Hello, cyber friend  ;-)

My name is Klara Varga. I was born in Budapest, Hungary . I was 24 years old when I left my country, I lived in refugee camps in Italy and as a refugee in France. My favorite city is Paris, that's where I flew to New York in 1983 and started my life in the US. The first steps were pretty hard, I was in Rochester, Minnesota in the end of September with two little girls age 3 and 6. Besides thank you and sorry, I didn't know too much English. I never even learned how to drive a car. After a cold winter walking to ESL classes every day, I bought my first car, got a licence and found my first job in the spring. I wasn't going to live through one more winter in Minnesota, so I moved to Texas the following November. I lived in Houston for 2 years. I ended up in Virginia Beach, where I've been living for 11 years. I live at the oceanfront, I love walking on the beach, bike riding or roller blading on the boardwalk , and listening to the free concerts on the beach. In the summer our city is full of tourist, I feel like I'm on vacation. But it feels good to get our oceanfront back in the fall. The winters are nice and quiet, I enjoy watching the sunrise  and the dolphins jumping in the waves. When I feel noone understands me I go talk or sing to the ocean. I like to go camping : Cooking at the camp fire or just looking at the flames, going for boat rides and jumping in the water from the boat. Swimming or just floating in the clear water is my best relaxation.

I graduated as a textile chemistry technician and a french dressmaker. Deep inside, I was always interested in computers.

I was playing with my daughters Comodore 64 and found the first excuse to buy the first bernina sewing machine, which is a high tech computer. I was playing solitare for a long time, when a customer of mine loaded up a local chat program on my pc. That's how I started sleeping next to my computer... :-)

I spent 5 weeks in Hungary last summer. I heard a lot of internet related stuff on the radio. When I came back I felt I grew out of my local chat and joined the Internet in the end of October. After a couple days of searching I found the HIX Arena, a hungarian chat room where I found many friends and practiced my native language ,what I began to forget. In the Arena I meet hungarians from all over the world, we share thoughts and feelings. They help me with all my computer related questions.

I've been selfemployed most of my life. I started making bathing suits in Budapest and love working with stretch fabrics. I got tired of changing zippers and sewing patches at the dry cleaners very quick. I worked for " Lee Kartis designs" and "Creative Connections" as a self contractor.

My life as a costume maker:   I worked for the Big Brother Jake show at CBN for   three years, I did fill ins at the 700 club as a wardrobe handler, the action tv series "Vanishing Son", a couple CBS after school specials. Lately I've been doing some work for New Dominion Pictures, but mainly I sew for exotic dancers.

A lot of people were wondering, what does a seamstress do on the internet? I can design different patterns on my pc, connect it to my sewing machine and it sews it out. I found lots of sewing related stuff on the internet. One day I typed in the name of my sewing machine www.BERNINA.com, that's how I found lots of sewing forums, even a chatroom for sewers on IRC.
 

There is more to come...