for an umbrella?", he shouts "I could get it in NY for three." Yes, I say, but the trip to NY would certainly detract from the savings of $1.00 and certainly your NY days are well in the past. You have not lived there for years now. Umbrellas there are most likely up to $6.00 or $7.00 at least. Regardless of my persuasive skills, he chose to ignore a practical purchase and I continued to justify my lack of sharing my mini-brella with him. This from a man who has a degree in Social Work, decries the flood of illegal immigrants into the US, yet would support child labor from third world countries to save himself a buck. Somewhere in my karma I must have been tagged with a sign that shows "Befriend me, I need to have my values perpetually clarified by your warped thinking and words." I cannot comprehend how I do attract people in my life like this. It is a burden. Mr. M had the plan to wander off to Szeged with us, only to continue on to Serbia for the day to have his passport stamped. His Visa was running out and needed to leave and reenter the country to gain another 90 day stay. However, since the world is out to persecute him, the Hungarian train system was out to get him too. There are no trains from Szeged to Serbia even if it is only inches away on a map. If he were to follow this plan, it would mean an overnight train there and one back again, just to collect a stamp. Instead, he second choice was to go to Zagreb in Croatia, which ruled out Szeged. His final solution was to travel seven hours to Zagreb, tour the city for two to three hours and climb aboard yet again to spend a relaxing seven hours to return to Budapest. The weather report showed that there was an eight-six percent chance of rain tomorrow regardless of destinations. I wonder if he will find a cheaper umbrella in Croatia.

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Greetings Friends

Greetings Friends,

Ron and Ryan have made a major life decision. We are selling the house and moving to Asia or Eastern Europe. We had finally decided to sell the house and travel for a year, after putting our things in storage in NJ (where Ryan’s brother and father live). Later that same night Ryan received an offer from Kazakhstan for the position of Coordinator of English Undergraduate Studies at their Institute. Ryan was thrilled and talked to his friend Myrtis about it since she has taught all over the world. She is currently in Croatia. She told Ryan to get his foot in the door wherever and it would be easier to move from place to place then. We have had a long time desire to live abroad.The problem with Kazakhstan, above and beyond the remoteness and various other obvious issues, is that you need a visa for getting in and a special one for staying. Looking through the web, we found out that the school needs to get my visa. Ryan was concerned about Ron getting a visa. Since Ron has a credential for teaching English as a Second Language, the contact said he could be hired too. They gave contacts for two other schools that were hiring, but the school that wanted Ryan did not have current positions for Ron.

They want Ryan there August 15th, which is tight since the house goes on the market this weekend (June 23, 2001). We still have to sell furniture and move it to NJ where Ryan's brother is living. When we do move back to the States, we don't intend to return to California. Then Ryan found that they have done nothing about getting a visa yet. That could take up to 4 weeks. Ron has not heard about the other schools yet either and that would prolong his visa too. Right now don’t know what our specific plans are, but we do know we are leaving Modesto and California. We are either moving to Kaz. or traveling for a year. The rest will fall into place somehow and it will turn out. That much we have faith in.

We had plane tickets for Boston when there was a really good sale and we were anticipating looking at properties. Since that fell out, we decided not to spend the money to go to Boston for a vacation. Ron has not seen his family in Iowa for over 6 years and needed a family fix before we took off for a period of time. He is using the time we were going to Boston to see family. Ryan is using the time to spend at our friend Myrtis and Randall's home in San Francisco, since they are both overseas. She gave Ryan a set of keys. Ryan needs the time to relax his body and mind before the chaos really begins for sure. This might just be the last time Ryan will see San Francisco for a really long time.

So this is where we are. The travel and possible teaching abroad just may give Ryan the added experiences that he needs to land the perfect job that he wants in academia. We can only hope that this is the right decision and it is an advantage. Our crystal ball has been in for repairs fora hell of a long time and it is tough making all of these decisions without some clues as to what is right and what is a stupid mistake. We have tried predicting our moves ourselves, but we will never get a job on 1-800-PSYCHICS with our accuracy rate.

For now, we do not know where our mailing address will be. We are not sure if we will stay overseas for more than a year or less than a year. Our life plan is open for the Universe to negotiate with. The only sure addresses we will have are our e-mail addresses.
Ron – No longer valid
Ryan – No longer valid
Both of us – (Notice there is a _ between the e and s)
If any one is aware of Educational employment opportunities abroad, where Americans can work, we would be happy to hear about them. Happy Trails from us to you and may the spirit of adventure be with you.

Ryan and Ron

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