One Month - I Feel Home

Settled back in to my home in Budapest; great to feel that I can call Budapest my home. This weekend I traveled with eighteen others to Zagreb, Croatia. Even though Croatia is known for having a beautiful coast line, it was cool to see the city. It snowed a whole lot! A group left on Thursday, and another group left on Friday. We hopped on the train Friday afternoon and found enough seats for all of us – there were fourteen of us traveling on Friday so we couldn’t all sit together at first. After about an hour in to the trip, we had our tickets checked. They told us that around 4pm we had to go to the end of the train because the train was going to split at one point and the end of the train would be going to Zagreb. If we didn’t know, we could’ve ended up somewhere else! Dany made sure everyone had their passport, and suddenly our friend Sanna realized she forgot her passport. At first we didn’t think it was going to be a big deal. Maybe she could talk her way through the passport check on the train. Another hour went by and we still didn’t know what she could do. She decided to talk to someone about not bringing a passport and he said that there would be no way she could get through passport control. We were at a train stop at the time, so she decided to get off and head back to Budapest. We felt so bad for her, but she got back safely and that’s all that matters. We wish she could’ve come with us though! The whole train ride was about an hour and a half – it shouldn’t have taken that long if it was a straight shot, but there were several different stops and passport control took about thirty minutes. When we were about an hour and a half out, we had to do passport control. At this point we were sitting in little cabins with six seats; me and another girl were the only United States citizens in our cabin and they had to hold on to our passports longer than everyone elses. Not sure why, but I think they had to scan them. It always makes me nervous going through passport control and stuff. I got two stamps in my passport: one Hungarian stamp and one Croatian stamp! Filling up my passport!

After passport control we started to get anxious because we just wanted to be there! We were all so excited to get off the train that our dear friend Alex forgot his suitcase on the train. I’m not sure how he did that. But all of a sudden we see him running for the train. It was the funniest thing ever. I shouldn’t have been laughing, but I couldn’t help it. It was hilarious. When he tells the story, I can’t help but cry laughing so hard. He ran to get someone and was trying to say “suitcase, suitcase!” But no one could understand it, so he had to act it out. He said he was just walking around wheeling a fake suitcase to describe what he needed. The train had looped around because it was the last stop, so he had to jump a few fences and then get back on the train. He couldn’t find his suitcase and so he kept asking people but nobody could understand him. Eventually, they radio called someone who could speak English and eventually he met with some man who had his suitcase. He got his suitcase outside, near us, and he bowed for us. We all started clapping and cheering. Extremely eventful. We walked about ten minutes to our hostel and met with everyone else! We had to pay in Croatian currency for our hostel, but we didn’t have the currency yet. Ana and I ran across the street and pulled out 500 kunas, which is about $80. Our hostel cost about $30 for two nights, which wasn’t too bad. They will probably never let any of us stay there again. We were so loud. But, stick twenty of us together… of course we are going to be loud! We paid for our hostel and it was about 8:30pm at this time. We were STARVING. No one really brought food for the train, so we had to eat. The people who got there on Thursday made reservations for us at a restaurant! We got ready and went out around 9:15 for dinner – they made us these huge dishes of French fries and sausages. Tons and tons of meat. They asked if there were any vegetarians (yay!) so I got a vegetable plate that was so delicious! I would’ve eaten anything at that point, I was so hungry. We got a little rowdy at the restaurant, and we started tearing up the paper placemats on the table and shooting them into people’s glasses. Yes, we are fifteen again. People started making bets and would buy others shots if they made it into someone’s cup. The paper on the floor when we left… hahaha!

After the restaurant, we went to a club called History. There was an ESN Zagreb party there that night! If you didn’t read one of my previous posts, ESN Corvinus is the organization at my school that helps us get acclimated to Budapest and plans trips and activities for us! ESN is well-known all over, so many universities have this program! The club, History, was super crowded and it is not illegal to smoke indoors in Croatia, so I was dying. My eyes and throat burned so bad. I thought it was crazy that they could smoke anywhere… restaurants, cafes, bars. Everywhere. I’m so glad that they have banned it in the United States and here in Budapest. We had two Croatians who showed us around and they couldn’t believe we weren’t able to smoke inside. They thought it was insane. When our friends would smoke outside before entering somewhere they were so confused; they were like you can just come inside, it’s okay. But for them it was just more respectful to smoke outside, which I totally agree with.

