Hungarian Cultural experiences

Folk dancing, organ concerts, and national holidays.

This last week was actually quite interesting in Pápa. Monday started with a Hungarian folkdance performance that the entire school attended—apparently its compulsory for the students to attend these culture events. It was pretty cool, actually. A bunch of 19 year old kids who live at a dance conservatory and aren’t allowed to leave the campus except on Sundays—they better be good! But anyways, that was nice.

Wednesday there was an organ concert at the Reformed Church in town, and someone organized a school trip to the early show, which meant it cost about a buck to attend. This guy Rákász Gergely is supposed to world-famous, and he apparently gives great lectures along with his playing. Sounded perfect to me, so I of course attended. Well, let’s begin with the fact the church was filled with primary school kids. Whose brilliant idea was it to bring 6 year olds to an organ concert? Oy vey. Plus, he did a LOT of lecturing, but since I am still not fluent in Hungarian, I was bored. He ended up only playing like 3 pieces, which were good and all, but it was not my favorite. Oh well. I also left my heat on in my flat that morning (realizing I had done so when I was almost to school and did not have enough time to go back), so I tried running home in between m classes and the concert to take care of that, only it was raining and so my pants were dragging in the puddles and drenched and thus sagging even more and I was getting frustrated with the sogginess, so instead of going home to prevent burning down the building, I stopped into a shoe store and bought a pair of brown boots. I mean, if it hadn’t burned down by 2pm, it surely could wait til 3:30, right? Lol.

Friday the school put on a performance to commemorate the 1956 Revolution (October 23^rd) so I once again wore the black bottom/white top uniform that is worn anytime there is anything going on (although this time I had to find out about the performance from my students, because no one bothered to tell me). I have some video, but basically it was very somber. Lots of monologues, a few instrumental interludes, a song, a short protest demonstration, machine gun sounds and suddenly my 10H class was massacred on the floor. Then, the monologues continued. It was rather redeeming to see that class behaving and taking it seriously and not making out during the performance. From what I hear, the primary school’s production was spectacular, and I am sorry to have missed it.

my 10H class massacred in the '56 Revolution presentation

Unfortunately, Hungarians haven’t completely understood the glories of capitalism and that holidays are great ways to make big bucks with sales—instead, everything closes. I did some serious errand-running and grocery shopping Friday afternoon, since I knew I was going to be stuck all weekend. I was mentally preparing myself all week for the cabin fever that was bound to ensue, and the emotional roller coaster that can cause, and I think it aided me in avoiding that altogether—so far, still smiling!

Today, I found myself running through town in a tank top, passing Hungarians in coats, scarves, and hats. What the heck? Am I actually acclimating? Or are these people wusses? yes, there was a cool breeze, but the sun was warm! I spent the morning watching a movie in bed, then got up and did a top-to-bottom cleaning session in my flat—sweeping, mopping, dusting, vacuuming, scrubbing, bleaching, and three loads of laundry. Then I went for the afore-mentioned jog, then showered and gave myself a pedicure and ate lunch. I even opened a window! From there I uploaded the rest of the photos (finally) and set to finally catching up my blog. I wanted to go to the soccer game in town, as my students have been telling me to go often, but by the time I made it there, they wouldn't sell us tickets. sigh. we stopped for cider/tea and then made dinner and watched tv. yay.

I leave you with some beautiful skies from this week.