Going down on the ferris wheel
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Pics week 4
Pics week 4
Scenes from München City Center from the top of St. Peter's...gorgeou
s!Right half of Oktoberfest!
...and the statue from which the picture above was taken
The germans love their beer! Meg and I toasting..Egesegedre!
Pics week 4
Oktoberfest at 6:30am!!
And us on the metro, probably at 5:30am. Obviously ready to go.
My lantern buddy and I in the Labirynth under Buda Castle :)
Buda Castle at night and the crazily crammed bus on the way to the labyrinth. Love public transportation.
Week 4 update (official)
Hello again,
Finally some time to sit down and give you a thorough update of what we did this past week! Tuesday was a pretty important day because we finally received our residency permits..I'm a legal citizen of Magyarorszag (hungarian for Hungary...ridiculous, I know). Unfortunately, though, this took quite a long time...we sat in the immigration office for about 2-2 1/2 hours just to sign four papers and confirm that, yes, we are actually who are passports say we are. Afterwards, I was able to locate the Bible study hosted by the church I visited the previous Sunday, which turned out to be a wonderful blessing. There were people there from Ghana, Bulgaria, Hungary (of course), England, Alaska, and Pennsylvania (guess who that was). I felt at home the second I walked in the door and into a steamy kitchen filled with laughing, chatting people who all offered genuine smiles and words of welcome as I introduced myself. It was definitely a great way to spend the night, and I'm looking forward to attending again tonight :)
Wednesday between cognitive ethology and culture class, a bunch of the Oktoberfest-bound gang wandered over to Vaci Utca to look around for some traditional costumes in second-hand shops. Unfortunately, event the second-hand prices were pretty expensive by Forint standards. But we did not give up hope! I ended up going into another second-hand shop and found a stretchy, flowery, just cheerful in general, dress, and when Allie and I walked over to the Grand Central Market, we both found relatively cheap zippered bags that would be more conducive than backpacks to walking amongst oktoberfestive Germans all day long on Saturday. And we made it just in time for the start of class! Once a shopper, anywhere a shopper. Thanks, Mom.
Instead of studying away the incredibly gorgeous afternoon on Thursday, I decided to join a couple of the other kids on a tour given by one of the hungarian students in our dorm. He took us to the famous "Oktogon," and let us up to Hero's Square (Hösök Ter). Even though I'd already been to this area before, it was great to have a little historical narrative accompanying me along the way this time. Among many of the things I noticed that I hadn't before (thanks to Levente, our tour guide) was the distinctly "socialist" architecture of the Russian-built buildings. The fact that these buildings really stand out as an eye sore next to the traditional hungarian structures seems just too much of a coincidence to me when looking back at the country's communist history. So after the tour, I went back to the dorm to study for four hours. JUST KIDDING. A bunch of us met up at a tea house down the street from our dorm with the intention of studying...which just didn't happen. Great night!
Friday's exam, though, wasn't too terrifying. Some of the concepts concerning animal behavior were review for me, thanks to the conditioning and learning class I took last semester. Needless to say, the question asking for a description of Pavlovian Classical Conditioning was in the bag.
And thennnnnnnn it was time to leave for München! Our bus left at 4:15pm on Friday, and we arrived in Germany at 5:30am Saturday morning. Yep, I said 5:30am. It's hard to put the day into any other word than AWESOME. We crammed so much into those 15 hours...getting in line to get into a tent at 7am and waiting (while I had to pee the whole time..great) until 8:30 when they let us in. Walking around the carnival and then leaving with Eric from Boehringer's to go walk around the city square for the afternoon. Returning back to Oktoberfest to meet up with everyone and then walk to the city square yet AGAIN (I think I know that area pretty well by now). Returning once more to Oktoberfest to end the night with a fabulous ferris wheel ride and then trudging our way back to the metro and finally to the bus station. Time of departure from Munich: 11:40pm, Saturday. Time of arrival back in Budapest: 1:15pm, Sunday. I slept a glorious 4 1/2 hours that afternoon, woke up to do some reading, and then it was back to bed around 11. Great weekend.
I have some pictures and videos to share with you all...enjoy this taste of Deutschland!!!
Love,
Val
p.s. I would like to dedicate this upload to Laura and David, two amazing germans who I miss and love very, very much!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Week 4 update
Hi everyone!
Hope all is well wherever you are :) This entry is just serving as a little collateral, promising you that I'll be posting pictures and writing a substantial entry within the next couple of days. As you will learn, we had quite the exhausting (but ridiculously amazing) weekend, so it's taking me a little longer than usual to get myself in gear for the week. First day of my new class today went well- it's Philosophy of Language. Perfect for my writing center tutor, grammar-loving, nerdy self. I hope to get my pictures and videos up by tomorrow night, so until then....
