Life in Eger

Thoughts for the today:

• We really like the mall here in Eger. The Agria Park, as its called, was a big deal when it was built a year ago; in fact, it won an award for best shopping center of 2008.
  
  We go to the mall at least 2 or 3 times a week, and usually more. It is only 2 blocks from our house, and there's a grocery store there, a branch of our bank, an outdoor playground, an indoor play area, a hair dresser, coffee shops, etc... Nate loves to hang out there, because there is a lot of room for him to run. We often go there to meet with people from church.
  Unfortunately, our dear mall seems to be in decline. A lot of the shops have been closing up, even some owned by big international chains. One good side to this, is that a lot of the shops have sales.
  Today, to our great disappointment, we saw that the Subway restaurant in the mall closed too. Having a Subway was a big source of pride for us here in Eger, since we were one of the only places outside of Budapest to have one! Its true that the prices were really high, and because of that we only ate there once - but we were sad to see it go. In fact, they already took Eger off of their international list of restaurant locations! Farewell Subway. Its back to the dark ages for us citizens of Eger.
  
  
• Today we watched the movie Fireproof with Shane and Marianna.
  I have to say that this has to be the best Christian film I've ever seen. Usually I don't like Christian films; I didn't even like Facing the Giants - made by the same people who made Fireproof - movies about high-school football don't do it for me in general.
  Kirk Cameron out-acted everyone else in the film like Michael Jordan playing on a team of 5 year-olds, and some of the actors were so bad that we wondered if they were just nice people from the church of the producers rather than professional actors.
  But overall, the movie was great - well written and captivating. Good job on this one Christians! Keep up the good work.
  
  
• The actual vote will happen on April 14th, but it seems that Hungary's next Prime Minister is going to be Bajnai Gordon.
  I've never met a Hungarian named Gordon before, and I wonder if they just chose him because he's the closest thing they could find to Gordon Brown. Even Balázs told me that he's never heard of the name Gordon before in Hungary; the weird thing to think about is that when this guy's parents named him Gordon like 50 yrs ago, they were being hip and trendy by naming him something different, before it was even popular in Hungary to be hip and trendy! Nice work Bajnai Gordon's parents!
  I just hope Gordon does good things for the country, as Hungary is in danger of economic collapse this year. Hopefully that won't happen.
  

Police Station

We got a call on Monday that we should come into the police station, because they caught a team of burglars who have been breaking into houses in Eger, and found some electronics and jewelery in their possession. So we were told to bring any documentation of our stuff into the police station on Tuesday.
We went in on Tuesday, hopeful that maybe we would get some of our stuff back, but we didn't.
We had counted these things as gone when we got robbed, but it was kind of a let down, as we started to get our hopes up about what the police had found.

Overall though, our experience with the police in Eger has been very positive.
In Hungary, the police are the butt of most jokes - kind of like how blonde women and Poles are in the States - and they make them out to be incompetent idiots.
Our experience with the Hungarian police is that they work hard and are quite professional, and they don't deserve their bad reputation.

But, just for good measure - here's a Hungarian police joke:
Two policemen are talking; one says "hey, what's that?" The other says, "Its a thermos". "Really, what's it do?" "It keeps hot food hot and cold food cold." "Wow; what do you have inside?" "Some chicken soup and 2 scoops of ice cream."

Hétfőn telefonáltak nekünk a rendőrkapitányságból, hogy menjünk be, mert elfogták egy csapatot, akik Egerben rendszeresen betörnek lakásokba, és találtak náluk néhány ékszert és elektronikát. Azt mondták nekünk, hogy hozzuk be minden papírunk, hogy be tudjuk bizonyítani hogy ha valamelyik cucc a miénk.

Kedden bementünk, és reméltünk, hogy valamit vissza fogjuk kapni, de végül nem kaptunk vissza semmit.
Amiután megtörtént a betörés, úgy voltunk vele, hogy nem számitunk arra, hogy vissza fogjuk vissza kapni az elveszett cuccokat, de azért mégis csalodtunk egy kicsit, mert elkezdtünk gondolkozni rajta, hogy lehet hogy találtak valamit.

