Trying to Open a Broken Lock As Told By A Seven-Year-Old

This is a list written while John and I attempted to get the storage shed open upon finding that the key was no longer able to open it. I think it speaks for itself but I especially like numbers 7-8 "think, feel", 15 "look up/ close eyes and whish" and 24, "hi five". This pretty much accurately describes everything we did.

Rain, Sunset, Singing and...Luau??

Last night my niece had a performance with this little singing group that she belongs to. It was held at the house of the woman who organizes the group. I have never been there before but was told it was way out on the west side (we live in the Northeast heights). Well, after about a 50 minute drive to the far, far west side through the pouring rain, we were distraught and more than a little annoyed when we walked into a packed house: think 100 people in one living room type of packed. The performance was "luau" themed and was supposed to be outside in the backyard. Since it was raining it wasn't really an option, and it was proposed that the performance should be rescheduled to Friday evening. After such a long drive through the rain, this was frustrating to say the least. After the crowd got a little shaken at this suggestion, we decided to wait out the storm. We all set out blankets on whatever bit of carpet we could find; upstairs, downstairs, by couches, in doorways. There was something slightly ironic about drinking through an umbrella straw on a blanket, in a strange living room, in the middle of nowhere, in a giant rainstorm. Yet after the food was gone, the rain thankfully was too. It turned out to be amazing outside with no sun blazing onto us. The performance was cute, even though our niece was only in two of the songs. Since we were on the very edge of the city, beyond the backyard was just desert, nothing else. This combined with the heavy clouds made for the most beautiful sunset!



Albuquerque really does have the most gorgeous sunsets.

Ninja Warrior

John and I have been doing something very interesting lately. We have been helping a friend from my step-dad's Hapkido class make an audition video for Ninja Warrior! Hopefully once it's done I can show a little sneak-peek of it. If he gets selected, you better believe we will be front row in Japan watching him compete!

Photo credit to g4tv.com

Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage

After reading many of my American English teaching comrade's accounts of eating Hungarian stuffed cabbage, I decided I should bite the bullet and make some for Sunday dinner. I really should get used to cabbage, even though those crunchy leaves are slightly intimidating to me. I wanted to see if we would like it, and to my absolute delight, it was delicious! I found the recipe online, along with many many variations. Some had sauerkraut, sour cream, or paprika, yet I chose one that I dubbed to be for more "sensitive" pallets since my whole family would be eating it. I have no idea how traditional this recipe is, but it was amazing! Here is the recipe I used, taken from Cooks.com:

HUNGARIAN STUFFED CABBAGE ROLLS

8-10 cabbage leaves (lg.)
1/3 c. rice, cook until tender & drain
1 lb. hamburger
Salt & pepper
Pinch of thyme
1 lg. onion, minced
1 egg, beaten
1 c. water (saved from the pot boiled cabbage leaves)
1 c. tomato juice
1 tbsp. meat paste (or bouillon cube)
cornstarch to thicken sauce

Parboil cabbage leaves 5 minutes (just long enough to wilt, save 1 cup water for later). In bowl mix hamburger, salt, pepper, and thyme. Add rice, onion and egg; mix well. Shape into 8 to 10 small rolls and wrap each into a cabbage leaf. Tie securely with string or toothpick. Put in a good sized saucepan. In another saucepan, put tomato juice, water from cabbage leaves, meat paste or bouillon cube, parsley and a little salt. Heat and pour over cabbage rolls. Cover and simmer 1 hour. If desired, thicken slightly with a little cornstarch.



I loved being pleasantly surprised.

Taekwondo for Autism

For a few weeks now John and I have been participating in an autism-related project. I have been around people with autism and disabilities my whole life, since my Mom is the head of the Southwest Autism Network. They recently put together a "peer-group" activity for adults with autism in which they are able to work side-by-side with people who don't have autism (me and John). This particular project is a Taekwondo class. We all meet at a dance studio every Saturday afternoon and participate in an hour long class, led by Logan, a black belt in Taekwondo. We take turns holding bags so the other can punch, kick and do combinations. It is a great way for the people with autism to get into a routine, follow direction, get a workout, and have fun with peers! It has been so fun, and feels really rewarding at the end of the day.

