Another Day of Teaching, Culture & Delicious Food!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “You must strive for a quiet mind. If the eyes are perpetually restless, they cannot appreciate a beautiful object set before them; they glance this Way and that, and so fail to discern the subtlety of the object’s form and color. Equally, if the mind is perpetually restless, distracted by a thousand worldly concerns, it cannot apprehend the truth.” - St. Basil the Great (329-79)

At our bountiful breakfast this morning, we had the additional choice of tasty scrambled eggs. Over conversation, some implied that that sweet, quiet Lee could, on occasion, manifest a strong temper. After packing our lunches, we walked through a light rain to our individual classes.

Peggy said her classes were abbreviated because had swimming and the pool was some distance away. Lee had additional classes combined with her own after a regular teacher fell ill. Kathleen engaged her classes in a variety of conversations. Patsy faced the quandary of having two strong speakers in an otherwise silent class.

Joan’s supervisor, Susan, presented her with yellow socks to match her sweater. Frank had “a heck of a time” with his students and passed up dinner to work with one of them. John, in one of his classes , learned the Hungarian word for “whistle” and ended the hour conducting a chorus of whistlers!:)

In addition to their morning classes, Terri (the music teacher), Patsy and Mary Martin are team teaching. Today, they worked with the topic of Travel: Departure, Flight, Arrival – acquiring passport and visas, clearing Security and then Customs, meeting one’s needs while on the plane and collecting one’s baggage. Several had specific reservation for trips to Barcelona, Florida, and New York, so this is reality for them.

Milt traveled to the train station to purchase tickets for the six of us traveling to Budpest this weekend.

At 1500, Milt led a small group of us to the studio of the master potter, Ambrus Sandor, a world famous artist. It was breathtaking to witness the creative process to see in action lumps of clay being transformed into a bowl or a candle holder. Joan was so absorbed by the activity that she donned an apron, immersed her hands in the clay, and proceeded to shape a bowl!

From there we continued to our adult classes, followed by dinner at The Black Eagle. Cherry soup was the speciality, which made Terri’s heart sing, especially when Mary Martin offered Terri a second helping with her bowl. (1940’s cherry-flavored cough syrup had cured MM’s desire for cherries.) Plachinta was the grand finale, a chestnut kind of pureed pancake.

Departure was somewhat chaotic as three took off walking to the hotel, Joan was taking care of personal need, Milt joined Reta at a table with Dutch guests. Well, our crowd looks after each other, so Terri, Lee, Patsy, John and MM piled into one taxi – to the consternation of the bewildered driver who wanted to call a second taxi. We reassured him we were just “crazy Americans”, as he dubiously pulled away from the curb. We paid him two taxi fares, for no doubt, he was violating company policy, he reported his dilemma over this intercom, and he was good-natured about our U.S. American independence. “This is fun!” we all agreed, reverting momentarily to the behavior of our adolescent students.

All in in all, it was an eventful day!

Written by: John Doty