Salzkammergut, Austria

Last weekend I took my first solo trip to Salzburg and the Salzkammergut area of Austria! I had another Friday off work, and took the opportunity to make a three-day weekend of it. On Friday I woke up at 4 a.m. to make it into town in time for my 6 a.m. train to Salzburg. The six-hour train journey was uneventful, with the exception of one rogue individual who decided to throw the very basis of civilization and humanity out the window when he opened up a can of tuna on the train. Who does that?

Once in Salzburg, I managed to completely butcher the directions to the hostel and get utterly lost. I wandered for a solid 35 minutes in 85°F weather before finally stumbling into my hostel drenched in sweat. I changed and cooled off for a bit before heading out to explore. My first stop was the beautiful Mirabell Gardens. Several scenes from The Sound of Music were filmed here, and although I haven’t actually seen the film (gasp!), it didn’t diminish my enjoyment of them.

A Tale of Two 3-day Weekends

It seems as though Hungary (and Central Europe at large) is intent on making my last month and a half here as underwhelming as possible. Between the weather, flight prices, and train schedules, there seems to be a conspiracy at work to keep me cooped up in my apartment. For weeks Jen and I spent hours upon hours desperately searching for weekend getaway locations. Soča Valley in Slovenia was at the top of our list, but for every obstacle we crossed, another one would pop up in its place.

Although I didn’t want to waste a valuable day off, I finally resigned myself to spending the weekend in Budapest. On Friday I grabbed dinner with my friends Emily and Rosti at this Italian place in the mall. (Talk about an authentic experience abroad!) Afterwards, we had a pint at a lovely little pálinka bar while it drizzled rain outside. We called it a night early and headed home before 9.

Kraków, Poland

The first rule of traveling on Labor Day weekend in Europe? Book ahead. That was the lesson I learned this past weekend while traveling to Poland with my good friends (and fellow CETPers), Sam and Rosti. We were welcomed to Poland with the shocked and horrified expression of a hostel receptionist’s face when we told her we were arriving “without reservation.” No, there are none, she replied. Nothing anywhere. 

Well, that’s not a good sign, we thought as we departed the first hostel in search for a second. A second quickly became a third, and a fourth, and so on until we began to wonder if it really were possible for every single bed in the city to be booked. Before you judge us too harshly for our stupidity, let’s back up a bit. For the past six months we have been spoiled by traveling in the off-season: the land of low prices, barren hostels, and zero lines. We naively believed this weekend would be no different, so we jet off with our weekend bags, blissfully ignorant of the chaos that awaited us.

On Being Brave

It was about this time last year, as an impending graduation loomed over me that I first considered teaching abroad. Not seriously, of course. If you had told me back then that a year later I would be in Hungary, juggling 23 classes a week and enjoying it, I would have said, “No, you must have me confused for someone else.” When I finally received confirmation three months later that I would be going to Hungary, a lot of people naturally asked me, Why?  And of course there’s a million reasons for why I chose to come teach English in Hungary, but one of them I’ve mostly kept to myself until now.

On Being Sick

There is a well-known phenomenon in the education world wherein first year teachers are constantly sick. As a new teacher, your body is not yet prepared for the onslaught of germs, bacteria, and viruses that you’re bombarded with on the front lines of education everyday. It’s hard enough to get my first graders to understand Take out your books, much less, Please thoroughly lather yourself in hand sanitizer before approaching your immune-deficient teacher. The most I can do is find solace in the painful irony that their displays of affection and love (hugs) will actually be what kills me.

Brașov, Romania

On the road again

Just can’t wait to get on the road again.

As I sang the melody to Willie Nelson’s 1980 classic for the hundredth time that weekend, I was reminded of just how much traveling we had done. I had embarked to Romania with my trusty pals and fellow CETP teachers, Jen and Rosti; a feat that required two separate 13-hour train rides in the span of a single weekend. I left my apartment Friday afternoon weighed down with an over-packed backpack of snacks and things I thought could pass the time of a 13 hour train ride. As it turns out, almost nothing can soothe the utter boredom of 13 hours at sea train.

On Embarrassment

I am convinced that life as an expatriate is just one big embarrassing moment. In the past I’ve always struggled to come up with a good embarrassing moment story to satisfy Truth or Dare questions or awkward group icebreaker games—now I can simply answer “the entirety of the months of August 2014 through June 2015.” My threshold for embarrassment is also (embarrassingly) low. My pale Irish skin gives away a blush like a bad poker player and I’m known to agonize over awkward interactions in my head for far longer than necessary to my mental health. However, living in a foreign country requires embracing embarrassment in all of its forms, and in that spirit let’s countdown some of my most embarrassing moments in good ole’ magyarország.

Let’s Talk About the Kids

Throughout my fabulous blogging career I have been relatively hush about my actual job here: teaching. From my pictures and my blog posts it may look like all I do is travel and drink Soproni grapefruit beer, but believe it or not, I actually have a full-time job teaching children! Every week I teach 22 separate lessons (23 starting this semester) ranging from first grade to eighth. Imagine my horror when I realized I had to learn over 300 names– most of them completely unrecognizable to an English-speaker.

Busójárás

This past weekend I travelled down to the southern city of Mohács for their annual Busójárás festival! Busójárás is one of the more famous parts of the Farsang (Carnival) season here in Hungary. The festival has been marked by UNESCO as an “Intangible Cultural Heritage” event. My good friend Jen organized a field trip for her 8th graders and kindly invited me along as a “chaperone,” along with three other CETP teachers: Matt, Kendahl, and Dani.

Rome, Michigan, and Back Again

Well…A full month later and here we are! My blog writing procrastination has reached new limits. I have nothing to say for myself except laugh.

Alright, let’s get down to it. Rome. What a doozy. I met up with my travel companions Thomas and Rosti at the Budapest airport for our 6am flight on Friday. Budapest pulled out all the stops for our departure— freezing, overcast, rainy— as though to further confirm our decision to get the hell out of there for a while.