De azt kell, hogy mondjam, hogy csupa pozitív tapasztalatunk volt az egri rendőrökkel. Ahozz képes, hogy mennyire szivatják őket (az USÁban pedig a lengyeleket szoktunk szivatni a viccekben!), az volt a tapasztalatunk, hogy szakszerűek és szorgalmasak, és nem igazán érdemlik a rossz hírnevüket.

De azért, hadd írjam ide egy jó magyar rendőrviccet:
Két rendőr beszélget: az egyik megkérdezi, "az mi az?" A másik így felel: "Ez egy termosz" "Igen? Az mire való?" "Hát, a meleg kaját melegen tartja, a hideg kaját pedig hidegen tartja." "Tyű, de jó! És mi van benne?" "Egy húsleves és két gomboc fagyi."

Playground

Today we went with Nate to the playground at the Eger mall. It was his first time playing on a jungle jim all by himself, and he had a great time. His favorite was the slide - there were some steps he could climb up to get to the top of the slide on his own, and he must have done it about 20 times.
Here are some pictures:

Viszlát Feri Bácsi

Gyurcsány Ferenc ma lemondott a miniszterelnökségről. Alíg tudom elhinni.
Az az ember aki még Bokor Györgynél (George Bush) is népszerűtlenebb volt, végül lemondott.
Egyrész sajnálom őt, mert mindenki utálja; másrész nem sajnálom, mert sok mindenre feleős. Lehet, hogy azért mondott le most, mert látja hogy lesülyed a hajó és jobb neki ha inkább most ugrik ki!
Itt a videó:


Gyurcsány Ferenc resigned today as Prime Minister of Hungary. I can barely believe it.
The one man who was less popular than George Bush has finally resigned.
On one hand I feel sorry for the guy because everyone hates him, but on the other hand I don't feel sorry for him because he's responsible for a lot of stuff. Perhaps the reason he's resigning right now is because he sees that the ship is sinking and it will be better for him if he just bails out now!

St. Patrick

My dad is Irish, but the only really Irish things I remember growing up were eating corned beef and hash and having a big Irish wake after my grandmother's funeral. I'd have to say that the Irish deal with death better than anyone else I've ever seen - they go out and have a big party with the family and keep everything very lighthearted.

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and I wanted to write then, but just now found the time - at almost 1am...
Anyways, St. Patrick's Day is a cool holiday in my opinion, not just because of the green beer and pinching people - but because of who St. Patrick was.
Patrick was a Roman Briton born in Wales around 390 AD. He was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave when he was 16 yrs old. After living there as a slave for 6 yrs, he managed to escape back to Britain. While there he joined a monastery and became a minister, and later decided to go back to Ireland as a missionary.

Patrick was one of the earliest Christian missionaries to travel abroad to spread Christianity. There isn't a lot we know about his time as a missionary in Ireland, except that he preached the Gospel and baptized many people, including some members of the royal family.
One of the noteworthy things which Patrick did as a missionary was live in solidarity with the Irish people. Patrick wrote that he "sold his nobility" to enhance his commonality with his Irish audience. He learned their language, and lived among them, instead of separately.
In a lot of ways he left a good legacy for missionaries who came after him.

Here's to Patrick the missionary and the Irish people. Corned beef forever!

Camera

When our house got broken into last month we lost some valuable stuff. Although some things we lost were irreplaceable, we have been able to replace a few things with a little help from our friends. Thank you to those of you who blessed us in that way.

Today we replaced one of the things we lost which we really don't 'need' in order to live, but which we really liked having - our Nikon D50 camera. They don't make the D50 anymore, so we got a D60, which is the newer version of Nikon DSLR.
There are some things about it which are different from the D50, which we will have to get used to - like the body is much more compact - which is good in a lot of ways, but it feels different in your hand. Also, because of the smaller body there is no setting display on the top of the camera, but it is done on the LCD.
The nice things about it are that the LCD is bigger and the camera is much lighter than the D50. It also has a better sensor and is 10 megapixel instead of 6. There are some other significant technical improvements on it as well.

Today I took it out for a test run.

Be a Man!

As part of my theology course I've had to study a bit of the New Testament apocrypha - i.e. books which are written in the style of the New Testament books, but which are not considered canonical, or inspired by God.
Most, if not all, of these books were written long after the canonical New Testament books, and were usually written by certain pseudo-Christian groups in order to promote or validate their aberrant theology.

