Winter Storm and Mariapocs

In spite of the snow, I was able to leave for Mariapocs right after school on the 1:40 train from the small station. It started snowing late Thursday night and snowed through the day Friday. It was still snowing on Saturday in Mariapocs, finally stopping in the evening. This is the biggest snow storm all winter, and apparently the most snow in a number of years! And here I thought we were smooth sailing to spring with those snowdrop flowers in bloom and the daffodil shoots up a good inch....and yet, I can't really complain, as this is less snow than I've ever had for winter (ok, except the year in Sacramento) AND I haven't had to deal with it in terms of shoveling, etc.

I met Tara in Nyiregyhaza and we went to Tesco and got supplies for the weekend, including pancake mix (!), taco seasoning, shells, and ground beef (!), and Irish Cream for our morning coffee! We then met Jamie back at the train/bus station and rode the bus to Mariapocs, a 45 minute ride. Saturday morning Jamie, Tara and I went to the store and looked around the village some. The churches were closed and I found out that the weeping statue of the Virgin Mary has been temporarily moved elsewhere, so I couldn't have seen it anyway. We spent the rest of the day sitting around the living room, comparing teacher stories, the differences between Hungary and the US/Canada, and giving Tara feedback on the fairy costume she is making for Farsang (Carnival). I got to play "Mom" and made every one pancakes after Emily and Briggi arrived before noon. One thing we didn't do that we should have, was to take naps.

The charity dinner and dance began at 7pm, so we put our shoes, wine, water and soda into bags and walked across the street through the snow to the school. Tara went a bit earlier to see if there were last minute things to do, so she met us at the door. The cute dress that she bought to wear to my ball a few weeks ago and to this ball as well, was already being sashayed around the school on another teacher! Yes, another teacher was wearing the same dress as Tara! Luckily, Tara had worn a small black sweater wrap on top of hers, and was able to leave it on all night, so no one knew they had on the same dress.

At our table were the 5 of us and another couple, Zalan and Judit. Tara does English lessons for Zalan, as he hopes to go to the US to teach through a program in Chicago. Both he and his wife are biology teachers in a nearby town. Unfortunately, I don't speak enough Hungarian, and his wife doesn't speak much English, so we weren't able to talk much and I felt pretty bad for her as she seemed quite bored. But the rest of us had a great time, first watching Tara and her students perform a number of songs in English, then other students do dance routines. We had live music which played all night. Dinner was again more than enough, and was a pork steak with mushrooms, a chicken breast and both rice and potatoes. And as is common here, pickles were served for a vegetable. Although we had brought our own drinks, the principal had a number of bottles of wine and other drinks delivered to our table, on him which we had not expected, as he also covered the price of our dinner tickets. We did our best to spend a lot of money on the raffle tickets to help cover the costs of our dinner tickets and drinks and of course we hoped to win a few things as well.

But before the raffle, there was first dancing for all and a performance by the teachers singing a few songs. Then we had our midnight second dinner!: cabbage rolls, a few other meat finger food items, a few salads and cakes! Then we finally had the raffle. I won a bottle of brandy and bottle of Tokaj wine, Briggi won a nice set of coffee cups and saucers, Zalan and his wife won two vases and Jamie also won a ceramic vase. Most of us were more than ready to leave immediately after the raffle, but only three of us made it out the door. It was past 2am and the teachers wanted to know why we were leaving so early! Tara and Briggi stayed a bit longer and when they were leaving, Tara promised to go back after coming home to change her shoes and didn't finish dancing until around 4am. When the principal came to give us a ride this morning around 10am, he said he didn't leave and lock the school doors until 6am! They really do go all night....and we should have taken naps!

Our ride back from Mariapocs to Nyiregyhaza was by train. A one car train! That goes very slowly! It took longer to make that trip than it does from my town and my town is further away than Mariapocs. I went shopping at Tesco which was a thrill, but I bought too much stuff and struggled on the walk home from the train station when I got to Kisvarda. At the Tesco though, I met an American couple who are living and working in Ireland. She is a speech therapist and I don't recall what he does. They are here in Hungary for dental work which is quite common for people to travel here for. They are getting in a bit of travel as well. They gave me a ride back to the train station in Nyiregyhaza which was nice. They will call me tomorrow evening and let me know if they will drive up here on Tuesday to see Kisvarda.

Then, as I was heading to the platform at the train station, Mike (the other CETP teacher in Kisvarda) caught up with me, and we were able to visit all the way back to Kisvarda. As usual, it was good to see him and we shared some laughs.

You can view the photo album of the dance and train ride back here: http://picasaweb.google.com/margie510/Mariapocs#

(if it doesn't work, make sure the # sign is in the browser address field.)