Love Life and See Good Days

1 Peter 3:10-11

For “He who would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.

The recounting of my family trip is mostly for my benefit. You’re obviously welcome to read it, but I seem to have run out of Hungarian oddities (at least in my eyes) to write about.

I’ve once again come back into the anything but mundane routine of teaching after a week long hiatus with my parents and sister. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I love traveling with my family members. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re so comfortable with each other that we don’t mind falling asleep in the car with each other and waking up to our own snoring. Maybe it’s because we see an opportunity to plug in the perfect movie quote for the situation and everyone will rattle off three more from the same movie, whether its applicable or not. Maybe it’s because we know that there will be a point in our trip where everything will go wrong, and we will get annoyed with each other, but it’s not the end of the world. We eventually see that we are growing together. We’re smarter and wiser for it.

My parents seem to have it in their heads that their children might tire of them being along on the trip. That’s far from true. I love when my parents are with me. For one, I have really awesome parents. They’re up for anything, even when my sister and I plan for an extremely full itinerary. We all want to see as much as we can. Also, they are happy people, and I enjoy being around happy people. They are also interested in many of the same things I’m interested in. If that’s not a formula for a great trip, I don’t know what is.

They came in in the afternoon. I had some classes that day, so I took a train from Nyiregyhaza when I was finished. Despite not quite finding where our accommodations were for the night, we met by the parliament building. They made some unexpected side trips to a parking garage that took their car in a spinning elevator and took out quite a bit of cash at an ATM on a prominent shopping street. Needless to say, that cash lasted us our entire trip in Hungary. No worries, I can always exchange Hungarian cash for U.S. dollars, no service charge! We eventually got into our HomeAway flat, after I walked into the wrong building first and got completely confused with the accent of the owner I called for assistance. The “gree stone” ended up being a grey floor tile. Silly me.

We made it down to the river and took in the night lights after enjoying delicious pasta and wine at a nearby restaurant. Fortunately, we were traveling on the off-season. This is our favorite time to travel because restaurants aren’t crowded and staff is more friendly and relaxed toward foreigners. We also get the newbies who are training for the big summer crowds. The next day, we visited with my cousin Peter, his wife Jay and their children. They happened to be in Budapest while Peter was working at the U.S. embassy. We took a walking tour that was pretty fantastic and hit all of the major landmarks in Budapest. I got my fill of history and cultural learning in while being totally impressed by Jay, who was rather pregnant but taking on the tour like a champ.

We drove into Nyiregyhaza and my parents and sister met my host family. It was fun seeing them together and they enjoyed each other’s company as well. Kornell made sure that I knew, “You’re father is really funny. I liked him a lot.” The boys were a little shy, but they did a great job introducing themselves in English! I showed everyone around the city center then met up with a colleague of mine. Kati is the English department head. We met with her family in Sosto forest then headed for Tokai, the wine region in the eastern part of Hungary. We toured a wine cellar and tasted fantastic wines. After that we had traditional fish soup.

In the morning, my parents went to my school and met my headmistress. Kati was the translator. They took pictures for the newspaper because they thought it was cool to have two headmasters meeting from two different countries.

The kids that met my parents were polite and curious. Then we all got in the car and headed for Croatia. It was so fantastic to have a car. On our way to Split, we stopped for dinner in Zagreb, just to see if we wanted to stay a night there on our way back to Budapest. The goal was to find an authentic Croatian restaurant, and we were successful. We didn’t have any Croatian cash yet and figured we could leave the parking garage by paying with a card. I mean, Zagreb is a big city. We were WRONG. The extremely nice man working the till let us pay in Forint!

We spent the night in Plitvice Lakes National Park and stayed in another HomeAway. The owners even let us pay in Hungarian Forint. We thought it was strange that they took our passports for the night, but I guess it’s leverage so we don’t try to leave without paying. The next day, it rained, but we still wanted to hike and see the waterfalls. We visited a cute little town with waterfalls and rivers scattered throughout. Waterways travelled under houses and through back yards. I will say that it was rather difficult to find a restaurant and finally opted to buy pastries and sandwiches at a grocery store.