Here is what the studio looks like:



There are curtains that can be pulled to cover the mirrors in case it proves too distracting, and a "break area" over to the left when things get a little overwhelming. You can also see a board against the wall that has Velcro for pictures showing which step is next, (Bow in, warm up, stretch, punch etc) something that is really helpful for the people with autism.

I couldn't think of a better way to spend our Saturdays, and it feels really amazing to be helping out the autism community!

Sleep?

I had another fit of Budapest-induced insomnia last night.

Our apartment building:



Credit to Jack and Cathie Holmes

Improptu Snail Funeral

So a snail in our pond died today. Well actually, judging by the smell, he probably died when I found him floating on Friday, but stuck him back on the side, hoping he still had some life left in him. As per most of my "insignificant" pets, he had a funeral. I made a cross out of sticks and grabbed one of our lillies from inside, and my family and I said some "words" which consisted of my 7 year old neice saying that "I only knew you today, on your death day". It is was pretty funny- as much as a snail death can be... here's his "headstone":



Have you had a snail funeral lately? I slightly suggest it.

Wine Label Spotting

I have a love for great wine label art and I have been known on occasion to buy the wine with the prettiest label (advertising sucker). My mom found this gem when shopping for wine for our Easter ham dish. Feast your eyes:



I just adore the label. Three legged disembodied head with wings? Well, why not!?

Bonus picture:
Hungarian flag Easter egg!

Makos Kifli, a Birthday Treat!

Yesterday was John's birthday, and so I decided to make one of his favorite desserts for him: Makos Kifli! These Hungarian cookies are made by wrapping a sour cream butter dough around a ground poppy seed filling. "Makos" means poppy seed, while "Kifli" means crescent. These are most certainly a labor of love, so John's birthday was a perfect occasion to make them! This is the recipe I used (modified slightly) along with some pictures!

Ingredients:

* Dough

1 1/2 cup of flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
2 2/3 tbsp sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

* Poppy Seed Filling

3/4 cup poppy seed, freshly ground
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp milk
2 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

In a large bowl, cream together butter and egg yolks. Add the sour cream and vanilla. Mix in the flour until smooth, gather the dough into a ball. Turn out onto floured surface, and roll into a smooth log. Slice the dough into 24 equal size pieces, rolling each into a ball (about the size of a walnut). Refrigerate while making the filling, it makes the dough much easier to work with. In a saucepan, combine all of the filling ingredients. Over low heat, stir constantly about 5 minutes until mixture thickens slightly. Take off heat and let cool. The filling should be easy to spread, if too thick add a touch more milk. Preheat oven to 350. Flour work surface and roll each ball out one at a time to about 1/16 inch thick. Spread some filling on the inside (one or two spoonfulls) and roll up the edge closest to you, continuing until the it is in a roll shape. Pinch the edges to seal, and curve into a crescent shape. Place on a greased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Continue until all of the Makos Kifli are rolled, and then bake until very lightly browned. Cool, and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Enjoy!

The dough, ready to be gathered into a ball:



The dough rolled into a log. Baguette, anyone?:



The dough balls, ready to be refrigerated:



One dough ball rolled out, ready for the filling:



All finished rolling and filling, ready to bake!:



Finally, ready to be devoured!:



Happy Birthday my love!!!

Walking With Dinosaurs- Live!

While John and I were in Paris last summer, we saw ads in the metro for something called "Walking with Dinosaurs- Live" (though it was in French of course) and we were depressed to see that it was playing just a few days after we left. Not really knowing what it was, we forgot about it until around October, when we saw a commercial on tv for the very same thing, coming to Albuquerque! We quickly alerted my dad, who is a little obsessed with dinosaurs, and we got four tickets for March.

Well, it was last night and it was amazing! Basically the dinosaurs are giant puppets that come out into the arena while the "paleontologist" talks about them, etc etc. Each dinosaur was more amazing and more giant than the one before it! We had such close seats (4th row) that the Brachiosaurus actually reached his neck out over us. The music was great, and when the final giant Mommy T-Rex came out to protect her baby from the Triceratops and Ankylosaurus, my body started coursing with adrenaline. It was slightly embarrassing, because my mind logically knew that it wasn't real...but her roar was so loud and so intense and she was so dang huge that the survival instincts of my cave-men ancestors kicked in!

