Here are some of Seth’s thoughts from his first two weeks in the first grade at Dr. Szent-Györgyi Albert Általános Iskola.

“Hi, this is Seth.  I am in first grade.  I have some letters and words that I am learning how to write and read in Hungarian.  For example, ‘kék’ means ‘blue,’ and ‘faházak’ means ‘tree houses.’  Some of the letters I am learning to write are V, Á, A, Z, í, K, F, É, E, H, and I.  Everyday I have házifeladat (homework).  I have a magic box with magic sticks and beans in it.  What I do with it is I use it to spell words (see the picture).  The magic box in Hungarian is called a ‘varázsdoboz.’

“In the morning, I go to the closet in the hallway, and I hang my hat up, and I get my inside shoes on, and I go sit at my desk in the classroom.  Then the teacher comes in, and all my friends arrive.  My teacher tells me what to do.  First I have Hungarian class and then math.  We also have torna (phys. ed.), an English class, and drawing.  We go to the play ground and come back to eat a snack.  Mom and Dad pick me up from school.

“My favorite parts of the day is when I have torna, drawing, swimming, and snack time.  I also like lunch, math  and Hungarian class.  When I go to Hungarian school, everybody speaks Hungarian.  I speak Hungarian to them too.  I have some friends who I talk to.  We talk in Hungarian about things like animals.  Some of my favorite animal names are kutya (dog), hal (fish), and technősbéka (turtle).  In class I understand everything, but some things I don’t.

“I have some friends in class.  There names are Kinga, Bendegusz, Jenő, Dani, Márk, Benedet, Patrik, and there are a couple others, but I can’t remember their names.”

-Seth Whitfield Newell

The boys started school this week!  Below are a couple pictures from Seth’s first day in first grade at Szent Györgyi Albert átalános iskola.  He has wonderful teachers, and he is doing great so far.  He’s especially excited about all of his classes and books.

Here’s a picture of my normal 5K run. I’ve been a bit lazy with running this summer, but building back up.  This northern Budapest run along the Csillaghegyi Duna part is great. Though I do miss the run around Margit Island (5.5 K) which we used to do (with my friend Péter), especially in the evenings when you can see the city lights.

With this run, I start from our house and run .75 K to the river. Then we go north on a running/bicycle path along the riverside for another 1.75 K before turning around. Seth and Jacob (on their bikes) are my usual companions, and they keep my pace steady. I run a lot slower without them! Today we made one of our fastest 5K times: 21:44.16. We’re aiming to break the 20 minute barrier. Just need to keep my legs healthy.  Anyone interested in the Budapest half marathon next weekend?

We get to spend time with some really great students through the English Club and the Outdoor Club at Corvinus University. One of our friends, Norbi, invited us to visit his home in Slovakia for a few days. So this past week, we spent a couple days in and around Kassa (Kosice) Slovakia with Norbi’s family. We had such a great time. Their family lives in a small village 40 minutes outside of the big city (250,000), and the kids loved being in the countryside for a while, eating home-grown vegetables, picking grapes, and chasing chickens. Standing in the backyard are grape vines, apple trees, a giant walnut tree, a vegetable garden, a chicken house, and an outhouse which hasn’t been used for a long time. The outhouse, for me, was the coolest. Seth was a bit bummed that we couldn’t use it. Me too. It was a cool imprint from an earlier time, and I’m glad they haven’t torn it down. The kids loved the chickens, and I’m thinking that we are going to have to get a few pet chickens soon. Thanks Norbi for hosting us!!

We are two days into our kids camp this week, and it is going great!  It’s been raining the last two days, but Laura is a genius with organizing kid stuff, and we also have a secret weapon…..Uncle Daniel.   More pictures coming soon.

Seth found a Stag Beetle in the yard yesterday:

In this post, I would like introduce you to one of Hungary’s finest foods…Fish Soup.  Here are the instructions.

1) Find some good Hungarian friends who know how to make it:

2) Chop red onions and get them started in the “bogrács.”