Anyway, we stayed at History until around 2:30am but I was so tired. I felt really sick that night, too, so I wasn’t able to have that much fun. My cough was getting worse, too, from all the smoke. Eventually we all left and on our way home everyone was just throwing snowballs left and right! It was pouring snow! It was beautiful! Of course, cold, but I really enjoyed all the snow. On Saturday, our Croatian friend who studies in Budapest with us, set up for one of her friends to show us around Zagreb. We walked around all day and just toured the city. It was a lot different from Budapest in the sense that it wasn’t as built up as Budapest. There are so many shops, restaurants, cafes, etc all over the streets in Budapest, but in Zagreb there’s only really one main square with all the action. We went to the Museum of Broken Relationships; I had no idea what to expect there, but it was basically a museum of artifacts that people send into the museum about a relationship and write a story about it. Some stories were really sad, and others were really funny. Someone sent in an ax and said that when he found out his girl friend was cheating on him, he started to chop up all the furniture in her house when she was on vacation. She came home to a house full of destroyed furniture. Another story was a love letter that a man wrote but never gave to the girl. The girl didn’t like him, so he decided to one day glue the letter to a mirror and then broke the mirror into a bunch of tiny pieces and put the pieces into a jar. Interesting museum, but not what I expected. The museum was near the government buildings and it overlooked all of Zagreb, which was a beautiful view. We also walked through a church and an outside fruit/vegetable market. I noticed the apples here were much much better than the apples in Budapest. I was so happy to bite into a crunchy, not mushy, apple! We grabbed a late lunch around 4pm at a small sandwich shop and then we headed to a small local café to get some coffee. At this point, I was extremely worn out; being sick walking around the city was tough but since I went to Zagreb, I wanted to see everything there was to see. When we went to the café, the Croatian girl that was showing us around knew that I didn’t feel well, but she still decided to smoke three cigarettes right next to me while we were there. They just don’t understand the respectful aspect of not smoking indoors next to non-smokers. I guess I can’t blame her because she isn’t used to anything different. After the café, we walked back to the hostel and I decided to take a nap. It was the only way I would be able to go out with everyone that night. I took about a two hour nap and felt so so so much better when I woke up! I love when naps help. We made dinner at the hostel and all played a noisy round of Kings cup until around 11:30 when we all left to go to a club. This club was free entrance and it was so much better than the night before! We actually had room to dance! I led everyone up to the stage to dance – it was open, so I just assumed we’d be able to dance up there! They let us dance for about two hours up there, but then they kicked us off. I think we may have broken the backboard light structure. Anthony said we did, but I didn’t notice anything! Half the group said that they were leaving to go to a different club, but I decided to stay with five other people. Good thing we stayed because about thirty minutes later, about six people came back and said that everyone else just went back to the hostel, not to another bar. Lame. Last night in Croatia – we had to stay out late! We had a blast once those people came back! It was a smaller group and we were just going nuts. Kay was video taping us and we were just dancing like crazy and laughing hysterically! When we left, we hopped on a random bus and hoped it was to our hostel. It actually was the right bus and it dropped us off about a five minute walk from our hostel! The walk back was the funniest thing ever – we were making up songs, making snow angels on cars and on the ground, and throwing snow balls at each other. When we saw our hostel, we saw Kim in the window and she was waving to us! We were yelling at her about leaving early and apparently a guy from the hostel told her to be quiet, so she shut the window and then we started throwing snow balls at the window. We didn’t know that a guy had just told her to be quiet, so we thought it was hilarious that right after he said that we chucked like ten snowballs at the window.

We got back and made some food and the guy at the front desk got so mad at us that eventually he yelled and told us to go to bed. We felt bad. Really bad. We went to sleep around five in the morning and had to get up around 8:30. Ugh, no sleep again! But it was totally worth it. We left our hostel around 9:15am to catch our 10am train. I had extra kunas, so I decided to buy waters and a bottle of wine to bring back to Budapest.

The train ride back was long and uneventful. It felt much longer than on the way there. This time I was sitting with a friend from Istanbul, Turkey and I guess passport control is always tough for her. They asked to see her passport, her Turkish ID, her residence permit from Hungary, her credit card, and a document stating where she was living in Budapest. All they asked me was for my passport. It makes it hard for her because she is from the Middle East. They even asked when she arrived and when she would be leaving, and he had to write it down.

When we were about thirty minutes out, we started playing music and all were getting anxious again to get off the train! Our little cubicle of six people were the loudest ones, we start dancing and singing and everyone else was wondering how we had so much energy. Even though we were tired, we just needed to do something!

We got back around 5pm. I had to buy my new month transportation ticket because my last one expired. I CANNOT believe I’ve already been in Budapest for a month. It had flown by so fast! Only three months left…

Zagreb was a lot of fun – not much to see in Zagreb, but still a very worthwhile trip! Getting ready for my trip this weekend in Rome, Italy! Right now it’s Amanda, Caitin, Jason and me. We’re all from USC. Jason is trying to convince one of our guy friends to come with us, so hopefully he will! Thursday is Jason’s birthday, so we’ll have to find a great place to celebrate!  

Tomorrow, Anthony, Anna-Lena and I are going to the Budapest Zoo for a research project that we have to present on Thursday in class. I'm so excited! I love zoo's! The Thursday group who traveled to Zagreb went to the Zagreb zoo on Friday, but since I left that day, I missed the zoo trip. I'm glad I can go to the Budapest zoo! I'll definitely post pictures of the animals!

On Wednesday we are going to see Wax Tailor, an electronic artist - we'll be seeing him at the A38 club which is a club that is on a ship in the Danube! Should be really fun! 

Grab some boots like mine and take a walk with me to see a little of what I saw in Zagreb!

Snow covering all the cars:

A little bit of home:

Snowball fight between Cecile and Nienke!

Overlooking Zagreb!

Anthony eating these fried dough balls covered in nutella that they sell in the main square of Zagreb

Our whole group!

Government building:

Candles being lit to remember those who've passed away

Church:

Fruit/vegetable market:

From the window of the train on the way back to Budapest - I'm pretty sure this was taken when we were in Hungary!

I found a little bit of USC on the train tracks

Overlooking Zagreb!

I'll try to post Thursday before I leave for Rome. I want to write a blog on all the random, interesting reflections I've had since I've been in Budapest. It's been a month, so I've had enough time to see enough, feel enough to call Budapest my home for now. I'd like to share some thought's I've had - the differences and random thoughts I've had. Stay tuned! 

xoxo

I've Kept You Waiting Six Days Too Long...

Hello beautiful people!

Here we go. Get your reading glasses on, whatever you gotta do to stare at the screen for a while. It's gonna be a long post. My dearest friend, Lindsay Sack, reminded me it's been six days too long since I've posted, and I know many of you just want to know every detail. Good thing I'm a detailed writer.

