Murphy's Law, God's Grace

I thought I'd keep Jeff company yesterday as he ran an errand yesterday.  One of the administrative details he has to take care of for the semester program is ensuring that all the students (and our family as well) get residency permits from the Hungarian immigration and naturalization office.  Hungary does not require a visa to visit, but if you're going to be staying here longer than ninety days, you have to get a residency permit once you're here.  To each residency permit application you must attach Hungarian stamps worth about $90.  So Jeff was off to the post office to buy these stamps.  In joining him, I thought maybe I'd be helpful, but at least I would be companionship.  Can you feel the ironic tension building?

Jeff asked me to carry the envelope with the money for the stamps in my bag.  I put the envelope in my bag, and we set off.  I was being helpful already!  Much better to have $2000 worth of Hungarian forints in my bag than shoved into his pants' pocket.  Now you can see where this is going, right?

We arrived at the post, feeling proud of ourselves because Jeff had asked someone in Hungarian where the Post Office was.  Though we had understood little of her reply, we had indeed found the post office!  Now to get the stamps.  Jeff approached one of the tellers, and with a little Hungarian mixed with a lot of English, tried to explain what he needed.  We experienced again what we've already discovered before:  when you clearly don't speak the language, and you ask for large amounts of something, people are very reluctant to believe that you actually want as much of something as you seem to be saying you want, whether that thing is transportation passes or peaches.  And of course, we don't have the language skills to be able to say, "I'm buying these for a large group of people.  Yes, I really do want twenty of them!"

After the calling over of a manager and drawing the attention of every other customer in the place, however, Jeff and the manager stumbled their way to an understanding of what each needed.  When asked if he would be paying in cash, I began to look in my bag for the envelope.  My bag is one of these in which everything falls to the bottom, and it often takes me a while to find what I need.  As I resorted to taking everything out that wasn't the envelope, though, it became clear that I did not have the envelope.  After all the work of finding the post office and solving the riddle of explaining what we were asking for, frustration again. 

And fear.  Where was all that money?  I was sure I had put it in my bag.  I remembered doing it.  Either I was wrong, or it had fallen out at some point, or I'd been pickpocketed...?  All of these seemed unlikely to me.  We headed home to see if I'd left the money there.  An unpleasant journey.  Not only had I not helped, if that money was lost, I had harmed.  And I don't think either one of us was feeling much companionship at that moment, either.

As soon as we walked into our apartment, we could see the envelope lying on the kitchen table.  Relief, irritation, thanksgiving, perspective, a headache.  All pretty much par for the course when you're a stranger in a strange land.

Work and play

In the past 9 days, we have had 18 lessons in the Hungarian language. Most of these have been in a crowded, spartan fourth floor room in 95 degree temps, high humidity and no air conditioning. And painting and construction in the hallways outside the room. The Hungarian language is extremely difficult, and this fourth floor room is arrived at by us walking about a half mile, riding on a crowded and warm subway car for about ten minutes, then walking again for a bit, then boarding a (strangely beautiful and efficient) squeaky, jerky, yellow tram car and riding (usually standing up) for about another 25 or 30 minutes, before getting off the tram and walking a block to the dorm building where our students are staying. Did I mention it has been hot?

Thanks for reading the above paragraph - I'm really not complaining. But it seems right for you to know, if you're following this blog, that we are not just here for vacation. Not really here for vacation at all, at least not until late December. So in addition to the beautiful surroundings, and delightful smells, tasty gelato, and incredible architecture, there is an element of work and discomfort to our new and temporary existence.

And now that I've got that off my chest, I can post a few photos from our first train adventure this past weekend. 12 of the 18 students, along with our family, took to the rails at mid-day on Friday and left the extremely hot city for the shores of Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Central Europe. Before we left the station, we had all nearly finished all the water in our water bottles, and we were baking. Just over two hours later, we had thrown our stuff in our hostel room, put on our bathing suits, and we were swimming alongside other lucky travelers who had also decided to visit Balatonlelle, a beautiful lakeside town on the lake's southern shore.


Suffice to say we had a great time there. A very good time.

Here you can see Bastian and Abi on the train, and then a group of the Calvin students wading into the waters of Lake Balaton. Refreshing!

