Children's Day

In Hungary, the last Sunday of May is Children's Day. It was also Election Day for the European Parliament. After lunch, we all loaded up in the van and headed to the city center. The voting took place in a high-school. The children and I were able to watch, but I couldn't take any pictures. After voting, we stopped for ice cream!

At the ice-cream shop

 Our trip to the ice-cream shop was followed by a trip to a place called kosár ház (it means basket house, but not the crazy kind). This business was holding an event similar to a farmers market. This event was special because it featured all kinds of activities for children's day.

A cheese stand

Hanga racing snails

I forget the Hungarian name, but these yummy desserts translate to "chimney pastry". They originated in Transylvania. We had the cinnamon variety.

Ju-Ju's seahorse tattoo

There were many animals. This guy is for sale if anyone wants him!

Saci loved the bunnies

Inside the basket house

Attila learning to swing

Basket Swings!

A man making a basket

A trip to Győr

Since leaving home, I've traveled by plane, car, train, bus, bike, and foot. I guess I just need to find a boat!

Friday, I had the opportunity to attend a school excursion with one of the girls. I originally thought I might go to Budapest with Ju Ju's class, but after hearing the different itineraries, I chose to visit Győr with Saci's class instead. I'm so glad that I did!

Saci and I set off early in the morning. We walked to the train station. There, we met up with her second grade class. We rode the train to Győr, then hopped on a bus, took the bridge over the Danube, and arrived at our destination. I'm pretty sure I get courage points just for traveling with a class of second graders. Saci was the only child who spoke English.

The field trip took place at  Mobilis. Mobilis is a children's engineering museum, but they call it a discovery playhouse. I'm pretty sure that my LeTourneau friends would adore it! After watching exciting and funny science demonstrations, the children were set free to explore the building. It was full of games and toys. The children could pretend to weld, machine, build circuits, race bikes, and design dashboards. There were dozens of amazing toys, games, and activities. Since the play wasn't regulated, they could jump from station to station as they chose. I've included a few photos below.

Saci machining

One of the discovery rooms

Modeling the aerodynamics of cars. As you arrange pieces, they show up on the screen. You can then press a button to test your model against airflow.

After visiting Mobilis, we walked through Győr. We stopped for ice-cream (the ice cream here is more like gelato) and eventually ended up at a park near the train station. The children played there until it was time to catch the train back to Sopron. I loved walking through Győr, and I would like to visit the city again someday.

The class stopped for ice cream! All the girls sat together. Second graders are second graders wherever you go!

Playing in a fountain. Friday was very hot!

The amazing ship playground at the park

I wanted to write about the Farmer's Market that we visited on Sunday for Children's Day, but that will have to wait for another post. I have plenty of pictures for that trip too!


Much love!
Renee

The Places We Go

The past few days have been beautiful, and I've had the opportunity to walk more! Here are some of the things I've seen:

A giant snail! Well, I thought it was giant until I saw another one that was the same size.

My interpretation: if you have a bike, you must stay to the left. If you have a child or pig, you must stay to the right. Sometimes I have trouble reading these European signs!

A stream that runs through one of the parks. There are many, many parks in the city! Most of them have playgrounds. I think I've seen at least 8 parks with playgrounds so far, and I know there are more.

This statue was at one of the parks. I googled the name and discovered that this man was a famous Hungarian novelist. 

This church is St. Micheal's. Isn't it lovely?

Can you guess what this is? It's a milk vending machine! You bring your own bottle, and you can buy milk by the liter. It doesn't do me much good because I can't drink milk, but here in Hungary, people drink a lot of milk. On that note, yesterday I found a huge grocery store called Inter-Spar. They had a rice/almond milk substitute! It's a little different than the almond milk at home, but I can drink it! I've also been told to look at the large Tesco. I have yet to see it (though I've seen many mini-Tesco stores), but I wonder if they will have regular almond milk. There are many grocery stores here, but looking for certain foods can be an adventure!

I accidentally focused the picture on the gate instead of the truck, but I think the truck is pretty cute. :)

I've found a few cemeteries. Some people think it's morbid, but I've always enjoyed walking through cemeteries. They contain so many stories! Of course, I can't read these headstones, but I can look at the dates and imagine what life in Sopron would have been like during that person's lifetime. One evening, Eszter, Istvan, and I stayed up discussing Hungarian History. During the conversation, it occurred to me that Hungary was on the other side of the World Wars! I said as much because I wondered what the Hungarian perspective would be. Eszter told me that it was the Americans who bombed Sopron. That seemed so strange! It makes sense of course, but for the past week, I've been walking past buildings that survived the bombings and hearing about the buildings that did not. Never once did it occur to me that those beautiful buildings were destroyed by American pilots. On the other hand, the next picture is also extremely sobering.

