This morning I was woken up at 7:45 to the sound of blaring
disco music from what appears to be a school across the street from the
apartment, which was pretty hilarious, because it drew a crowd of people
outside the apartments trying to figure out where it came from.
I’ve now been in my town, Gödöllő, since Wednesday
afternoon. My stuff is all unpacked and
things are going fine. Here’s some
things that have happened.
Wednesday: It was a horrible thunderstorm during the
orientation meeting for CETP contact teachers.
We were all dreading the walk to the car in the pouring rain while
dragging our suitcases through the street, but by the time the orientation
meeting was over, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out, which created
a ton of humidity. My contact person had
meetings and was unable to come get me, but another English teacher from the
school came and got me instead. He
helped me drag my two huge suitcases through all the puddles that had been
created, and we loaded them into his car and drove the 45 minutes to Gödöllő.
When we had unloaded the bags in the apartment, he took me
to the school to meet my actual contact person, and this guy has to be the most
helpful person in the world. We talked
about the general classes I’d be teaching, the school itself, and some
“housekeeping” stuff like internet and bills.
I met the principal and everything.
There is, unfortunately, no internet in this apartment, so I have to
wait to get it installed, but I can freely use the internet at school whenever
I want. After some chatting for a few
hours, they showed me a supermarket close to the apartment, I bought a couple
things, and I went back home.
The apartment is actually really nice. Everyone was so apologetic for it, claiming
that it’s too small and that I won’t be happy in it. I don’t know if they’re trying to be modest
or if they feel that I came from a life of luxury in the states, because the
apartment is plenty big for just one person.
It has a separate kitchen, bathroom, shower (which is in the kitchen,
but oh well), and a large living space with two beds and no couch. Why two beds and no couch? I guess it’s so guests can come over. Either way, it was pristinely cleaned, had
all new sheets, towels, and new cookware.
They had toilet paper in the bathroom.
Everything I could have possibly needed was here. I even have like five clean bath towels, three
sets of blankets, and they had put FOOD in the refrigerator for me! Bread, fruit, cheese, water, lunch meat—it was
all there. They were exceptionally
thoughtful in arranging all this because I really didn’t need to buy anything. Here are some pictures of the apartment:
So that was Wednesday.
Thursday…..that was immigration.
I came back to the school at 7am to be greeted by the two very nice
school secretaries who were to drive me to Budapest to immigration. We got stuck in a traffic jam on the way in
(go figure) but we got there just slightly after it opened. There were like 20
CETP teachers there, with Hajni arranging our service, which pretty much meant
she had taken ALL of the little “pull this tab for you number” thingies. Everyone was talking about their apartments,
and it seemed like I had by far the best one.
Some people didn’t have kitchens because they were living in workers’
dorms. Some people didn’t have clean
sheets or pillows, so they slept in their clothes due to the stinky “B.O.” of
the sheets they were given. However, the
people with the less desirable apartments were few and far between. By far, most people had nice places and were
very happy with them. After some
chatting, my number was finally called, and we turned in the immigration
paperwork, which was nearly as thick as a dictionary. There didn’t seem to be any problems, and
I’ll have to return on September 19th to pick up my temporary
residence permit from the Budapest immigration office.
That took the entirety of the morning, and by the time we
left, it was almost 1:00. We got stuck
in a horrible traffic jam going out of the city due to two cars breaking down
on the freeway on-ramp, so it took us about two hours to get back to town
instead of 40-45 minutes. Upon our
return, I went back into the school and met some of the teachers. They’re all really nice and all offered to
help me in any way I needed.
My contact teacher then took me to Tesco and helped me pick
up a drying rack for the apartment so I could do laundry. Tesco is about a mile from here, so I’m
thinking I’ll walk there on Saturday when I have more time to check it out for
myself.
On Friday, I had a little tour of town arranged for me by
the school librarian. Her two daughters
met me at the school and took me around, showing me the shops, bookstores,
groceries, and all sorts of things, giving me advice as to which shops were
cheaper or which ones had better stuff.
This is so different than in the states because it usually doesn’t
really matter which stores you shop at—all of them sell basically the same
brands but just at different prices.
That lasted for a couple hours and was really fun. I also got an idea of the level of students’
English here—it’s VERY high. I was not
expecting to have a normal conversation at usual pace without altering my
language at all. I guess I’ll have to
rethink some of the activities I was planning to do here.
On Friday evening, my school had the “Opening Ceremony”
where all the teachers, students, and many parents gathered in a large open
part of the school and listened to the principal speak, listened to some choir
and piano music, and then went home. In
fact, it ended so abruptly that I was shocked!
It’s like it was music, singing, piano, talking, music, GO HOME. I had to stand up and wave to the crowd when
I was introduced, which was kind of intimidating because there must have been
500+ people there, but at least I didn’t have to give a speech.
On Saturday and Sunday for a lack of anything better to do,
I walked to Tesco, a large supermarket chain store (comparable to Fred Meyer or
Kroger). I actually walked there like 6
times, and since it has free internet…well…that kinda drew me in. Plus I had nothing else to do. Overall, things have been good though!
It’s now Tuesday afternoon and I just got internet in the
apartment. Updates on school and classes
are soon to come!
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