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!
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