Just a slice of life - a picture of Hungary to remember

A quick story. The other day, maybe a week ago, Abbie and I were riding the subway back to our neighborhood from the nearby mall (she needed a new watch). As the doors closed, a young woman entered our subway car carrying an infant in her arms, and a small paper cup. She didn't look particularly poor, until you looked closely, which took me a minute to do. But as soon as the doors closed and the car began to move, she made eye contact with each of us near to her, referring to her cup, and asked (I assume, since I couldn't actually understand her) for money, or change, or maybe just help. Another women near to us, who looked like she was perhaps going home from work, and had a small travel bag with her, immediately looked into her wallet for change, and I noticed that when she discovered that she only had very small change, she then went for a bill, one worth perhaps six dollars American. And the young woman with the baby quickly moved away, up the passage in the middle of the subway car, asking for more from others as she walked. The second woman, still near us, then proceeded to rustle through her bag, retrieve a banana, leave the bag alone on a full subway car, and run after the first woman to hand her the banana. I remarked to Abbie that we had witnessed a holy moment - it is not often that we get to see in person someone with that kind of energy for giving to others - to run after someone in a moving subway car is not an easy thing to do in the first place, and to do it in order to give a little more to someone in need was something I won't soon forget. This is just one picture of Hungary that has impressed me so far. "Do not grow weary in doing good."

Arrival Gate Voyeurism

Friday while we were at the airport waiting for our students to arrive, I witnessed several joy-filled reunions of family and friends.  Seeing what are usually more private emotions played out publicly and right in front of you is a little like watching really good acting.  It’s very moving.

            I saw one woman who appeared to be met by two friends.  Instead of waiting for her to clear the long, cordoned-off exit area at international arrival gate A, they rushed up to her from the end of it and accompanied her the rest of the way, all clearly happy to see each other again and share life again.

            Then I watched a woman, who was maybe in her fifties, run up and duck under the rope marking off the exit area in her eagerness to reach who I took to be her husband.  He, however, was so close to the rope that as she ducked under, she got a bit stuck between his leg and his luggage cart.  When they got her sorted out, she was bouncing with eagerness to see him and kiss him.  It was clearly the last thing on her mind that she may have looked silly bent over double with her head against his leg.

            Finally, and viewed very up close, was a long embrace between a mother and her son, who I put at about 20 years old.  The length of their hug, as well as the look on their faces, clearly showed their mutual satisfaction in being together once again.

            Seeing love so clearly expressed can fill up one’s emotional gas tank for a long time.  I even had the thought that maybe I should hang out at the airport at home sometime, just for the good feeling such scenes might give me.  But I suspect somehow that being so far from home myself gave my glimpses of these relationships their special resonance…

Bubble man video - St. Istvan's Square, Budapest

Bastian captured this (with a little front-end editing) yesterday while the group was waiting for a take-out supper to be delivered to our resting spot by the fountain outside St. Istvan's Basilica. This guy with the giant bubble machine set up right outside the Basilica, during the PA test (musical background) in preparation for the August 20th festivities - today is St. Istvan's Day, a national Hungarian celebration.

Inside Aulich Utca 5

Our apartment is a three bedroom apartment with a kitchen, living room, and bathroom.   We are renting the apartment from a family who lives in Poughkeepsie, NY, but has relatives in Hungary.  The apartment is their home in Hungary and fully furnished.  All we needed to supply was ourselves, pretty much. 

Come on in and take a look...

 

We enter the apartment in the kitchen.

 

 To the right, we enter the living room.

Through the living room, into the long part of the L-shaped apartment, we have the master bedroom. 

 Beyond the master bedroom we have the bathroom containing the tub/shower, bathroom sink, linen/storage closets, and washing machine.  Just off the kitchen, there is a very small half-bath.  Since we can bathe in the bathroom off the master bedroom, I guess it is appropriate to call it a bathroom, but when nature calls it's off to the half-bath...


Also off the kitchen, we have the small storage room with a loft bed known as Abi's bedroom.  Both Bastian and Abi wanted this loft bedroom.  We have said that they will switch bedrooms every month...we'll see how that works out!

Also off the kitchen and in the crook of the L-shaped apartment is the bedroom with bunkbeds known as Bastian's room.  It came equipped with a Disney Princess wall clock, which seems to have been put in a closet for the duration of our stay...

And there you have it - the grand tour.  If you happen to be traveling in Budapest between now and the end of December, please stop by.  We'd love to give you the tour in person!

Aulich Utca 5

Apartment number 12 on the fourth floor of Aulich utca 5 in district V of Budapest is our home for the next few months.  For those who have expressed interest, here is a little look.