Okay, so let's go back to Thursday. What a wonderful night! We had our flat warming party that night before the Traffic Light Party. All I can say is our neighbors weren't happy that night, but we were all out of the flat by midnight. They wake me up every morning at 6am screaming - I think there's six kids living in the bedroom right next to mine. It's awful. So we had around 40 people in our flat, but since our flat is pretty open it didn't really feel like that many people. Then the party was only a block away from our place, so we all walked over there and had a blast! We even started a limbo toward the end of the night. I know, sounds like middle school dances, but it was so fun!

Friday afternoon I decided to run through Budapest and around Margaret Island. A few of us were supposed to meet at the bridge that goes over to the island, but since I ran there, I was a bit late and missed everyone meeting. I think while they were on one side of the island, I was on the other and we just totally missed each other. But it was a great run! I felt so good! I haven't been running for a while, so it was good to get back to it. I ended up running for about an hour and a half. It was great! The island has a 3.3 mile track around it and everyone there is running! There's also a hotel, swimming pool (good to know for when it gets warmer), and little playgrounds all over the island. I think it will be beautiful when it starts to warm up here. On my way back to my flat on my run, I found a place called Culinares. My favorite. It has everything I've been looking for here, except for Chia seeds. Can't find them anywhere. But, I was able to buy celery and sweet potatoes (literally cannot find sweet potatoes anywhere else) and I also bought some vegan pesto - yum! They had coconut water, amazing sun dried tomatoes, and spinach. It's ridiculously hard to find spinach here, too. I tried ordering it at a restaurant one time and they said they were out of it. Thought that was weird, but I guess it's just not something they have in abundance here. I wasn't able to buy anything on my run because I didn't have money, but I was definitely looking at everything that I would buy the next day! Friday night was a really good night; Ben, Anthony, and Dany invited me and my two flat mates (Ana and Freddie) and Helen over for dinner. Ben is a vegetarian and they know I'm a vegan so they totally catered to me. I told them I could bring a salad, but they told me not to. They made vegetables (cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, and broccoli), rice, and Ben made spicy tofu for me, while Anthony and Dany cooked stuffed pork for everyone else. Definitely a satisfying meal. Ana made a cake for desert, so while everyone was eating that I decided to start cleaning. I'm used to the "guys cook, girls clean" tradition at my dad's house, so I said that to Ben, Anthony, and Dany and they were shocked! It was funny! Dany came to help me out because he felt bad and I kept telling him I didn't mind doing the dishes. He said we could do them after desert. So we all sat around, had desert, and laughed a whole lot. Anthony, Dany, and I did the dishes in record time and then we all sat down in the living room to watch a movie! First movie night here in Budapest. We watched The Replacements... a good ol' football movie! The movie ended around 12:30 and all of us were exhausted so we headed home.

Saturday, I decided to go for another run - I loved my run on Friday, so I was ready to go again! I woke up early, felt good, and got outside. It was colder this morning than it was on Friday when I ran, but wasn't too bad. Makes me run faster. I only went for an hour this time, and wasn't feeling as strong as on Friday. I was really sore, too. Crazy how different muscles are used for different activity and when you don't do it for a while, your body can definitely tell! I came back and showered, and then met everyone to go to the House of Terror Museum. We had such a big group, so it was hard to hear the tour guide and he was going through the museum so fast. I decided to stay back and just do it on my own with a few people. We eventually caught up, but the tour guide was like sprinting through every room and didn't give us time to watch any of the videos or anything. The House of Terror museum is all about the Hungarian Nazis - I'm sorry, I may be a little naive but I had no idea there were Hungarian Nazis. I thought it was only a Germany thing. But the House of Terror used to be the party headquarters of the Hungarian Nazis in 1944. Then between 1945 and 1956 it was home to communist terror organizations. The museum had videos of victims who survived during the time period, and their stories were incredible. They survived in the concentration camps on very little food, and were forced to bury the bodies of their families and friends when they died. I was sick to my stomach listening to the stories. They said the smell was dreadful; there was just a ditch where they would throw the dead bodies and they would try to bury the bodies, but they constantly had to re-bury bodies as the dirt eroded and more bodies were added to the ditch. In the basement of the House of Terror museum they set up a fake prison and torture chambers, but some of the things were actually from the time period. This was a torture chamber - they had hot plates that they would burn the victims hands and faces on. There was also a whip and some other things. The tour guide told us that the victims would some times have to stand up against the wall with either their nose, or hand or something touching the wall, and if they lost contact with the wall from fatigue, they would be tortured. And they'd have to stand like that for days at a time.

There was a wall of the faces of all the victims.

This is where they would hang the victims.

The museum was an eye opener. It was a long tour, and we were all pretty tired, but it was totally worth going to see. After the museum, me and three other girls finally went to Culinares and I bought everything I wanted. I ended up spending quite a bit of money there, so I can't go there often. But it was good to have a taste of home. After Culinares shopping, we got back to the flat and got ready to see Dusky! Dusky is a group of two guys from London who compose electronic music. Tobias (from London) invited us over to his flat before Dusky, and he was the one to organize the night for us to go see Dusky! It was so much fun! The club where Dusky performed was close to my flat, so super convenient! Tobias let the place know the day before that a group of about 40 of us was coming and they told Tobias that if we all came before midnight, they would let us skip the line to get in. We got there and they let us enter through the back door! It actually took a lot longer than it should have, but once we were all inside we were happy! I got home late that night, or should I say early Sunday morning, because Dusky wouldn't stop playing.

