Snoel Abroad

Sara is abroad again and this time it is in Hungary! I am here in Hungary (in the small town of Gyöngyös) teaching English at a primary school through CETP- the Central European Teaching Program- Follow along with my crazy adventures in teaching and traveling. Szia!

Friday, January 19, 2007

6 (give or take...) degrees of separation in Hungary

Last weekend, after enjoying the company of Laura and Emily at Laura's flat in Szolnok, I lost my cell phone. It has, however, been found. Emily best described the crazy recovery of my phone in her blog (which I stole)


Kicsi a világ (it's a small world.... after all)

És ha kisci a világ, akkor micsoda kisfalu Szolnok.

As Sara was leaving Sunday morning, I asked casually if she had anything: wallet, keys, cell phone? No, cell phone was missing. She and Laura and I tore my flat apart looking for it, to no avail. Eventually we gave up and she hopped on a train without it.

Fast forward 6 hours, I’m in a cafe when my contact teacher calls me (I really need to stop answering “Unknown” numbers, it always gets me in trouble) and demands that I return to the restaurant to pick up “the Gyöngyös girl”’s phone (that's me) . She was very vague about how she had heard that the restaurant was in possession of Sara’s phone, so I had to wait until Monday to piece together the details of a truly bizarre sequence of coincidences:

The waitress found the phone and called the numbers in the phone book. After getting hold of several English-speakers, she dialed the first Hungarian name she found. Which happened to be Péter, a loose acquaintance Sara hadn’t talked to for weeks (actualy it's been almost 2 months!) . Péter called his mother, who teaches at Sara’s school in Gyöngyös (still with me? Here comes the leap). Mother/teacher (I don’t have her name) (it's Zsu Zsa) called Edit, (actually Zsu Zsa called Emöke who called Ilí who is my contact teacher who called Edit) who is an English teacher at my (Emily's) school in Szolnok but who used to teach in Gyöngyös (Ilí correctly assumed that if my phone was in Szolnok, I must have been in Szolnok and therefore there MUST be a Native English speaker teacher in Szolnok- which there is- Emily) . Edit called Kati, my contact teacher, who called me as I already mentioned, and I hastened to the restaurant to liberate the troublesome phone, dragging Petra along in case I needed help.

The funny thing is, Sara, Laura and I walked past the restaurant on our way to the train station, and had we thought it’d been there could easily have asked for it. (however, while tearing apart Emily's flat that morning all 3 of us were SURE that I had been on the phone the night before while we were walking home, after leaving the restaurant.) Instead, it took 7 (more!) people to get the phone from Sara to me... and god only knows how many it’ll take to get it back to her.

So anyone who called or texted me anytime since last Saturday night (Jan. 13) and spoke to not me but a Hungarian waiter or Emily or couldn't get through at all, now you know why.

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