 This is a view down Aulich utca from Freedom Square (Szabadság ter) at the end of our block.  Aulich utca is just one block long and only four blocks from Hungary's Parliament building and the Danube river.  The American embassy is also right around the corner on Freedom Square.  (Hope we don't ever have an emergency requiring us to go there, as entrance seems to be by reservation only.)

 A view of the entrace to our building from the street

  A view of the staircase and lobby in our building - it's like stepping back in time...

After either climbing six flights of stairs (harder than it ought to be!) or taking a ride in an elevator that reminds some of the Tardis (an old British police box for those who aren't familiar with the TV show Dr. Who), we arrive  at this  view across the courtyard at our sixth-floor, L-shaped apartment.

As I seem to have trouble uploading very many pictures at a time to this blog, I am going to end this post here and continue the look at our living situation in the next post.

Anxiety is where the growth is...

The stages of culture shock appear to be immutable. Or maybe God just has particular plans for me/us in this particular semester arrangement. I blogged earlier about worrying all summer about the visa situation, and having it go just about as smoothly as one could imagine when it came right down to it. My new worries have to do with other details of our semester program that I won't go into detail about tonight, but suffice to say that there are things that you can talk about across language and cultures, and things that you cannot. Or that there are things that are much much more difficult to talk about than others when language and culture are in play. These are some of the hardest lessons in crossing cultures, it seems to me. Not being able to either understand normally, or be understood normally - both of these are very difficult. And they describe well the way I've felt during much of the daytime hours this week. Our time here "pre-students" is coming to a close, and this is a very good thing. Our rhythms as a family, and my rhythm professionally, have been almost non-existent, and this makes for all kinds of potential for time poorly spent, or unplanned time, or "lost" time, or what have you. In many ways, it has been a highly productive time - lots of meetings, conversations, discoveries in the city, words learned, abilities gained etc... - but it has also been a time of waiting, mostly waiting for the Calvin students to arrive and get settled. And waiting for the kids to find a routine, and to meet other kids, and waiting for a greater knowledge of our local environment, and the ways to do the normal things of life. Today Julie and I spent several hours developing an activity for the students to participate in that will serve as a sort of city-wide scavenger hunt during the first week, and hopefully will provide an orienting overview to the city and the many ways to navigate it. A full-access monthly transportation pass allows one to ride buses, trams, subways - all over the city, and the trick is to learn which form of transportation makes the most sense considering where you are starting, and where you want to end up. The other trick is figuring this out when Hungarian is the language in which everything is explained. We learned this morning that our Hungarian teacher is thrilled that we are here earlier than usual, and has planned to provide a good chunk of our total number of lessons during the first week, beginning Monday, enabling us to learn the many different sounds and pronunciations of the language as quickly as possible. Sounds like a bonding experience to me. And tiring, but useful.

So as I've wrestled with the reality of an anxious mind and heart, I was struck today by the realization that it is probably better for me to be worried than to assume that there will be no problems along the way - I am expecting the unexpected - following the first rule of study abroad, which is to "be flexible." Jumping into situations like this, where there is inherent risk that all will not go as planned, or turn out perfectly, is how we grow. Here's to growth.

Instant European Weight Loss Secret!

Okay, it's not really instant weight loss, but the number looks a lot better when you weigh yourself in kilograms.,,

Waterparks and worship

After yesterday's misunderstandings in the morning, it was time to see if we could find something fun to do. So with guidebooks and maps, we decided to explore Margit Island, a large island in the middle of the Danube between Buda and Pest that you can walk to from the Margit bridge. It turns out that this vast island park is pretty walkable from our apartment - it took us about 15 minutes to get to. Once there, we were looking for the Palatinus Strand, a huge string of 7 large and beautiful swimming pools, including a wave pool, water slides, hot thermal pool, kids pool, and a lazy river pool, among others. We found it, and even discovered Hungarian cotton candy, spoken in the universal language of sugar. Needless to say, Abi was happy about it.
We stayed several hours and enjoyed the afternoon with hundreds of our closest Hungarian friends, and other tourists from lots of other places. There is a large end-of-summer festival happening on the other large island, Obuda Island this weekend, with many many bands playing - I found out too late that The National played tonight at 6pm. Missed a good opportunity there.