Here's a quote from a scholar:
People may still be heard to say: 'After all, these Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, as you call them, are just as interesting as the old ones. It is only caprice that they were not put into the New Testament'. The best answer to such loose talk has always been, and is now, to produce the writings and let them tell their own story. It will very quickly be seen that there is no question of any one's having excluded them from the New Testament: they have done that for themselves.

(M.R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament)

I think that guy's right, and I'll give you a few examples.
Probably the most popular of the NT apocrypha is the Gospel of Thomas. It was found in a 4th century library in Egypt in 1945. It contains stories and sayings of Jesus, some which are found in the NT, and some which are quite different from the teachings of the NT. Its also well known, because it was quoted in the very B movie Stigmata.
Here's an example: saying 114 says this - 'Simon Peter said to them "Let Mariam go out from among us, for women are not worthy of the life." Jesus said: "Look, I will lead her that I may make her male, in order that she too maybe become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."
I think that's wild! According to this Gospel, you are saved by grace through faith...that is, unless you are a woman! In which case, you must first become a man. Very nice...

Another example, which would be too long to write out, but here's a link for it, is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which claims to tell the story of Jesus' childhood, which is so obviously missing from the canonical accounts.
The story starts with Jesus at 5 years old playing at a brook, and he makes the waters of the brook gather together and form pools. Then, a kid comes along - the son of a scribe - and takes a stick and ruins the pools Jesus made. So what does Jesus do? HE KILLS HIM!
And then Jesus goes home. A little later Jesus is going through the village, and a child runs into him and dashes against his shoulder. So what does Jesus do? HE KILLS HIM TOO!
Then Joseph hears that Jesus has been killing the other children in town, so he grabs him by the ear and "wrung it sore." Then Jesus rebukes Joseph for doing this. Well, at least he didn't kill him.

Anyways, the above quote has a really good point. If you read these apocryphal Gospels, it becomes pretty obvious really quickly that they disqualify themselves from being included in the canon by their aberrant stories and theology.

Personally, I believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing God, who is able to preserve His Word and keep it pure throughout the generations, protecting it from all kinds of crazy stuff like this.

Today - Ma

Today:

• Was Women's Day in many countries of Europe - mostly the former communist countries.
  The poster to the right is a Soviet-era Women's Day poster from Russia.
  Happy Women's Day to all the ladies out there!
  
• I found out that Balázs knows off the top of his head the exact size of the Eger plaza (mall).
  We were talking about a mall in Debrecen, and Balázs asked, "Is that mall bigger than the Eger mall, because the one here is 19,000 square meters."
  We were impressed. He can't find Peru on a map, but he knows the exact dimensions of the mall.
• The Volvo Kupa ended today in Eger, with Hungary playing the final match against the USA.
  Despite my rooting for the US, Hungary won the match 13-4. Congrats Hungary.
  However, it wasn't enough for them to win the tournament, which was won by Serbia.
  Here are the final standings:
  1. Serbia
  2. Hungary
  3. Romania
  4. USA
  I spent a lot of time trying to think up a good excuse for why the US lost, but in the end I gave up - they lost, really bad. Oh well, life goes on.
  Maybe I should start rooting for another team. Hajrá Szerbia!

Ma:

• Nőnap volt számos európai országban – főleg a volt-kommunista országokban.
  A fenti poszter egy Szovjet nőnapi poszter.
  Boldog nőnapot kívánok a hölgyeknek!
• Kiderült, hogy Balázs fejből tudja, hogy pontosan hány négyzet méter az egri pláza.
  Beszélgettünk egy debreceni plázáról, és Balázs megkérdezi, „Az ottani pláza nagyobb mint az itteni? Mert az itteni 19 ezer négyzet méter.”
  Tyű. Le voltunk nyűgözve. Nem tudja hol van Peru egy térképen, de pontosan tudja, hogy hány négyzet méter az Agria Park.
• A Volvo Kupának ma lett vége itt Egerben, és az utolsó meccs Magyarország – USA volt.
  Az USÁért való drukkolásom ellenére, Magyarország nyert 13-4. Gratulálok, kedves magyarok.
  Viszont, ez még nem volt elég ahozz, hogy Magyarország megnyerje a tornát, amelyet Szerbia megnyerte.
  Ez volt a torna végeredménye:
  1. Szerbia
  2. Magyarország
  3. Románia
  4. USA
  Jó sokáig próbáltam kitalálni egy jó kifogást arra, hogy az USA miért nem nyerte meg, de végül feladtam. Verést szenvedtek, egész rendesen. Nem baj, ezt is túl fogom élni.
  Lehet hogy mostantól fogva egy másik országért kéne drukkolnom. Hajrá Szerbia!