Sunday morning, I woke up around 9am.. obviously on little sleep, and met with Amanda (from USC) to go to a church that she found on the internet. It's called Danube International. It's on the Buda side so we had to take a bus to get there and at first we couldn't find it. Amanda thought that the building number was 1119 and we were really confused because we only saw street numbers in the 50's. Eventually, Amanda was like oh wow I am so stupid! The zip code is 1119, and the street number is 55! haha the way that addresses are written here is kind of confusing. They put the zip first, then the street name, and then the street number. Still getting used to it. So we finally found the church and walked in quietly because we were a bit late. There were so many families and kids there - I had a good feeling about the church as soon as I walked in. They played music first and then they welcomed all the guests. I wasn't expecting this, but they asked if there were any newcomers into the church and if there were, asked us to stand. umm... I never had to introduce myself to an entire church before! So, Amanda and I stood up and then they came over with a microphone and we just had to say our names, where we are from, and why we are in Budapest. It was a little different, but after we introduced ourselves, so many people came up to us wanting to meet us and engage us into the church. Very very welcoming. The service was all in English and most of the families there were missionary families or travelers. We will definitely be going back there on weekends we aren't traveling. Amanda and I both really liked it! We had to leave a bit early to meet a group of people for Sunday hiking, though, and we felt bad, but we told them we would definitely be back. We changed in the bathroom and then sprinted to catch the bus to meet with everyone. We ended up hiking to Erszebet Lookout Tower! It was all snow, and I was definitely not prepared for hiking in snow. I should have worn my snow boots, but instead I wore tennis shoes. Amanda, Knut, and I were the only ones really dressed for a hike and we wanted to get a good hike in so we went ahead of everyone else! It was funny because we kept slipping the whole way up, but it made it fun. I was freezing, so I needed to hike quickly to warm up. Here's some pictures of us when we made it to the top:

This is Amanda and me on top of the Lookout Tower! Such a beautiful view - we want to come back when it's warmer and on a clearer day because the view would be even better!

Almost to the top!

USC Marshall School of Business is doing a photo contest with all the students who are abroad right now and you can enter into two categories. One has to be a picture with a USC presence (either yourself or someone else wearing USC gear, or a USC flag). The other can be anything - free style - pretty much the best picture taken while abroad! I'm thinking I might use this for the USC presence category, unless I get a better one in the next few months!

This is a picture from the top when we were waiting for everyone else to get up!

This is Amanda, Knut, and me - first ones to the top!

On our way back down, we stopped at a little restaurant and got hot wine. We were all so cold, so it was a nice treat! I wrote about hot wine in a previous blog post, but it's basically hot wine with cinnamon spices. It's really tasty! Amanda, Knut, and I finished the whole hike while the rest of the group took a bus down. ha! After the hike, I went home and had some delicious tomato soup - I was still freezing! At 8pm, I went over to Cecile, Nienke, and Chloe's flat to plan our weekend trip to Zagreb, Croatia!! They made food and about 10 of us showed up to plan the trip. We ended up booking our hostel and then planned a meeting day to buy our train tickets! There is a group of us leaving on Thursday and another leaving Friday. I'm in the Friday group because I didn't want to miss my Thursday classes. We can only miss three classes all semester, so I wanted to save those skips for a longer trip. The Friday group is going to have more fun on the train, anyway. I bet you can sense some friendly competition. The Thursday group is going to the zoo in Zagreb on Friday though. I'm a bit jealous about that. But, I am planning a day to go to the Budapest Zoo. Right now there are about 17 of us going to Zagreb and more and more people keep wanting to join! It's going to be a lot of fun! We are going this weekend! The train ride is six hours (ugh!) but we'll find a way to entertain ourselves. I'm trying to find an English book store, so I can get a book to read for the trip! We'll be going Friday to Sunday - short trip, but I can't believe I'll be in Croatia! So surreal. After we booked our hostel Sunday night, I went over to Anna-Lena's flat to watch a movie with some people! We watched City of God, based on a true story in Brazil. It was a brutal gang movie, but it was really really good! It was all subtitles, but I really liked the movie! It was after midnight when we all left, and a few of us had 8am class Monday morning. Very hard to get up for that...

Monday, I had class. And then I had to go buy fee stamps for my residency permit. We can't pay cash at the immigration office, so we have to buy stamps before going. I went into the 'posta' and ended up going to three different counters before someone could help me. Oh, the trouble of not being able to speak Hungarian. Finally I got my fee stamps and then on my way home I ran into an organic food shop and juice bar. I got some freshly made juice and vegan soup - yum! I also found spirulina at the organic shop. Can you believe it, momma?? For those who don't know what spirulina is, look it up. It's an extremely healthy supplement/powder.

Monday night I stayed in and caught up on Revenge. It's getting so good! But, too many people are dying all of a sudden. I guess it was bound to happen - I don't want to ruin it for those who haven't watched, but I was so sad after the last episode. Almost in tears.