Our Sunday (today) was also spent well. In the morning, we attended St. Columba's Scottish Presbyterian Church, an English-speaking congregation about a 20-minute walk from our apartment. It felt like the right thing to do to walk to church on a hot August Sunday morning. Almost the same distance as our house is from church in Grand Rapids, but more to see in between. Though we did miss picking up the Dekkers part way to church. The folks at St. Columba's were very welcoming, and our worship with them was meaningful. We stayed afterward for coffee/tea, and then lunch - an Ethiopian meal prepared by some members of the church - delicious. After walking home, everyone felt like resting except me, so I went off exploring in new neighborhoods on foot, about 3 miles and an hour and a half of urban hiking later, I boarded a subway and landed back home in about 8 minutes.

I love this city's public transportation system - it is phenomenal. Easy to understand, readily available, pretty affordable.

In the evening, we tried out another church experience. Invited by our friend Gyorgyi, a student here who visited Calvin this past January for the Interim term, we went to Golgota - a Calvary Chapel congregation at 7pm, for a concert. Turns out Gyorgyi couldn't make it, and our family experienced our first Hungarian church rock concert experience by ourselves. It was good music, but essentially beyond our comprehension in more than just the language. So after a good while, we slipped out, and came home to play some games back in the apartment before the kids went to bed. Another good day. We are all looking forward to welcoming our 18 Calvin students this coming Friday morning.

Misunderstandings and learning

Sixth day in Budapest. Slow to find a routine. This morning I've had several cultural fiascoes already (or you could call them human failures as well, or just clumsy human behavior).
It began with a missed breakfast with Miklos, another Hungarian friend that our friend Tim has introduced us to virtually. I showed up a half hour late to the restaurant across the street from our apartment - indeed even if our meeting had been for 10:30 (which it wasn't - it was for 10am) the restaurant doesn't open until 11:00 on weekends. So before I knew we were late, I assumed Miklos was running late, and we decided to set up for coffees at a small cafe across the street from the restaurant to wait and watch for Miklos - from the cafe we had a good view of the restaurant entrance. Mind you, I've never met Miklos in person, so I don't know what he looks like. A few minutes later, a young man approached the restaurant and tried the door, found it locked, and then looked around as if waiting to meet someone. All the signs were right, so I got up and walked across the street, saying "Miklos?" as I approached the man. He responded by nodding his head vigorously as if to say, "of course I'm Miklos, great to see you!" So we proceeded to have a pretty long conversation (in retrospect we didn't actually say anything to each other, but I thought we were talking) in broken English, until I asked him about Tim, and he got a very puzzled look on his face. This is when it began to sink in for me that a comedy of errors had begun. I said, "Wait, what is your name?" And he replied, "Victor." And then, to me, "Are you Italian?" While I was flattered that he thought I might be an Italian man with flawless English, it was then that I knew I had a problem. How do I explain to this extremely nice man that I was looking for a man I had never met before whose name is Miklos, and that I thought he might be that man? I told him, "very nice to meet you," and walked away.

And the story might have ended there. But it didn't.

Twenty minutes later, I had gone back up to our apartment, and discovered my timing error with Miklos, and learned from an email that he had indeed been on time, waited for fifteen minutes, and with no way to reach me (he hadn't learned our cell phone number yet), had gone home after sending me an email telling me to call him when I could. At this point it was a little after 11am, and the restaurant was clearly opening. So we decided that Abi and I would try the place out - I had seen on an earlier trip past that their menu included french toast, omelettes, and fried eggs for breakfast. (And breakfast is clearly one of my primary love languages). Lo and behold, but who greets us at the door? Our new friend Victor, all dressed up in formal white shirt, black pants, the quintessential waiter at a nice place. He proceeded to show us all around the restaurant, the Szabadszg Kafehaz, a wonderful place opened in 1902 with an inside table dedicated to the Hungarian writer, Endre Ady, a poet from the Calvinist tradition who was very well-known in the early part of the twentieth century. He wrote this one, entitled, "The Lord's arrival," translated independently on the web:

When I was forsaken, When I hardly carried my soul, Silently and suddenly The Lord hugged me. He didn't come aloud, But he came with soundless, true hug, He didn't come at sunny, warm daytime, But he came at surging nighttime. And my foppish Eyes blinded. My youth died, But I see him, the bright, The mighty forever

Inside the restaurant they have a life-sized mannequin of Ady at a table supposedly having coffee and working on his writing.

