You say Hállo, and I say Hello, Hállo, Hello"

I hate goodbyes…which is one reason why I particularly like that Hungarians say, "Hállo" when coming and going.

I don’t know anyone who particularly likes goodbyes, but I think Keith handles them much better than I do.  He tells me, “Our only purpose on the Earth is so spread goodness…be the best we can for ourselves and those around us…when you’re sad about saying goodbye, it means we’re doing our job well.”  

This morning was rough…I was acutely hung over and an emotional disaster.  We still had some cleaning to do since Anna and Beszti Eszti came over last night, distracting us from our to do lists.  Whilst cleaning, Keith started reminiscing… “Remember when we first got here…when we first walked into the flat and we were like, ‘Where the hell are we and what are we doing here?!’” And with that I began sobbing and didn’t stop until we were about 20 minutes outside of Pécs (which was a few hours later).

Silliness during our last night in Pécs

I met some amazing people in Pécs…I also met my fair share of weirdos, but that is to be expected. I didn’t think saying goodbye to my students would be so hard.  Some of them drove me absolutely crazy, but I’m so proud of all of them.  Zéti (the biter) was a difficult goodbye…his abilities to communicate at all have grown exponentially this year.  Yesterday morning I went to Eszter’s house to sign my quitting papers.  Emma and Emi met me at the door and said, “Hello, Meg!” (They are both almost 3 years old and in the younger group at Ladybird).  They then began singing the ABCs, which made my heart melt.  And then there are the Mexicans…I cannot even begin to express how much I love them.  Saying goodbye to Ana was really hard…so we made it short and sweet.  I know I will see them again.

We are on the train from Budapest to Bratislava/Pozsony…it’s a much prettier stretch than the ride from Pécs to Budapest.  Visiting Andrej and Nina (and Luci and Majo and Sonia) is like going home to family.  Keith and Andrej met in Moodus, Connecticut in 1998 and have remained close friends…and this was before Facebook…so I know it will be easy to keep in touch with the awesome people I met in Pécs…at minimum we’ll be able to Facebook stalk each other.

I haven’t been very good at updating the blog as of late, but I plan on being better…at least over these next three weeks.  We’re taking the trains across Europe, eventually flying out of Madrid.  I plan on writing on the train and uploading as soon as I have internet access. 

Sok puszi!