Tuesday, I finally made it to the immigration office. It was about a 30 minute trip to get there.. on the buda side... in the middle of nowhere. The office looked so sketch. I was a bit scared. They open at 13:00 on Tuesdays, and I got there at 12:40. There was already a line of about twenty people outside. I got in line and waited until they opened the doors at 13:00. I then could choose to either go to the left or the right. All the signs were in Hungarian, go figure, so I chose right. I stood in line for another ten minutes and finally got to the counter. I said I needed to apply for a residency permit, they gave me a number, and I sat down and waited. Some people who've gone had to wait up to three hours, but I think I was the second person in line for residency permit - score! I only waited for about twenty more minutes and then number 101 was flashing on the screen! I went back to the desk and handed the lady a stack of all my papers. I had no idea what I needed, but she went through it all and handed me back papers and copies she didn't need and kept the rest. I had to fill out a few more forms, and I waited for her to process everything. It took about thirty minutes. Then she took my picture and finger print, and I was on my way! I'll be getting my residence permit mailed to me hopefully by March or April. It was around 13:50 when I was leaving the immigration office and I had class at 14:00. I wasn't planning on going, but since I was only going to be a few minutes late, I decided to go. It's my Resources of Viticulture class, so I wanted to make it if I could! When I got to the class room, it was locked and I guess they changed the location of the room to a laboratory. These two ladies tried to help me find the room and eventually I found it. I walked in twenty minutes late and made a big scene. The teacher is cool, though, so he didn't really mind. We learned all about the roots and pruning process of the grape vine. We even got to cut a few of the vines as practice for pruning. The next two weeks of the class are study trips. We choose one day out of the next two weeks to travel to a vineyard to practice pruning and other stuff. Not really sure what it's going to be like, but should be fun! Freddie and I both don't have class on Wednesdays so we are going to go on one of the Wednesday trips! I'll let you know how it goes.

After class yesterday, we got home around 4:30 and had to start getting ready for the second pub crawl. We met at 6pm for the pub crawl - way too early - and went to three different ruin pubs and then the last place was a club called Instant that most of us had already been to. We felt a little ripped off by this pub crawl because we paid about $10 and didn't really get our money's worth. The first one we did was much better, probably because it was actually organized through ESN. We thought this one was organized by them, too, but it turns out it wasn't. Hmm? So we left the pub crawl early and went to Szimpla! The carrot bar next to my flat! We all just hung out there and had a good time, eating carrots. :)

This morning I got up and decided to take a short walk to get some coffee. I was craving a good cup so I decided on Starbucks - never a bad choice! The sun is out today and it is beautiful! I am totally missing the California sunshine. Here's a few pictures from my walk this morning:

It's already 1:30 here (sorry I keep changing between military time and standard time... when events are posted in military time, I just remember that and not the standard time. On my own watch, I'm still on standard). I'm definitely going to get outside while the sun is out - maybe another run on Margaret Island - I love it! 

Trips that are definitely planned so far: 

This weekend in Zagreb, Croatia! 

The next weekend in ROME, ITALY!!! I am so so so excited!

And the weekend after that, an ESN organized trip to Slovenia! 

I'm planning to visit Prague in April when it is warmer, and since Vienna is only a two hour bus trip, I may try to do that on a Tuesday and Wednesday during the week since I don't have class Wednesday. Can't wait for what's to come! 

Oh, and how could I forget!? My best friend of all time... thirteen years and counting... Emily Kehner, is coming to visit me in May!!!!! I am so excited! All my friends here are totally gonna love her! I've already told the majority of my friends that she's coming. Thinking back to the days when Emily, Meaghan, and I were nine years old watching our little brothers play baseball... never in my life would I have imagined Emily and I being in Budapest together when we were older! I cannot believe it's happening - it will be such a memorable experience! 

Also, I forgot to mention - If you would like to send me a letter I can give you my address here. A few of you reading this blog have been my writing partners while in college, and I wouldn't want Budapest to stop us from writing each other! I do not want to post it on the blog, but email or facebook message me and I would love to give it to you. I'm still trying to figure out the post office stuff here, but once I do, I will definitely start mailing letters/post cards!

Well, you made it. Another long post. I will definitely be writing next week about my trip to Zagreb! 

xoxo

 

Adventures to Come

Sunday night I tried out a gym with a friend. Let's talk about seventies edition gym. We took a step class and there were seven of us, including myself and one male instructor who was a little on the feminine side. The room was tiny and there wasn't a lot of space. The whole class was in Hungarian, but my friend and I just followed along. At one point, I completely lost track of what we were doing and could not catch up. The instructor had to come back and help me out. It was embarrassing, but still funny! After the class, I stayed a while longer and got my money's worth for the day. I cycled and then lifted some weights. Everything in the gym is so old. I am blessed to have the gym equipment I have back at home.

Monday I had class from 8am until 2:30pm. This is a picture I took on my way to class Monday morning - it had been snowing all day Sunday and Monday morning.

