One of the down sides of this grant is being far from home when a special and sometimes not so-special  occasion occurs. Recently my daughter Kate had a horrific cold:  double-ear infection, bronchitis, fever, the whole nine yards.  I know that if I had been there, I would have been making her chicken soup and…

Recently I sat in the waiting room at the bus station in Eger.  Bernard had gone on an expedition to find some bottled water for our bus ride back to Debrecen. Only a handful of people waited with me.  A young man who looked to be in his twenties sat isolated with his earphones on.…

We traveled to Kecskemet on Friday for our monthly Fulbright meeting. You’ve just listened to the chiming of the noon bells at Town Hall..they only hint at the special day it turned out to be. The agenda included a group tour of the International Ceramic Studio and the Kodaly Pedagogical Institute of Music, followed by…

Today marked a somewhat dramatic change from the previous 5-1/2 weeks (I can’t believe it’s already been that long).  Before we left the States, we bought Eurorail passes.  These are valid in 22 countries, for unlimited travel during a 3 month period (yes, I am doing my bit to help the economy recover).  To save…

Some of you have written and asked questions relating to previous posts.  I thought I would pull them all together for you. The cat has apparently taken up residence in my sister-in-law’s garage.  He (or she) is there for “the duration.”  Henry and Briggs have learned to use the doggie door and can enter and…

I don’t know about you, but home doesn’t feel like home until you’ve had people over.  This past weekend, my cousins from Budapest came to visit; they wanted to look around Debrecen a little and see  us and our apartment-get an idea of how we live. One of the nice things about having 3 rooms…

I think I mentioned that Debrecen was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation in Hungary.  There is a Roman Catholic church just around the corner from us on Szent Anna Utca.  That’s where we’ve been going to mass. I don’t know what it is about Hungarian churches–it doesn’t matter what the denomination, they all…

The American Corner in Debrecen is centrally located in a classic building on a  busy corner in downtown Debrecen.  It is a two-room office and reception space that is co-sponsored by the State Department and Unideb.  Anyone interested in finding out more about the US, whether they want to travel or go over as students,…

The State Department sent us an email recently about blogging.  Apparently many Fulbrighters are keeping some kind of public journal.  My blog is linked to my faculty page at Providence College.  Anyway, what the people at the embassy don’t want us to do is to use the blogs to whine and complain about the things…

After I finished the post about the thermal spas, Bernard said, you have to tell them about some of the other glorious things we saw and did in Eger.  It’s funny, we haven’t been in Debrecen that long, but, it is the place where we work, do laundry, go grocery shopping…in other words, we have…