Later at the market I got some good looks, most notably from my son, when I knocked over the fruit vendors big metal sign with the peach prices on it. And so it goes. Humility. Flexibility. Humor.

Jetlag

Midnight:  lying in bed wide awake.

8:30 a.m.:  bet I could sleep a few more hours.

3 p.m.:  body feels like the day is just beginning.

Airport Poem

Airports

A place of transition

Coming and going

Welcome and farewell

Fear and familiarity

Airports

An embodiment of change

Set in iron

People flowing, a river

Through a secure fortress

Its only weakness

Its only strength

Safe arrival and exploring the neighborhood

Our trip started well when the gate agent for United at Grand Rapids' Gerald R. Ford airport asked for our visas. For those of you we haven't talked to recently, this question has been the subject of several months' preparation, angst, and a low-burn fear for the start of this semester. The gist of the issue is that the airlines generally want visitors to European Union countries to have a visa, and the Hungarian government has a process whereby visitors enter the country visa-free, and obtain residence permits within 30 days of arrival, for stays longer than 90 days. So we have been at a strange impasse as we've prepared for this departure, obtaining certified consular letters from both the Canadian and the US Hungarian Consulates that state clearly that we don't need visas, but not really sure the airlines would honor them. When our agent asked this question, I was distracted and didn't hear her, but Don DeGraaf, our good friend and Calvin's Director of Off-Campus Programs, quickly turned my attention to the agent and her question. When I produced the letters, she looked them over and said something like, "Wow. I have never seen anything as clear and well-prepared as these." And that was it. We waltzed through, our baggage was all within a pound or two of the weight limit, and we made our way through security and into the skies. As an unexpected gift, we had the best views of the Holland/Saugatuck lakeshore I have ever seen from above, and could see clearly the beautiful blue water we had jumped into only a day before as a physical farewell to Michigan and its summer. In Chicago, we had to hustle to get from one gate to another, and when we arrived at our gate for the flight to Frankfurt, they had already boarded, and we were among the last to board (no waiting!), and off we flew out over the Atlantic. An August flight in this direction means only about 3 hours of darkness, so we didn't see the sunset until we were somewhere near Greenland airspace, and we were in daylight by the time we reached mainland Europe, with wonderful clear views of red/pink/orange sunset and sunrise skies. We were in Frankfurt for only an hour or so, and boarded for a 75 minute flight to Budapest. Our luggage arrived in its 6 big pieces, and we carted it out to the shuttle bus that took us to the apartment. After we figured out which keys open which doors, we made three trips up to our sixth floor apartment (many thanks to Paulina and Zoltan, with whom we have made this wonderful arrangement) and met our new temporary home for the next several months. After deciding who would sleep in which room, we did some minor unpacking, and then took a short rest period - not too long for fear that we might not be able to sleep in the night if we slept too much in the daytime - our bodies are adjusting to 6 hours' difference.

Later we took a short walk around our neighborhood, which is just off Szabadsag Ter (or Liberty Square), very near to the Parliament complex and Kossuth Ter, and much that defines downtown Pest, which is the side of the River Danube we find ourselves on. The photo of Abi above is about two or three short blocks from our apartment, with the Parliament building behind her. After a short walk along the river with views of the Habsburg castle and Castle Hill along the Buda side of the river, we walked to WestEnd Mall, a massive monument to capitalism just under a mile from our apartment in the other direction. It is located next to Nyugati Railway Station, one of two large train stations in Budapest.

Leaving Home

Our family is leaving this morning for five months in Budapest.  I will be directing the Calvin College Semester Abroad in Hungary program in partnership with several universities and schools, churches, and social service agencies all over Budapest, Hungary's capital city.  The kids will be studying via distance learning, in collaboration with teachers from their schools in Grand Rapids, with a few on-line courses as well.  Julie will be helping both me and the kids do their work as well as they can.  All of us will be learning alot.

The sunflower is from our "Martin Luther garden."  All summer I've been thinking about the legendary quote from Luther where, when asked what he would do if he knew Jesus would return tomorrow, said he would plant a tree.  We planted our garden this past spring knowing that we wouldn't see its fruit.  So we leave this morning, for gardens unknown, with one sunflower leading the pack, and one ripening red tomato.  Tomorrow, God willing, we arrive in Budapest and begin a new chapter of adventures, preparing for the arrival of 18 Calvin students next week.  From this morning's Diary of Private Prayer: "O God we praise you for the bright and beautiful world into which we go."  Amen.