Advertising Management and Tourism Management and Marketing. We formed our groups in Advertising Management - I'm working with my friends Anna-Lena and Laurent, and then two other guys that I just met in class that day. These groups will last the whole semester as we prepare for an advertising pitch that we'll give at the end of the semester to real advertising managers. Sounds interesting and fun!
In Tourism class we had a new teacher. I guess there are two instructors and they each teach every other week. That could get confusing, but the teacher I had this week was really cool. She let us out early and made class fun! After class on Monday, I decided to walk all the way to a shopping center (about 35 minutes away) to buy the Timberland boots that I really wanted and would be great for the weather here. On my walk there, I was marching alongside a protest group and I wasn't really sure what was going on. There were many police and police cars, people wearing raggy clothing and holding signs written in Hungarian. They were walking pretty slow, so I picked up my pace and continued to walk, confused as to what was going on. Eventually, I got to Astoria (one of the main squares that I live near in Budapest) and there was a news car and camera about to film the march. I stopped and started to watch, still in disbelief and wonder as to what was going on. I turned to a lady next to me and asked her if she spoke English. She said of course, so I asked her what was going on. She explained to me that these were the poorest people living in Hungary and they were marching to be heard by the prime minister. She said their signs were pleads for work and bread, and that they had been walking for about two weeks now; some came from the country side all the way to Budapest to take part in the march. I asked her if the prime minister had done anything in response to their action and she laughed and shook her head no. Her eyes started to swell with tears as she is explaining this to me, while the poor people marched past us. She excused herself so that she could continue walking with them and I decided to tag along. It was such a memorable experience. Instead of going to buy my boots, I decided to stick with the crowd to watch it all play out. I think it was God's way of telling me that I am blessed with all my belongings now. I was going to use the money that I would've spent on the boots to buy a bunch of bread, and something told me I should, and thinking back on it I really wish I had, but since there were so many police - I really wasn't sure what I could and couldn't do. It sounds cowardly as I write it. I would've been able to buy out three or more bakery shops here with $100. Most giant loaves of bread here only cost $1. It makes me sick to my stomach every time I think back on it. All these people wanted was some bread and WORK. They had walked for two weeks, so that they could get a job. That's unheard of in the United States. After that, I went home and reflected on all that happened. I couldn't get over it. It definitely struck me pretty hard. Here are a few pictures I took from the Hunger Strike:

Later that night, I decided to turn my room into a gym. Not really, but I worked out in my room doing squats, raised lunges from my bed, and tricep dips from my window sill. I also did a bunch of jumping jacks, push-ups, etc for an hour. I already felt sore thirty minutes after the workout. While everyone else went out to Morrissons 2 (tradition every Monday night), I decided to stay in and get some sleep. Tuesday morning, I woke up feeling refreshed but extremely sore. I wanted to get another work out in, but didn't have time before class to make it to the gym, so I did another workout in my room. Probably not the best idea because today I can't even move. I had my first Resources of Viticulture (class all about the history and process of wine making). It is actually at the campus on the Buda side (a little bit further from the campus I normally attend on the Pest side). There are only about fifteen people in the class and we literally all huddled into a tiny room (almost like an office) and had class in there. It was so intimate - I actually really enjoyed it. We talked about the history of viticulture from the time of Mesopotamia up until now. My professor is super enthusiastic about the subject and thinks everything about it is "fantastic!!!" He told us many interesting stories, my favorite being how they first made champagne. He makes class interesting and it really doesn't even feel like I'm in class. He told us that for champagne making, all the bottles were placed in racks, neck down. After all the dirt fell to the neck of the bottle, they would freeze the bottles. When the wine was frozen, they would take of the top and about three inches of the frozen wine would pop out because of the carbon dioxide. The part that came out contained all the dirt in the bottle. After that they would add a liquor that contained yeast and sugar to fill the bottle back up. They would re-bottle it and let it sit through its second fermentation period. He definitely told it in a much more enthusiastic and exciting way, but I thought it was cool.

For dinner that night, my french roommate, Frederique, made crepes which is a French tradition on Fat Tuesday! I didn't have any, but she made so many for her, Ana, and our other French friend Helene. They ate the crepes with lemon and sugar. Some they ate with chocolate and whipped cream. It looked good, but after having tried some incredible cheeses here, I'm back to being a vegan. Here's a picture of the crepe-making:

Later that night, I met up with people at a sports bar near my flat to watch two soccer games. The Champions League just started here in Europe, so I decided to go to learn more about soccer. I honestly am oblivious to any rules in soccer, and to tell you the truth, besides the one soccer game I saw at USC, I have never watched or seen another one since. Oh, I did watch the end of a game one time when I was in Honduras. But this time, I actually watched the game and started to get into it once Henrik, Marco, and Laurent explained some of the rules to me! I was cheering for Paris and they won! I even wore a blue shirt just for Paris! I definitely like american football better, but I'll definitely have fun watching soccer here! My friends and I decided we are going to watch a game here in Budapest (even though the team here isn't good, we just want to experience a game here - especially since I've never been to one before).

Today I started to gather all the forms I needed for the immigration office - I have to get my residency permit. My flatmate, Ana, who is also from the United States, and I worked on it for about an hour or so compiling all that we needed. We made a trip to our landlords office, which is near the U.S. embassy, so that we could get some forms and signatures from them. After that we went over to the U.S. embassy, which was completely everything I expected from the U.S. embassy. It was all on lock-down. It had a huge giant gate around the whole building, with security guards all around. To drive through, there is a bridge that has to be let down by a guard and then another gate that opens to let cars through. They wouldn't even let us inside the gated area. An officer came out and spoke with us and gave us a card telling us we needed to call and schedule an appointment. Turns out, we don't even need to go to the embassy to get the residency permit; we have to go to the immigration office which is about an hour away from us. We are going to make appointments and go some time next week. I'll probably have to make a few trips there because I'll probably not bring one of the required forms the first time. I'm just hoping it gets done quickly. I need to do it before next Friday, which will already be the one month mark of being here. I have to get the permit within a month of being here. I can't believe it's almost a month. Crazy. Time really does fly when you're having fun! So after leaving the U.S. embassy, Ana and I took a few pictures with the Ronald Reagan statue:

And this is another random statue standing on a bridge - not sure who it is, but wanted to take a picture with him! :)

After leaving the U.S. Embassy, I thought I was going to pee my pants. Sorry for TMI, but I honestly could not make it home. Ana and I ran into a bank to ask if they had a bathroom and the lady looked at us and was like "NO." Okay, fine. I stormed out of there knowing that they had to have had a bathroom, but whatever. We decided, out of desperation, to stop back at our landlords office to use their bathroom. While I was using the restroom, the lady asked Ana, "What happened?!" And Ana just laughed and said "I don't know she just really had to go to the bathroom!" haha thanks momma for the small bladder. There was no way I was making it home. I was about to just go on the side of the street; I was at the point that I didn't care. After that eventful afternoon, we came back to the flat, and I've been reading the book Safe Haven since I got home. I cannot put it down... it's so darn good. I bought it at the airport on the way here and only read 20 pages. I started reading it again yesterday and I'm already on page 237. I love a good book. I don't think I'll be able to see the movie here in Budapest, but maybe when I get home in the summer. 