3) Add a handful of fish pieces, a liter of water, and several spoons of paprika:

4) Scoop the fish and liquid into a puree device and press the liquid through with some of the fish, and then remove the left over fish chunks and bones:

5) Stop for a moment to watch Seth yo-yo while jumping on a trampoline:

6) Put the soup base back over the fire:

7) Add new fish chunks, some “Fish Milk,” more paprika, spicy peppers, and let it cook:

8) The cooking process should take 2-3 hours.  After enjoying the awesome fish soup, eat some turos testa (dry cottage cheese pasta), and then have some ice-cream!

From Esztergom to Budapest the Danube waters flow

3 days and 3 boats, 11 people did go

Passing castles and ducks in flight

We were looking forward to a bogrács delight

Paddling on the left, paddling on the right

Waves from speeding boats gave us a fright

The Megyeri bridge at last made its show

And we rowed home swiftly with sore muscles in tow

Last weekend Laura and I had some meetings in Vrsno, Slovenia with our Central and Eastern European Colleagues (Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Bulgaria).  It was a very meaningful time in terms of our connection with friends who are tackling similar issues in their work.  We dug deep into our CEE related issues of Identity, Community, and Modeling.  It was also a rare opportunity to bring our kids with us to such a “work-oriented” meeting.  Thanks Milan, Dusan, and Stephan for making that possible!!

Now, let’s just say that Vrsno, Slovenia is not your typical meeting location.  It is a 7.5 hour drive to the West from Budapest (because I’m a slow driver), and it is an hour drive into the mountains from the border intersection of Austria, Italy, and Slovenia (It is amazing how close all of these countries are in Central Europe).  Vrsno is a little village at the top of a mountain (population of 60 people?, possibly 1700 meters?).  We stayed in a low-key panzio which was heated by a wood burning furnace, and there was a kitchen we could use to cook meals.

We spent the mornings and evenings working, and we used the afternoons to “get out” and have some adventures.  We are really looking forward to taking a group of students to Vrsno for an English Adventure Week.  Attention students, go to the outdoor club website for details.  And finally, I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

Yes, we will go swimming in this pool. No, I’m not kidding.

These are our neighbors.

Our Central European Network.

creatures on the mountain

Oh, I would love to do this.

mountain lake

In the last couple weeks, we’ve been given two opportunities to see some of the most beautiful parts of Hungary and Slovenia (The next post will be pictures from our meetings in Slovenia). First, our friends Tamas and Zita took us to North Eastern Hungary into the Matras. I guess we’ve been waiting for almost three years to visit that part of Hungary. NorthEastern Hungary is about 3.5 hours from Budapest and is full of beautiful mountains, vineyards, and castles.

T & Z are the master program coordinators, and I think we took about 300 pictures of the following: Tokaji borvidéken séta, Telkibánya kincskeresés, piknik a réten a zemplénben, vacsora az ágyban mese, a panzió Sárospatakon, tengerszem Sárospatak mellett (túra), Füzéri vár, Sátoraljaújhely libegő, a leghosszabb Hu-n, Sárospatak Rákoczi vár, panzió reggeli, mesenézés, Tokaji borgyár, Boldogkőváralja várban, Lilafüred, ebéd, bableves. (In English, we walked through a Tokaji vineyard, we excavated crystals and gems from an extinct volcano, we had a picnic on a sheep farm, stayed in a panzio in Sárospatak, we hiked up to a mountain-top lakelet, we visited the Füzéri castle, we rode the longest mountain-side chair lift in Hungary in Sátoraljaújhely, we visited the Rákoczi castle, we visited the Boldogkőváralja castle, we hiked through Lilafüred and ate bean soup.)

Thanks T & Z for the great weekend!! You can see more pictures if you click here. Here’s a few pictures:

This is the Füzéri castle

Excavating gems from the surface of an extinct volcano.

This is a mountaintop lakelet near Sárospatak.

Seth lost a tooth.

Picnic on a sheep farm.

Picture by the Rákoczi castle.