Next was out hike. It seemed like it took forever to figure out where to start actually hiking, but we finally started the trek in the rain. I’m so glad we did, because the waterfalls were awesome and the water was nice and clear. We got pretty soaked, but I brought hot tea and we ate sandwiches for lunch. Again, the crowds were pretty much non-existent, with only a few Asian groups here and there.

We eventually left for Split on the coast. This was probably the worst experience we had during the whole trip. What I’m going to recount only lasted about an hour and a half, but it felt like an eternity. In all honesty, it wasn’t a big deal, but when everything goes wrong at the same time, you tend to just want to yell at a small child and kick a cat. It was nearing the evening hours, so the sun was setting, and we arrived in an unfamiliar city. We were using a GPS, but our final location ended up being a back alleyway being used by a few smokers. We weren’t feeling so good about that. We drove around for what seemed like forever and tried to find a telephone number to contact the owner of our night’s stay. This also seemed like an impossible feat. Eventually, mom and Esther got out of the car and started just walking around. In my head, I’m thinking that we aren’t going to able to find a place to stay tonight and we’ll all have to sleep in the car. I stayed in a parking lot with dad.

Esther asked people in the area who were working in stores where the address was. They weren’t helpful, and basically said they didn’t know. Eventually, the owner flagged Esther down and they were shown the HomeAway an hour behind schedule. We originally couldn’t get to it because it was on a walking street where no cars were allowed. That same night, two of Dad’s cards were discovered to be lost. One was eaten by a local ATM. Mom’s card wasn’t working. After several tries, she tried a different location and was successful. We skipped some check-in steps because we had left our passports in the car and it was a ways off. The owner didn’t feel like waiting for them. Our parking spot ended up being where the GPS took us in the first place. It was a mess of a night, but we can laugh at it now. We ate at a great restaurant where I had fresh tuna from the sea.

The next day, we went on a walking tour, and the weather was beautiful. We saw Diocletian’s palace and purchased some jewelry made from the pink and red coral from the sea. The view of the ocean was wonderful and the promenade was lined with palm trees. We spent two days in Split, enjoying delicious food the whole time.

Next we headed for Zagreb. We went on yet another walking tour (Can you tell we like these?). We ended up eating some delicious pizza and cake. Our accommodation in Zagreb was our favorite because we had a parking spot provided for us. That night we booked a place in Budapest. That was easier said than done. Finally, my Hungarian card worked. I’m glad we had several different cards to use during the trip.

The next day we headed back to Budapest. We hit all of the places we missed earlier in the trip and even dropped off the luggage and car at the airport. Both of these plans would bite us in the butt later. We still needed to do some gift shopping. Unfortunately we bought Unicum, a Hungarian liquor, for a friend then later realized that it was too big for a carryon. No worries. It will get to the U.S. through a friend. We had ordered a transport to the airport through the person who owned the HomeAway. The transport didn’t come in the morning. I got a call later from a groggy man telling me that he thought he needed to be there half an hour later. While it was a half an hour later when he called, he told me to get a taxi instead and we would be compensated for the trouble. Fortunately the taxis were nearby, and my family was already on their way to their flight out.

Anyway, I tearfully said goodbye to my parents and Esther and headed back to Nyiregyhaza on a train. That night, I would also attend a hunter’s ball that lasted well past midnight. It’s a good thing I got some shut-eye on the train.

The fact is that anyone can enjoy a trip to Europe, but they’ll also find it useful to expect setbacks. Going to different countries is not a simple task. There are instances of language barriers, currency exchange problems, confusing traffic laws and just losing things because you’re always on the move. The most important thing to remember is to love the people you’re with and appreciate the experiences you’re having. I’ve been on trips were I’ve had many more problems and others where I’ve had very few problems. There are ways to avoid problems, and I obviously can’t say I’m an expert traveller. Plenty of people have travelled more than I have. But, observing the appearances and actions of the people around you can really help you out. People are going to know you’re different as soon as you open you’re mouth, but you don’t have to advertise your presence. Also, always be kind to the people around you. Smiling can get you pretty far, and people who don’t feel threatened are more likely to give you tips and help you out.

Wow, I’m sorry for the long post. Have a nice Easter!