Cricket Lady Finds a Husband

Today was one of my kindergarten group's Mother's Day presentation. The big performance was a play about a beautiful cricket. One day she finds a coin and goes to the shop to buy a red ribbon. While sitting and admiring herself in a mirror, different animals approach her and ask for her hand in marriage. She asks each animal to first sing for her a song, but she doesn't like anyone's voice. Finally, the little mouse sings to her and she accepts his proposal.

After they performed the whole play once in Hungarian, they did it again "This time in English!" It was so cute I could barely hold the camera to record a few moments.

And so it continues: a duck, a rooster, some bees, etc. Everyone sings their songs to please the vain little cricket until the little mouse wins her hand.

Aaaawwwwwww!

Mátyás Király Christmas Program

Baking Christmas Cookies in Hungary

I think that whenever you move, whether it be across town, across the country or across an ocean, you can't help but occupy your mind with the many things that are different. Needless to say I had a very long list when I first arrived in Hungary. But now I have lived here over two years and don't notice these differences as often.

This was my second year making Christmas cookies with my advanced-level English students. I figured I wouldn't be in for any surprises this afternoon.

We rolled out the dough,


cut out the shapes,


baked the cookies, made the frosting


and frosted them, exactly as I had planned.

But just in case I forgot I was in Hungary...

Three of my boys knocked on the window of the classroom and showed off a wild boar's head.

I made sure they washed their hands before they came back in.

Mátyás Király Halloween Party

I helped organize my school's very first Halloween party this year. The kids dressed up, bobbed for apples, made toilet paper mummies, and the older kids stayed for a dance party.

The biggest surprise was when Jon and I showed up dressed up as a Jack-o-lantern and a ladybug because no one knew that you could dress up as anything for Halloween. Everyone, including my colleagues, asked us, "Why aren't you scary?!" Everyone else was a witch, ghost, vampire, or dead. It was funny to find out what little details of American culture had caught on and which ones had slipped through the cracks. I guess that's why we are here!