May 2

Yesterday, Hungary officially joined the European Union. On Friday night, April 30, there were festivities downtown which I attended with several friends. Well, I got there with one friend, Neal, and we ended up finding six or seven friends and meeting three new people. There was a big concert at Hero's Square, which is a big monument/open area/skate park close to the City Park in the city center. Several bands played from several countries, and I was not familiar with any of them. But I watched nevertheless, because I was in the EU spirit. I also watched some interpretive dance for a little while, but I found that to be less in the EU spirit than the concert, and only lasted for 15 minutes.

In celebration of the EU accession, the city has also decorated the three bridges closest to downtown. They put turf and benches on the Freedom Bridge, and closed off traffic. They have jets shooting water off the side of the Elizabeth Bridge, so now it looks like a waterfall. And they added another level to the Chain Bridge.

The Trefort teachers celebrated the EU on Saturday by playing softball in a local park with students. There was quite an impressive turnout. There were about 25 people there total: five ESI teachers, two Hungarian English teachers, and the rest students or former students. We played for about 2.5 hours, and everybody had a great time. We hope to play at least a couple more times before the end of the year. An ESI teacher from another school in Budapest has been playing softball regularly with her kids, and we want to have a Trefort vs. Kossuth (the name of the other school) match.

Later that night, about 10 of us (mostly ESI teachers, and a friend from church) went dancing. We do not go dancing often, as there do not seem to be many dance clubs in Budapest, and many of those that do exist do not open before 12 or so. But now that the weather is good, a couple of open-air dance clubs have reopened downtown on the Buda side of the river. We went to both of those last night. At the second one, we even ran into a couple of students that had played softball that day, and talked with them for a while.

Dancing, for those of you who do not go (or do not go anymore) is an all-too-often frustrating occupation when one goes to a dance club. Many of the people that go to dance clubs go in order to pick up members of the opposite sex, and so far too much energy has to be expended in steering clear of those kinds of people. Imagine a group of friends, dancing together and having a good time, and predatory men, all too often holding alcohol of some kind in their hands, slowly trying to infiltrate the group. Then it usually falls to the male members of the group to protect their female friends by calling the girl's attention to some leering man, or bumping them away or closing them out.

While most of the time that was spent dancing was fun, all too often interference had to be dealt with. I find that this is a good metaphor for the Christian living in the world. We are in Christ, and we desire to be with Him, but for now we must do all we can to live in this world, deal with evil and be salt and light.

May 15

Friday, we had a special Fiesta English club. We decorated the flat in a Mexican-ish theme, made tortillas and busted out the chips. Lots of kids came, and loved the food. Annika gave out several copies of a tortilla recipe, since those are things that are not often seen in Hungary. After eating, we played Balderdash with Spanish words, and then went outside to bust open a couple of pinatas that Annika and I had made earlier that week. Friday was a great day for conversations with students, particularly at school.

Later that evening, I went with a few friends to see "Troy," starring Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, and Brad Pitt's muscles (in a supporting role). It was a good summer film. It made me think about heroism and responsibility and mortality, and how many thoughts on these subjects are lost today. The dialogue was canned, but it can still spur thoughts on higher matters. I have not read the "Iliad" since high school, but I think that it was fairly accurate. The only difference that I remember is that Achilles was not killed in the book by the person he was killed by in the movie. I'm sure that there are tons of other differences, but I cannot think of any right now. High school was, though I hate to admit it sometimes, a while ago.

On Saturday, we played softball again. It was another beautiful sunny day, and Abi brought a few of her students up from her school to play. We played for another 2.5 hours this time, and we plan on playing once more before the end of the year, on June 5.

After softball, I met with Ryan, Claudia, Vangie, Judi and Annika downtown to film a video about Hungarian history for ESI summer training. The idea behind this video is that learning about the history of the country is a rather boring thing at training, and if it is presented visually and in an entertaining way, perhaps the new teachers will be more excited about it.

We did not have much in the way of specific plans when we started; only a list of things that we wanted to film and a book to bone up on the history that we didn't remember or didn't want to make up. We ended up talking about legends at the royal palace, making up a battle in the castle, talking about the Romans on Margaret Island, reenacting the Turkish invasion next to a fountain, reenacting the WWII liberation by the Soviets, and depicting the 1956 revolution via interpretive dance. It was a lot of fun, and we plan on busting out the video camera one more time before we leave.

May 18

Today was a long day, and I'm tired. I haven't felt stressed much recently, but I'm told that when your eye twitches, you're stressed, and my right eye has been shimmying all over the place in the past couple of days.

The electricity in the girls' place has been repaired, and Tracy moved back there right away, mostly for the sake of the phone line (we don't have a land line in our flat, and Tracy has a fiance that she talks to a few times a week). Annika will likely hang around in the small flat at least until her family leaves. They arrive here tomorrow night -- father, mother, sister, uncle and cousin -- and for the next week we have houseguests. Should be a lot of fun.

Lately I have been going to see the chiropractor, as I have started to have minor back problems. It is just soreness that doesn't seem to go away. It started right around the time when I went skiing and played football in the same week. Even at 25, I find that I can't do that to myself anymore without being in shape for it. I have seen some improvement from the adjustments, but I have decided that the back trouble must stem in large part from not enough exercise. So I've been doing a lot more of that, and trying to eat better.

This chiropractor, by the way, is a Hungarian, but he went to college in America and speaks excellent English. He's a really nice guy, too. 

Here is a link to some photos that were put online by Amy Yoder. She is a teacher with ESI in Dunaujvaros, and she and her roommate come up and hang out in Budapest quite a bit. These photos show a bit of what life is like in Hungary. And I'm in a couple of them, too.

http://community.webshots.com/user/ay1026/