Friday, March 27, 2009

Yoga, dancing happy executioners...just another weekend in Heves

At about 4pm, I grabbed my new mat and dashed out the door for the bus. Dressed in sweatpants and a long sweatshirt I boarded the bus amongst a bevy of my students heading home for the day. I was on my way to Tarnamera (a neighbouring village) for my first yoga lesson. After a long day I jumped at the opportunity for a small nap. I woke up with a start (thanks to one of my students), and walked through fat droplets of rain into the baroque inspired elementary school. 

There were three ladies waiting. Awkwardly we made stilted conversation, and waited for everyone else to show up. Eventually we were settled into a room, calming music playing, candles glowing and a bunch of women stretching on the floor. The highlights of the evening included stretching, breathing, re-enacting Monty Python's school for funny walks, whispered instructions during the relaxing period causing me to giggle, wondering if the smell was from my mat or residual superglue from ATC making, and getting tucked in during communal nap time. 

Two days later, was Saturday the 28th of March. Back in January the education ministry decided that we would need to work a Saturday to make up for having the 2nd of January off. Originally we were supposed to work it right away, but due to rising gas prices/the gas being shut off by Russia, it was postponed until the end of March. So Saturday morning, bleary eyed and rather cranky, we woke up and rolled ourselves into school. Saturday schools are one of my pet peeves. The children are inevitably crazy, and most of them just don't show up. So after a couple hours of trying to get the kids to focus on anything related to English, I exhausted.  But there is no rest for the wicked, so at approximately noon, Judit and I piled onto a charter bus headed for Budapest. 

We had gotten tickets for Experidance, a dance company that re-tells stories through dance. It was amazing. The dancer portraying Mattias Corvinus wore an extraordinary amount of eyeshadow, and gold. The costumes, scenery and dancing was stunning. They used a combination of Hungarian folk dance, ballet and modern dance. They even incorporated the 'Hungarian clap' demanding an encore to set the beat to a rousing chardas. Probably the most cheerful song, however was reserved for a comic dance of executioners, whilst the creepiest was reserved for the lawyers' dance. 

Too soon it was time to get back on the bus and head home. 

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