This statue is a memorial to the Jews who were deported from Sopron by train. They were killed in extermination camps. Prior to WWII, Sopron had a small but significant Jewish population. During the Holocaust, the entire Jewish population was killed. No-one was left to return after the war. Apparently, some of the Jews in Budapest were rescued. Sopron, however, sits on the Austrian-Hungarian border, and it was one of the first (if not the first) Hungarian city to experience the deportation and massacre of its Jews.

On a much lighter note, here is one of the many bakeries I've passed. As I said before, you can find bakeries on every street. You can also find ice-cream shops just about everywhere. At one of the shops, Eszter even found lactose-free blueberry ice cream for me!

Maybe I'm just obsessed with color, but I thought that this house was darling. I would love to have a little European cottage with a window-box.

Below are some more pictures of daily life with the family:

Attila with his apa (father) Istvan. Istvan loves history and knows so much about Hungary.

Attila in his stroller. We were picking up Hanga from Kindergarten.

Trying to balance! It's so hard! The balance beam is set on springs. The small children at the park could walk it easily, but every time I tried, I fell off! Apparently, I need another semester of yoga.

Saci and me at the park. She found these little green seed pods (at least, that's what I think they were), and we stuck them on our noses. Why? Because we could. :)

I have more pictures and stories to share, but I'll save them for another post!

5/17: Saturday!

This morning at 8:30, I walked the two older girls to their religion lessons. I wish had taken a picture of them in their rain gear: they looked so cute! I didn't need to pick them up until noon, so I had three hours to explore the city. Despite the drizzly, cool weather, I had a blast! I tried to take a video to upload to the blog, but my apparently I can't hold a camera and walk at the same time. I should have taken more pictures to compensate, but I was too busy experiencing everything. There will be more opportunities later. Anyway, here are some pictures from today and last week.

Photos 5/14

The weather has been rainy, chilly, and very windy, so I have done not much exploring yet. Yesterday, however, Ju-Ju and Saci went to the orthodontist, so I was able to see part of the city. In afternoon, there was a brief sunny spell, so I took Hanga to the park. The weather is supposed to clear up by Sunday, so I am sure that I will take many more pictures later on. :)

Hanga at the park

At the orthodontist: Ju-Ju working on a coat-of-arms for school.

Hanga and I read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We then made coconut trees. Eszter even found a can of coconut milk for us to drink! 

 

George Washington Park: We pass this little park on the girls way to school. It was dedicated on George Washington's 200th birthday.

Ju-Ju, Saci, and their mom Eszter

The famous Firewatch Tower of Sopron

A reflection of the Firewatch Tower

A street near the city's center

The Trip to Hungary

Today is my second full day in Sopron, Hungary. The background picture for this blog is a picture from this city. (I didn't take it, so you can find the original here.) For those of you who don't know, I'm working as an Au Pair for a family with four children. I think that this summer is going to be a lot of fun. 

My trip to Hungary was a mini-adventure in of itself. On my first flight, from Houston to Istanbul, I sat in-between a couple of guys headed to Tehran. We had a fun conversation, and I watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Book Thief, and Yours, Mine, and Ours. It was long and uneventful. We arrived in Istanbul a little late however, so my 1.5 hour layover turned into a 45 minute layover. By the time I got through security, the flight for Vienna was flashing red on the flight screen. It said "last call."  I threw on my shoes, grabbed my bags, and literally ran to the other end of the airport. I didn't even put on my belt! Thankfully, I arrived at the gate just in time: I boarded the bus that would shuttle us to the airplane with only 45 seconds to spare. The ironic thing is that after we got the plane, we waited on board for over half an hour. I guess they were moving our luggage. I am very happy that mine made it!

The flight to Vienna was relatively empty, and at first, I was sitting alone. About half-way through the flight, however, a group of high-school soccer players from Turkey joined me. They only spoke a few English words, (and I could only remember one Turkish word) but we managed to have a conversation of sorts anyway. We laughed a lot. One of them wrote down my name, and apparently, when they saw the family holding up a sign with my name on it, they told them where I was. :)

I'll write another post about my experience in Hungary thus far. If I continued here, this post would be much too long. And yes, I will take pictures. Patience, Mama. :)

Szia!
Renee