Here are some not so great pictures (cell phone) but hopefully the point gets across!

The Allosaurus:



The Raptors devouring a corpse next to the humble paleontologist:



The Brachiosauruses (whose heads barely cleared the arena ceiling!):



The amazing yet slightly terrifying T-rex:



The T-rex with her baby:



It was an amazing night. Walking with Dinosaurs Live is touring Europe, the US and Japan as we speak, so go see it!

On a side note, my Mom left for India this morning- Have a great trip Mom!

The Wonder That is Byki- A Review.

You might not be surprised to know that are no Hungarian lessons offered here in Albuquerque. After realizing this slightly sad fact, I set out on a quest to learn as much as I could on my own before leaving. One of the ways that I have done this is through Byki, a free language learning software, available from their website www.Byki.com. They offer over 70 languages and unlike Rosetta Stone, actually have Hungarian as one of them.

The language is taught through drills using virtual flashcards and if you're lucky, audio and pictures too. Though the software itself does not come with many flash cards, users can submit their own "lists" that are downloadable from the "List Central Community" feature of the website. I have learned many, many useful things such as colors, fruits and vegetables, days of the week, seasons, greetings, etc etc. The only critique that I have is that it does not teach grammar, so I am left with a group of seemingly detached Hungarian nouns in my brain. But that's what books are for, and more recently- Pimsleur's Hungarian Audio Program that has taught the actual speaking part of it.

This is how it works, and what it looks like for those who may be thinking of using it.
This is the first step, where a flashcard is presented with the Hungarian and English word (and sometimes a picture) side by side. If the card has audio, the word will be said to ensure proper pronunciation:



This is the second step, where the Hungarian word is presented and the user must say the English word and later, type it in as I have done here:



Finally, the third step (which is the most difficult- this is where you can tell if you really know the word or not!) in which the English word is presented and the user must spell out the corresponding Hungarian word. Accents are made on the vowels by using the arrow keys after typing said vowel; this scrolls through all of the accent options (and in Hungarian, there are a lot!). I have written in the Hungarian word for "yellow" here:



After an entire "list" has been learned, some fun, triumphant music plays to make you feel good about your accomplishment.

There are many other features as well including, slowing down the speaker's voice (the little turtle icon), and refreshing "stale" words so that they are not forgotten.

I give Byki a 4/5 for ease of use, effectiveness and overall fun. I take off one point for no grammar lessons. And best of all- It's Free! Go try it out!

Hungary News

A lot of great news has been coming our way lately, and I have finally had the desire to blog it all. So we got our placement, and not only is it in Budapest but it is at the same elementary school! We have also been put into contact with the two very nice teachers whose lives we are essentially taking over and they have given us great advice, as well as sharing with us some photos of our apartment.
And here they are!




The balcony (which I am thrilled to have), the kitchen and the living room. Jack and Cathie have also suggested that we take over Cathie's volunteering at the local animal shelter which is just a few blocks from our apartment. She walks the dogs every so often into the wooded area around the shelter. We are in Ujpest, which is the very northern part of Budapest along the Duna. It has a very interesting history and is quite industrial as far as I can tell, but has a neighborhood feel to it.
Aside from all these great new developments, we have been playing too much WoW, studying some Hungarian and most recently doing some concept art for my Dad and Ann. Time seems to be flying and crawling simultaneously.

Church's Chicken Does Romania

Today as I was driving the long and lonely road to work I noticed something that has never caught my attention before. Wait- why is Church's Chicken flying the Romanian flag??



I quickly alerted John to the situation, and asked him to look it up. It turns out the Romanian flag has vertical stripes instead of horizontal ones like the flag I witnessed (who can keep all those vertical/horizontal stripes straight anyways??). But to me, it seems close enough to be strange, even uncanny.


See what I mean? That would be like a Japanese grocery store having an upside-down American flag as their logo.

More notable flag look-alikes:



Flag of Hungary vs:



Flag of Italy.

And next:



Flag of Belgium vs:



The Flag of Germany.

How unoriginal are these flag makers?
"Oh I know, let's take this already existing flag and turn it on its side! No one will ever notice!"

