Where does the time go?

Sunday evening, one more week until Christmas break - and yes, for this school it is Christmas break, not the pc Holiday break. There are advent wreaths in every classroom, often lit by the students between the classes. The trees in the courtyard by the St. Lazslo statue have lights on them. There was a Christmas vigil held in the Chapel on Thursday night with the Hostel kids (and I attended the first part with the singing). The students are asking to sing Christmas songs in every class (I know, they just want to get out of school work), and they know a number of songs in English.

Yesterday morning I went into Nyiregyhaza and met Tara who came in from Mariapoc and we discussed our Christmas trip - and many other things! We are both quite excited to see the Christmas Markets in Austria and Munich before we head to Paris. However, today we were notified there is a train workers strike -- mostly just in the Eastern part of Hungary - where we are. Now this afternoon I got word that the strike might spread across the whole country and could very well last through the week! We are supposed to leave from our towns on Friday afternoon to catch our international train from Budapest at 8:30pm. At this point, I can't worry about it, and will just continue planning and getting ready! Apparently many of the airport workers in Budapest are on strike also. Should be interesting to see how this plays out so close to Christmas.

I've meant to talk about the sausages! A few weeks ago I was instructed to be in the teacher's room between certain classes, as a representative from one of the meat packaging plants would be at the school with samples of sausages for us to try. Well, it was the day I was leaving for Prague and didn't make it in there, but Edit brought me a plate full of different sausages just before I left. There was one that was black with rice in it that I tried and didn't care for at all. There was another that was pretty good, but awfully greasy. Don't remember much about the others. I took off on my trip, and didn't think about it again.

Well this past week one morning I went into the canteen for breakfast and the students had a single sausage on their plates, no bread (!) and nothing else and this was breakfast. I slowly backed away and made my own breakfast. Then, two nights later, dinner was mashed potatoes and sausages: the two kinds I just described. I ate the one, but the black one I just couldn't handle. I looked around at the student's plates and saw they were all eating the black one and leaving the other on their plates.

Then, on Thursday, there was a "name day" (more on that below) celebration in the teacher's room for all the teacher's with name days in December. I helped set out the plates, napkins, etc., and there were pastries and cakes. After the next class one of the teachers instructed me to go back over to teacher's room because the good stuff was now there: puddings, sausages, bread and pickles! So off I went, and lo and behold, there are the same sausages again! Obviously, the sales rep had been successful not only selling the sausages for use in the cafeteria, but also for the teachers! There was no pudding though.

Those of you in the know, realize that the black sausage is also called blood pudding, or black pudding and is a sausage made with blood, grains and other ground up meat parts. And that was the "pudding" the teacher mentioned. I'm glad I didn't know what it was before I tried it, and legitimately didn't care for the taste, and not just because of the name and what it is made from.

I'm just waiting to see when they will be served next!

Name days are the Saint's day that someone is named after. Some names actually have two saints days! This day is celebrated by the holder of the names in the same manner we celebrate birthdays. They don't celebrate, or recognize birthdays at the same level we do, instead it is on their Name Day that they get recognition, good wishes and gifts.