Magyar News, 2002. szeptember-2003. augusztus (13. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2002-12-01 / 4. szám
i Eva Mikolai Left: Visiting Kossuth Square on scooters. Below: At a farm with 5000 geese. Hungary but that was not enough to satisfy me either. I wanted my children to speak the language, to know more about where and how I grew up, experience everyday living somewhere else than Fairfield County, Connecticut - in other words to see "The Real World." This was not a new idea it took me years and years to convince Clayton to do it...Finally the boys were getting to the age, where it was now or never. So I flew back a couple of times to set things up, and July 12th 2001 we started our annual summer vacation in Hungary that actually turned into a full year adventure. ( A personal note from a Hungarian-American "gal") spent the last year in Hungary with my two boys, Thomas (10) and David (8)... "Why would you want to something like that? Why would you do that to your children?"- Many of our friends were asking. Not to mention my husband Clayton's family... Most people were suspecting that I'm either crazy or having trouble with my marriage... The answer: I'm one of the few strange birds, who came to this country only to visit and with no intentions to stay - maybe I was crazy to start out with, you say - twelve years ago. Then I met the nicest guy and all that changed. The one thing that did not change however was my constant longing for my "homeland" and my big family I'd left behind and my very best friends. We spent about six weeks of every summer back in And an adventure it was. We rented an apartment in Debrecen - my college town - close to the Nagyerdő, the "Great forest" and enrolled the guys into the university's training elementary school. Bought a car, got hooked up to the internet, and with a little camera that the rest of the family at this end also had we were able to talk to and see the cousins aunts and uncles, and grandma at any time. - Isn't technology great? We spent the summer at pools and out in the country with the Hungarian cousins and "Nagyapó and Nagymama". Visited Budapest, also enjoyed all the fun programs that a summer can offer you in Debrecen. On the newly reconstructed "Kossuth Square" every weekend is a festival of some sort. And the great thing was, that from where we lived we could just take our scooters and cruise downtown, or take the trolley, and be at the center in five minutes. If you plan to visit Hungary, you must stop in Debrecen. It is a great town, with a great atmosphere and a grand Western European towns-like center, where you can sit at any of the little Cafes or stroll along the shops, enjoy the fountains and the little bells that play Hungarian folk tunes at every quarter hour...Not to mention the magnificent Great Church crowning the square. Did you know that Hungarians call Debrecen "The Calvinists' Rome"? That was a fun thing for Tomi and Davey too, to experience living in a town, to have everything so close, or to go to school by trolley - big surprise, even if it snows all night, you have school the next morning -and you better not be late!!! Yeah, and school was a big surprise. - Unfortunately to me too . You see I used to be a grade school teacher before I came to the States, and I left just about the time when the big changes occurred. Unfortunately money does not make people more intelligent, but appears to do the opposite to some. You can now find "rich kids" talking back and ignoring the teachers, and insulting their peers. When I was teaching, students were still respectful toward their teachers - at least in the lower grades -, there was no swearing, which Page 1 At the school entrance