Since I'm 99% sure that the country of Romania existed before Church's Chicken (note that pesky 1% of doubt -along with the 349% sarcasm-) Shame on you Church's Chicken.

the last AIIIIRRRBBBEENNNDDEEERRR!!!

After obsessing over the series Avatar: The Last Airbender to the point of having an "Avatar night" whenever the new Dvds were released, to say that I am excited for the movie is a bit of an understatement. If you have not seen the trailers yet, go to the movie site and watch them- now! We are getting goosebumps over here. Little Aang is amazing, and the trailer even shows him going into the avatar state.
There has been some criticism that all of the cast isn't Asian but I say get over it. We will be first in line to flood the theater on opening night.

An International Order.

It is my second week of my new job, working at a flower shop. I am a "call-center" person, so I work in an office, not in the flower stores themselves. But today I did, just to give me a feel for what it's like. Today, I was working at a register helping a customer, while my coworker helped a woman who came in to send flowers internationally. I happened to glance over, and where should she be happening to send flowers to? Why, to nowhere else but Hungary of course! I could not believe it, the ONE day that I work in a store, a woman sends flowers to Hungary. What are the odds of that?? She wrote the card message in Hungarian, "Oszinte Resztuetunk. Szeretettel, (insert name) es (insert name)" I figured it means something along the lines of "Sincere (I don't know this bit) . Affectionately, (or lovingly) (name) and (name)" So there you have it, when the world thinks I have forgotten about what's coming up, something pops up to remind me.

Thoughts.

I have just completed my first week of grueling training at my new job, a local flower shop. I work in the sales department in a small office above the actual flower shop. This week seemed never ending, and now it is over. But it has reminded me of something extremely important and something that I believe in relentlessly: work to live, don't live to work. That's all.

Carrot Legs McGee

As I believe I have mentioned before, we belong to Los Poblanos organics, a weekly fruit and vegetable box that we pick up at a local book store. They grow and pick it themselves, it's all organic and the taste of the produce is ridiculously amazing. Well this week, I chose this batch of "rainbow carrots" (just different colors) because of this little guy:

LEGS! He is currently roasting in the oven and I can smell his deliciousness. He will be sure to be tasty and two-legged. I tell ya, If you ever need inspiration for a surrealist painting, look no further than your fresh produce. Or is it only me who is inspired by carrots with legs?

New Year, What's Been Going On?

I can't believe I haven't updated in so long. A lot has happened. Graduation, Christmas, New Years etc. We've been staying relatively busy with our CETP applications (which are being sent out TODAY) and our TEFL course (which I should be doing but the 20 or so tenses of English verbs are currently frightening me away). I have also been working on a new painting. I initially meant to submit it to Spectrum 17 but the deadline is in a week and there is just no way that I will be able to finish. I am submitting my Venus de Milo painting however. Fingers crossed! One of the Christmas present that John and I received was Pimsleur's Hungarian audio CDs. We have been doing a lesson or so every day and can now form real sentences, ask directions, order in restaurants etc. It is a tricky language but extremely fun to speak. Without further ado here is a picture of my newest painting in progress. It is still in the monochromatic underpainting phase.

It is called "Bubbles over Budapest" and I still have a long way to go.

Victory Rolls: A Success!

This was my first attempt at victory rolls in my hair! I love it and I look like the perfect 40s girl. Ignore the bobby pins, I didn't quite hide them well enough. I have one on the other side, but I thought a closeup was in order. Amazingly adorable if I do say so myself, and not terribly difficult either.

Another Painting Shot.

Ignore the glare.
Critique was....eh. It started out by my teacher "picking on me" because why would I choose to put a head on the Venus de Milo but not arms? Well, art historian, because the original Venus de Milo has a head. Awkward. Then someone in my class said "It's just a naked chick" which seemed a little rude, but she came up to me after class and said it was a compliment, more of a sarcastic comment toward the teacher. Because yes, she has a head. My teacher of course asked about the long neck, which I was prepared for, I wrote an accompanying paper on all of the artistic decisions I made. So, that's about it.


On a lighter note, I decided to submit a painting to Spectrum 17. I found a call for submissions, and the deadline is January 22nd. I will have all of winter break and a large portion of January to finish it up, but first I need to figure out what I should paint. It wasn't such a great critique.