Volvo Kupa

Eger is not a football (aka soccer) town, in fact, it would be fair to say that Eger's football team sucks. They are so bad that they are in a low-level group that play's against such "powerhouse" teams as Bekölce and Egercsehi. You get the idea.
However, the big sport in Eger is waterpolo, and the Eger team is very good. So good that the city built for them one of the best and biggest water polo stadiums in the country, where the Eger city team often plays against national teams from other countries, like Ukraine and Italy to name some off the top of my head.
This weekend is a big waterpolo event in Eger - the Volvo Kupa - in which the national teams of Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and the USA are having a small tournament.
Tomorrow afternoon is the finale: Hungary vs. USA. One of the reasons its such a big deal is because Hungary beat the US in the summer olympics in Beijing to win the gold medal.
I'm hoping to make it out to the match after church - too root for the US, of couse - but I'm not sure I'll be able to make it; plus, according to the news it might already be sold out.
Hajrá USA!

Eger nem igazán egy foci-rajongó város, sőt jogos azt mondani, hogy az egri foci csapat béna. Például, olyan csoportba vannak, amiben olyan "hatalmak" ellen játszanak mint Bekölce és Egercsehi. Tehát, ja.
Viszont, Egerben a vízilabda az igazi sport, és ez egri csapat nagyon jó. Annyira, hogy a városi önkormányzat építette nekik az egyik legjobb vízilabda csarnokot az országban, ahol Eger városának a csapata játszik más országok válogatott csapatai ellen, mint Ukrajna és Olaszország - csak hogy kapásból mondjam egy-két példát.
Most hétvégén, nagy sportesemény van Egerben - a Volvo Kupa - amiben a magyar, román, szerb, és USA-i válogatott csapatoknak lesz mérközés.
Holnap lesz a finálé: Magyarország - Egyesült Államok. Ez azért is érdekes, mert a magyar csapat legyőzte az amcsi csapatot a pekengi olimpiában, és így nyertek meg az aranyérmet.
Remélem, hogy gyüli után el tudok menni - az USÁért szurkolni, természetesen - bár nem valószínű hogy tudok menni, sőt azt is mondták a híradóban, hogy lehet hogy már nem lehet jegyet kapni.
Hajrá USA!

Garden of Eden?

According to this article, archaeologists have found a site in eastern Turkey which they claim to be the most important discovery in the last 50 years.
Based on its location, and carbon dating saying that the site is about 10,000 yrs old - as opposed to Stonehenge at 3000 yrs and the Giza pyramids at 2500 yrs old - some archaeologists are suggesting that this is the location of the Garden of Eden.
The idea is intriguing, considering that it would match up roughly with the dating and location described in Genesis, but for some reason I'm not totally convinced yet.
What do you think - is this the location of the Garden of Eden?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html

E-szerint a cikk szerint, régészek megtaláltak egy olyan helyet kelet Törökországban, amelyet egyesek a legfontosabb régészeti felfedezésnek tartják az utóbbi 50 évben.
A hely elhelyezkedése alapján, hozzáadva azt, hogy a szén dátumozás szerint az ott talált tágyak kb 10 ezer évesek - összehasonlítva a 3000 éves Stonehenge-dzsel és a 2500 éves gizai piramisokkal - egyes régészek azt állítják, hogy ez az Éden kertjének a területe.
Szerintem nagyon érdekes ez a feltevés, mivel hogy nagyából egyezik azzal a dátumozással és elhelyezkedéssel amit az 1.Mózes könyvében olvasuk, viszont valamiért még nem vagyok teljesen meggyőzödve róla.
Mit szóltok hozzá - ez az Éden kertje területe lehet?