Jó északát!
Val
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Pics week 3 (and some stragglers from previous weeks)
The whole group...and exploring the upper palace in Viségrad.
Hmm so I thought this pic would be cool, but now it just looks creepy. Me sitting on the step of an elementary school in Szentendre watching the kids play during recess.
Pics week 3 (and some stragglers from previous weeks)
Me and some paprika peppers, the crucial ingredient to almost every Hungarian dish.Allie and I enjoying some goulash!
Nicky, one of our mentors, and I at the top of the basilica!
Group shot at Lake Balaton and Meg, my roommate, and I after she died her hair the sauciest red I've ever seen :)
Pics week 3 (and some stragglers from previous weeks)
Our dessert contribution to the program potluck!
View of parliament and the Danube from the bridge at Margit Island.And Hungarian folk dancers at their best!
Yet another glorious shot of my beacon of strength, The Lady :)
3 weeks down!
Jó napot kivanok!! (Good day!)
I'm happy to report that I've survived yet another week in Budapest. Scratch that..I've soaked in another glorious week in Budapest. Still can't get enough of it! This past week, I saw two movies, both in English too! We had already planned to see Inglorious Bastards Tuesday night, but when we saw that Harry Potter was playing in English on Monday night (and it only cost $5), we simply couldn't resist. So, yes, I've seen Harry Potter 3 times now- once on opening day, once in 3-D, and now once in a hungarian movie theater...and it just keeps getting better and better :)
The rest of the week was devoted to eating dinner at an outstanding Indian restaurant, seeing hungarian folk dancing for the first time (and vowing to learn!!), and studying for my neuro exam Friday morning. To unwind on Friday afternoon, some of us took advantage of the pseudo-summer weather and ventured to Margit Island. The night only got better when we went to an "International" party in one of the dance clubs in Pest. Though my legs were exhausted the next morning, one of the girls in my program and I decided to go out for a 6 mile run: part of our training for a 10k we're going to run in mid October! All throughout our run, we kept repeating, "Look over there! See that??! We get to live here!" So it's truly with a thankful heart that I say my experience here so far has been filled with countless blessings.
Last night, we hosted a potluck in the dorms, and everyone in our program made a dish with his/her roommate. Now, for those of you who know me (and you don't even really have to know me that well), you know I can really put it away when it comes to food. No problem. I have not, however, eaten to the point where I've been uncomfortably full in the last 3 weeks, so eating buffet style like that completely destroyed me (and everyone else too). It really put into perspective how unnecessary those Old Country Buffet portions are at home!
This morning, I went to church for the first time- an International church on the Buda side across the river from Margit Island. I didn't realize how much I needed it until I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn't help but cry..I was so happy to be there. Everyone was so welcoming, and I'm looking forward to checking out a Bible study they host on Tuesday nights. Yep, the good stuff just keeps on coming!
Well, it's time to go make a dent in some of my reading for this week, but here are a couple of pictures from last week, so enjoy!
Love and miss you all,
Val
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
embarrassing market experience
I just wanted to make an experience I had this afternoon public, mostly for your amusement (and partly because I hope that I will look back and laugh about it in about two months). A bunch of us went to one of the really nice indoor markets in Pest after class today. I was really low on food, so I was ready to do some serious shopping. I was in the mood to get some meat because I actually haven't had much of it in my diet over the past two weeks. I went over to one of the meat stands and mentally rehearsed the ordering script ("Szia. Kerék __ kilo sonka.") ("Hi. I would like to have __ kilo of ham). The blank is where I was planning to insert the amount I wanted in kilos. For some COMPLETELY ABSURD reason, I said that I would like 1 kilo of ham. o.m.g. Obviously detecting my American accent, the stand owner confirmed, "Egy?" ("One kilo?"), and, without really thinking, I just said "Igen." ("Yes"). Well, as she continued to pile on the ham for what seemed like an eternity, I fought an inner battle with myself as to whether or not I should tell her to stop. But I couldn't bring myself to face that embarrassment, so I chose to be embarrassed instead by the enormous hunk of ham I was stuck carrying home on the tram. Needless to say, I'll be eating ham sandwiches, ham and cheese omelets, and possibly even ham-on-cereal for quite a while :/
Monday, September 14, 2009
Pics 2
Some of my new hungarian cat friends.
Nice and sweaty after a run up to The Lady!Pest vs. Buda.........no, I did not download these pictures off the internet; yes, this is a 10 minute run from my dorm :)
Pics 2
The Citadella a.k.a. The Lady and the view of Budapest from the hilltop
Gettin a little creative with the sunset shots on the lake....so beautiful!
Pics 2
A day in paradise! On the beach at Lake Balaton and watching the sunset from one of the piers...
Mom- thought you'd like to see some hungarian swans :)
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