The Redemption of McDonalds... sort of...

I have been meaning to post this for about two months now and just keep forgetting... so here goes:

When I am in the United States I avoid McDonald's like the plague. Whenever my mother decides to stop there because she in hungry I roll my eyes and think about how unhealthy it is. If by some awful mistake I end up on a road trip with people who like McDonald's I will walk a block to Wendy's, Taco Bell, or Subway, which I consider to be better tasting.


In Hungary (and Europe) it is different. First of all... there are no Wendy's (anymore) or Taco Bell's. Subway is growing... but not as convenient. The thing that makes the biggest difference though is the "McCafe." McCafe is like Starbucks. You can order a latte, mocha or steamer. They use real espresso and real milk. They sell things like muffins, biscotti and cheesecake. They even have to go cups with lids like the ones in America (which have proven difficult to find here...)

The McCafe has usurped Starbucks position in my life. Not because I like it better, but because there are NO STARBUCKS in Hungary. None. The closest Starbucks is in Vienna. That is a three hour train ride away. I have considered taking a day trip there just to buy coffee... but I restrain myself because I can not justify spending $50 just to get Starbucks.

What I can justify is getting up 20 minutes earlier on Sunday's so that I have time to go to the McCafe at Blaha Lujza Ter for a latte. Not only that... but Lauren and I have perfected our Sunday morning routine (when she comes to church with me). We enter McDonald's. I go to deal with the food and Lauren buys us our fancy coffee. It turns out we both rather like McMuffin's for breakfast on Sundays. It is a good vegetarian alternative for Lauren and I like the McBuri (otherwise known as hashbrowns.)

Now about the "sort of" part of the title: despite the fact that I love the McCafe, and Lauren and I have a routine for Sunday mornings, there is one thing that drives me insane any time I go to McDonald's.
Language!
I speak Hungarian. I order food in Hungarian. I use Hungarian words to order my food. And EVERY time I do this at McDonald's they speak to me in English. I continue in Hungarian. They respond in English. I say more in Hungarian, they say more in English. By the end of the transaction the cashier and I are always totally confused because neither of us knows what the other is saying anymore. Why? Because they refuse to speak Hungarian to me... and I refuse to speak English to them.

This would be different if every time I tried to speak Hungarian people got confused, or always spoke English back to me, but no... this is unique to McDonald's. And... something that I think drove my dad crazy when we lived here before... is that if you want to order a plain cheeseburger, with just the meat and cheese on a bun, and you say "Egy sima cheeseburgert kerek szepen." (I would like a plain cheese burger, please.) They get confused... and then you have to say "Egy plain cheeseburgert, kerek szepen." That's right... you have to use English to communicate to a Hungarian... even though you know the word for plain in Hungarian... they just don't get it. And if you by chance say plain or cheeseburger like you would in English then they get confused... you have to put the funny Hungarian accent on it so that they get it.

This is what it comes down to: I like McCafe.... they have really good fancy coffee.
I like McDonald's food... it is yummy on Sunday mornings.
I hate having to speak in any language at McDonald's because I get really confused... as does the cashier... and that is unnecessary.

Ranting over.

Peace.

Christmas is coming...

The holiday season has created a very busy schedule for me. (That is my excuse for slacking off in writing...lame.)

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we have started hosting WordAlive at our house after school once a week. This has been building every week, although not quite how we had planned. Lauren and my students cannot really concentrate on anything serious outside of class, so we just enjoy hanging out with them for awhile. The first two weeks we really only had about three students come, but the past three weeks we have had 15+ show up, many of whom were girls. This is very encouraging to us because we have been wanting to build better relationships with the girls. The boys demand our attention during class, making it difficult to get to know the girls.
We have been focusing a lot more on just English discussion and hope to push this in a more spiritual direction after Christmas. Please continue to lift this up in your prayers. It is really difficult to see if this is making a difference or not, but we are trying.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to Pécs on a field trip with the entire 9a class. Lauren also came and it was a great opportunity to get to know our students better. Unfortunately the teacher in charge of planning this trip was ill on the day we went, so there were some things that were a little iffy. (If you ask our students, they were thrilled that this teacher was sick that day...)
It was very interesting to see how Hungarian field trips work... we spent 31/2 hrs on the bus to get there, about 4 hrs actually there, then 3 hrs back. So we spent twice as much time on the bus as we did actually in Pécs.
While there we visited the early Christian Necropolis, a church and we at ate lunch at a restaurant. Then we attempted to visit another church, but it is only open from 10-12 daily, and we missed it.
Then we went home. More valuable than what we saw was getting to hang out with our students and get to know their classmaster better.

This past weekend was one of Christmas Celebrations. Last Thursday and Friday Lauren and I took it upon ourselves to bake about 300 sugar and gingerbread cookie cutouts. Then on Saturday we had a big party to celebrate Christmas with our students. They all decorated cookies, we had a snowball fight (praise God for the snow!!!), we had a humorous reenactment of the birth of Jesus (somehow I ended up being the baby Jesus...) we sang many Christmas songs, and played some games. OH... and Santa came to visit us!

On Sunday Lauren, Joanna and I went to two back to back White Elephant Parties. We used the unwanted gifts from the first party at the second one... it was fantastic. Lidia even made pumpkin pie at the ESI party, which was amazing! The highlight of the other party was having verses read from the Bible in English, Hungarian, Russian, Swedish, and Dutch. And then we all prayed in our native tongues and that was sweet too.

I have three more days of school before Christmas break and I am antsy to get it done with. So far this week I have watched the animated version of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" eight times! (That equals 200 minutes, or 3 hrs and 20min of my life...FYI.) Tomorrow I will start in with "Mickey Mouse: A Christmas Carol."

Please pray for:
-WordAlive- for us to follow God's lead in this adventure
-Student relationships- especially one student who is near getting kicked out of school for anger management issues, we have been trying to love him so much, but it is difficult and he struggles a lot despite being extremely smart and good at English
-Health- we are all nearing the end of our ropes, we are tired and need to be healthy for another three days
-Travel- I will be going to Soltvadkert, Joanna is flying home, friends are flying here to visit me, and this time of year is dangerous with all the people who drink too much because of New Years
-My friend Tamas- was in a car accident and has had a few other major life struggles in the past few weeks. Please pray for him to walk in faith and trust God, and for his family and their health and safety.
-Fund-raising- soon I will need to start fund-raising for next year... please pray for there to be willing contributors... and pray to see if this is something God is calling you to support.

Grace and peace
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Very Funny

Emeshea the Elf.

Excuse the laziness... please

I will try to hit on the major points of the past few weeks... sorry I have been slacking.

- Chili Bar raised their prices (resulting in me boycotting them and subsequently not blogging)

- Word Alive- off to a slow start, still having fun, getting students to come, had to remix a little

- We have internet at the Bazis!!! (hopefully ending the dry spell in blogging)

- Yesterday Lauren and I went on a field trip to Pecs with 9a. It was fun.

- I cleaned my room, hoovered, cleaned my bathroom, swept and moped the kitchen and washed my comforters today. I also woke up at 7:30am for some reason... I blame myself for going to bed at 10:30.

-Now I am going to take a nap.