Tomorrow we are having our house-warming party before the big Traffic Light Party that ESN is planning for everyone. Since the Traffic Light Party is near our flat, we decided to have the house-warming party here before the Traffic Light Party out of convenience. Basically, you either wear green, yellow, or red depending on your relationship status, hence why the party is also on Valentine's day. I think I'm going to go with yellow, just for the fun of it. Also because I want to wear a cute yellow shirt that I brought. :) 

We are expecting around 50 people to come to our house-warming party, which is a heck of a lot of people. Our neighbors may hate us, but we'll only be there until around 11 when we move out to the Traffic Light Party. 

I was supposed to go to the House of Terror last weekend, but it filled up, so they are doing a second trip this coming weekend that I am going to! Should be very interesting. 

On Friday, Ben, Anthony, and Dany invited me and my two flatmates over for dinner! Ana is baking a cake and I'm bringing over a salad and maybe some fruit. 

Upcoming travels - 

not this weekend, but next weekend, a few of us - or maybe a lot... I'm not sure how many are committed to going - will be taking a train (about five hours I think) to Zagreb, CROATIA! I'm so excited! We will all just stay in a hostel and visit the city for a couple of days. I'm so excited! That will be my first travel outside of Budapest. 

Then the first weekend in March, ESN is planning a trip to Slovenia! I'll definitely be going on that, as well. I'm so excited to discover Eastern Europe! Trips to Vienna, Prague, Transylvania, Venice, and Germany hopefully to come. And if I'm real lucky, a trip to Brussels and Barcelona. I'll definitely keep yall posted on travels. That's way more interesting than blogging about what I'm learning in class, although I like to summarize the interesting stuff for yall. Until Sunday, after a fun and adventurous weekend (I think I may hop on a train to Vienna on Friday... it's cheap and only takes two hours.. I'm kind of feeling it!) Who knows?! 

Happy Ash Wednesday to my Catholics! 

And even though I'm not Catholic, I've decided to participate in lent as a way to show sacrifice like Jesus did for us. I'll be giving up late night snacking. After dinner, nothing else, unless I'm incredibly hungry and then in that case I'll have a piece of fruit or something healthy. 

your yellow-wearing valentine

xoxo

Buda Side Sightseeing

I should probably keep up better with the blog, so I don’t always have to play catch-up. But I think catch-up blogging is the way it’s going to be.

So, after deciding to stay in Wednesday night, I felt so refreshed and ready to go on Thursday! I had two classes: Services Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility. These are probably two of my favorite classes! Each class has two one-hour and 20 minute lecture with a twenty minute break between each. It’s a little different, but I think the break in between helps a lot. My Services Marketing class has about 40 students in it, and then we split up into smaller groups for the second half of the class. In my smaller class, only eight of us were there and six of us are all really good friends. That made it a lot of fun and super personable with the teacher! My Corporate Social Responsibility class is hands down my favorite. There are about 25 of us and our teacher rocks! We got into class on Thursday and she said, “okay drop your things, we are going to the corridor for a short game.” All of us were like alright this is cool. So we got up and went outside into the hallway, and she started asking yes/no questions. The ‘yes’s’ would walk to one side and the ‘no’s’ would walk to another side. We did this for a while as she asked random questions about where we are from, if we’ve volunteered or given to charity, if we have boyfriends/girlfriends, if we speak English as our first language, etc. We were all really confused, but we went with it. The last part was questions based on a scale. So between two pillars, one being 0 and the other being 10, she asked us first about what we thought about the financial ethics of our home universities, and then next asked us what we thought about our own financial ethics. Interesting questions to think about. We then went back into the classroom and started discussing why we did that – she wanted to have a lead-in into the discussion of discrimination, and hiring people based off of discrimination. She said that she started asking us personal questions and asked if we thought that was fair. It was pretty cool. This class is definitely going to get me thinking. We also discussed the Ford Pinto case; for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a pretty controversial subject. Back in the seventies, Ford knew that if their Pinto car got in an accident, it would immediately blow up. Ford had the idea to install a rubber lining in order to keep the car from blowing up. They did a cost benefit analysis and it was ‘cheaper,’ in a sense to not install the rubber piece. They even weighed the cost of paying the families of those who would die in a Ford Pinto accident. So our debate was whether this was right. We talked about the social cost, and I brought up the point about Ford losing brand loyalty because they decided to take the ‘easy’ way out. There’s one girl in our class who literally goes against anything we say or what the teacher says; it’s fun because we just get to debate with her the entire time. This class flew by and the discussion could have lasted another two hours. Love the class! And sorry to get all school-focused on y’all. I guess I’m just happy to be back in class.. never thought I’d say that.

