A Night On The Town In Budapest With Students

Timothy and I shared an MX5, which was not a car, but rather an intensive English course that met five days a week for three hours a day…for three weeks. New students could join after that, but some of the same ones continued, meaning teachers and students get to know each other very well.

The group had a mixture of people, from Balazs, a 20-year-old blond guy whose mother was making him study English, to Agnes, a divorced film director, and Eliska, an opera singer from Prague. There was also an older man named who asked what “skinny dipping” meant at the first meeting as well as one woman from France and one from Japan.

Despite all our differences, we liked each other. On the feedback forms, which were supposed to be anonymous, someone extended the boxes to include a “6” out of “5” ranking for the teachers, “because they don’t exploded when I don’t do my homework.” I suspect it was Balazs. It was Balazs, anyway, who suggested we all go out for drinks one Friday. He told us where to meet – at the nearby shopping mall – and set a time.

Almost everyone turned up. To my surprise, we went for drinks within the shopping mall. The first place we tried had a Latin American theme, and would have given us the impression we were not in a shopping mall, but it was full so we continued on. We ended up in a slightly generic place with a view of the escalator and had the opportunity to watch hundreds of Hungarian teenagers dressed up in their Friday night best.

The location didn’t really matter, though. They were serving beer, and our group was there to talk to each other. And that we did: Agnes the film director immediately began teaching me how to curse in Hungarian, which made even Balazs gape. I spoke with Eliska about her travels in the US with her boyfriend. We listened to Balazs describe his fitness routine. I asked for directions to the Chinese Market and Mariana offered to go with me.

Both of us teachers were able to enjoy ourselves without getting too drunk and embarrassing ourselves by dancing on tables or going home with students. All in all, it was a lot of fun.