So my schedule for classes is finalized now. I have two classes on Monday: Advertising Management and Tourism Management&Marketing for a total of 5.5 hours of class. I have one 2-hour class on Tuesday called Resources of Viticulture; my flatmate is taking this class and it’s all about the process of wine-making. I didn’t go this first week because I just added the class yesterday, but we’ll see how it is! Corvinus University has a building on the Pest side and the Buda side. All of my business classes are on the Pest side, but the wine class will be on the Buda side. I have no class Wednesday, and again 5.5 hours of class on Thursday, and then no class on Friday. I was trying to get no class on Friday and Monday, so that I could travel longer on the weekends, but I am happy with the classes I’m taking.

On Friday, I went to tour the Buda side with four of my guy friends here: Laurent (from Belgium), Niels (from Holland), Rafael (from Brazil), and Alex (from Canada). We walked around for probably four hours – I looked out my window and saw that it was finally sunny for one day, so I decided to only wear a light jacket. Bad mistake. I was freezing, especially when we climbed to the top of a hill that overlooks the Danube river. So we first started off, crossing over the chain bridge: 

(again... I apologize for the side ways pictures. I still can't figure out how to rotate them on here. I think when I take them with my nice camera, they are a much bigger size so it rotates them this way. What a pain.)

This picture is also on the bridge that we crossed on our way over to the Buda side.

Once we got to the Buda side, we could've taken this up a little ways, but we decided to walk.

This was a smaller hill (I'll talk about the bigger hill later) and this statue was a the top of it. When we got up there, the military men were walking through the area and so we stayed and watched them flip their guns and yell out some random calls in Hungarian that I couldn't understand. 

Next we walked over to this beautiful church on the Buda side. I was so mesmerized at the architecture and color.

 This is me and the four boys I went with to tour the Buda side. This picture is taken at the church overlooking the Danube River and Parliament in the background!

 After we went to the church, we walked through a bunch of ruins and saw buildings that had been destroyed during war. Pretty neat history. 

After that, we got to the castle. I saw the castle the first night I was in Budapest, but it was cool to see it during the day.

After we saw the castle, we took a bus over to the hill that you can climb up and look over all of the Pest side and the Danube river. When I am standing at Corvinus University on the Pest side, and I look out across the Danube, I can see the hill. I've always wanted to climb it so I was happy we got to do it! This statue is at the top. There's also a few little shops at the top, too.

After coming down from the hill, we were all FREEZING and hungry. We stopped at this cute little soup/sandwich shop by Corvinus and got some food. It was already around 4:30pm, so afterward we all split our own ways. On my way home, I actually stopped at a second-hand thrift store that I saw the other day and absolutely loved it! I got three new shirts. How I am bring everything home? I have no idea. Maybe I'll just have to leave stuff here. Or buy another cheap suitcase. We'll see. After that, I went to look at a gym that I may get a membership at. It's really nice... kind of small, but it has a swimming pool which is a definite plus. Today, I am going with my friends to try another gym to see if I like that one better. It's closer to my place, so that may be a plus. 

I got home after our Buda tour, made some dinner, and then got ready for my friend Helene's birthday party! She had everyone over to her flat, which was a lot of fun! Later that night there was a famous DJ playing at a club called Aquarium. The tickets were supposed to be sold out, but me and five other friends decided to just check. They still had tickets! So, we got tickets and met up with the rest of our friends who had gotten there just before us! It was so so so much fun! It was so crowded and the music was so loud; very fun night! We have to coat check at every bar/club here, so when I was about to leave, my friend Jason and I walked over to coat check and I couldn't find my coat check ticket anywhere. I always worried about this happening. It was such a tiny piece of paper... bound to happen. So I literally dumped out my entire purse on the counter and looked through everything five times. Couldn't find it. It was already 4am and I was leaving early. They told me I'd have to wait until everyone left. I was like honestly that's ridiculous. So then this manager guy came out and I described my jacket in full detail, and they finally brought it out. They made me sign a bunch of papers, which is understandable, and then I was able to leave. 

Saturday I met up with my friends to find mustaches for the mustache party last night. Our friend Cyprien's birthday was last night and the theme was mustache. Ben found a costume store online, so we walked to it and couldn't find it anywhere. Finally we asked people and managed to find it; a little hole-in-the-wall place that we had to walk down four staircases to get to. Super sketchy. We banged on the door and a lady opened up saying they were closed. We were so upset because we just needed mustaches for the party and she wouldn't let us in... not even for five minutes. So sad. All the shops close around 2 or 3pm here on Saturdays. Not sure why, but I guess that's the culture. So after that we walked around a bunch of touristy shops and tried to find anything that looked like a mustache. People bought pencils and magnets and string, but I decided not to get anything. Nobody ended up using it anyway - they just drew with lipstick red mustaches on their faces. It was snowing while we were walking around, and I was freezing again, so we all decided to try hot wine. That's a thing here. It taste like spiced cider with cinnamon in it, but it's wine. It was actually really really good! Didn't think I would like it. I don't think it's just a Hungarian thing because a bunch of my European friends said they have it, too - especially around the holidays. 

The mustache party was a success. Very funny. Some guys actually shaved their facial hair and just kept a mustache - hilarious! Other guys had drawn on mustaches, some girls drew mustaches or found fake ones. And then Mimi (she goes to USC) found pink glasses that had mustaches attached to them - those were probably the best! After that we all went over to a bar named Instant, and I only stayed for about an hour. I was so so so tired - story of my life. Other people stayed until 6am. I don't know how they do it here. Today has been a lazy day, but a good one. I was able to blog and post pictures on facebook. I'm about to make lunch, go to the gym, and then relax tonight before a long day of classes tomorrow. 

If you've made it to the end, thanks for stickin' along. I know I write very detailed and ramble too much, but that's how I like to write. Until next time... 

xoxo