Combatting Homesickness and Discovering New Culture

On Friday night I decided to go shoe shopping with my friend Nancy. We found so many amazing shoes, but I didn’t buy any because I couldn’t decide which pair I liked the best. Then we went out for Hungarian food. We ate this veggie and cheese crepe that was a total dream, and I had some chicken paprikash that was so tender it just fell off the bone. The restaurant was in a touristy area, but it was a very good choice. Hanging out with Nancy was amazing. I was really tired and had had a bit of a rough week. When you’re homesick and tired of simple things like grocery shopping being hard you start to wonder why you you went abroad in the first place. (Or in the words of Hana when she found out I couldn’t find any black beans in Hungary, “I just like America”). Nancy spent her summer working in China, and it’s interesting to see how her perspective on being in Hungary now is shaped by that. Something she and I both agree on is that being abroad and traveling the world gives you an important global perspective. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to experience the world, and humble to acknowledge that it’s not always fun tourism. 

Saturday was a bit more of fun tourism when I got together with some friends to go to the candy festival at Buda Castle. I ate a chocolate mousse tower, tried chocolate stout, had a bit of chocolate filled with palinka (it’s like Hungarian whiskey), and ate some yummy sheep cheese. Stuffed with treats we all wandered home to take afternoon naps and get ready to explore some of the city’s bars and clubs. I ended up with Nancy, Laura, and Kirsten at a club called Doboz (which translates to box in Hungarian). It was a circle of boxy rooms with bars, dance floors, and quieter rooms with tables around. We had a lot of fun dancing to the hilarious mix of mostly American music from the last two decades.

On Sunday I finally found some Indian food when I went out to dinner with some friends. I ate samosas, chicken vindaloo, and naan and missed familiar food a little less. One good thing about being from the “melting pot” country is that sometimes food from home is just international food and it’s not so hard to find. I hear there’s also a good Mexican restaurant near me and I’m dying for my friend Kendell to take me. 

On Monday I went to the Gellert baths to get a massage and go swimming. Other than getting yelled at for not wearing a cap over my hair in one of the pools it was a great time. I went in the morning so it was me and a bunch of old people, but it was still peaceful to just sit in an old stone hot tub for a while. 

On Tuesday I went to see a contemporary dance at the Tráfo House of Contemporary art. It was based on a Hungarian poem I haven’t read, but that wasn’t necessary to enjoy the performance. The show itself is pretty difficult to accurately describe, but I’ll try. There was a man and a woman who danced both together and separately. The center of the stage had a big screen where lights, animations and changing art were projected. It was really cool because the dancers interacted with the screen and projected their shadows on it sometimes. Or they’d dance and a pattern would be projected over their bodies. It sounds weird, but it was honestly one of the coolest dance productions I’ve ever seen. It also showed me after all this time spent wishing I could just teleport back home to grab some groceries and hug my mom that this foreign place isn’t always too different from home. When you take things like dancing, art, and music you can transcend cultures and bring people together. The show was amazing.

The only real highlight from Wednesday was finally writing the first round of post cards and getting on the phone with my fav brother Jamesy. With different time zones and busy schedules it’s hard to keep in touch with my dearest friends, and family, but I’m doing my best. If you miss me, I can almost guarantee I miss you too so please feel free to email or Facebook message me any time. 

A poem that explains how I’m feeling about the overwhelming mix of awe, excitement, happiness, sadness, fear, and exhaustion I feel consistently in different concentrations:

Every cup half empty 

Is half full

And every half full cup

is half empty.

Emptiness remains in all moments

of optimism and pessimism.

Sometimes emptiness consumes 

us and steals

Happiness out from under 

our feet

Like how the strongest wind 

Can knock a house over.

I’m here! I’m here.

But, sometimes I’m empty

And I could be empty 

Anywhere

But I’m here

And, I’ll be full

Here too 

Soon. 

A Twist of Fate - Learning Hungarian Officially

This week was a little rough. It felt like one bad thing after another was bound to happen to me. It started on Tuesday when I realized as I was missing the 4th Hungarian class that I was required to take Hungarian. It’s really my fault for not knowing that in the first place, but I have a serious bone to pick with the Office of International Study at Wellesley College being super unclear about their requirements. They have an online “handbook” but it’s basically useless and tells you to talk to your department head (who never once told me I needed to take Hungarian). For those of you who remember how bad I was (or at least believed I was) at Spanish, you can imagine I was so shocked and scared to start Hungarian behind. For most of Tuesday I had a seriously bad attitude about it. Luckily, I met with the extremely nice professor, went to the first class, and ended up having a great time. Truth is, Hungarian is kinda an awesome language.

After class on Tuesday a few of us went to visit a “beach” on the Danube a little North of school. The beach was more like a rocky area with some lawn chairs, but there was a cute little food hut (with some of the best quesadillas ever), and a great view of the “Chuck Norris” bridge. The bridge isn’t actually called the Chuck Norris bridge, but got that name after the Hungarian government decided to let people vote online for what to name it. Naturally someone suggested Chuck Norris and voting for him started to be so frequent it crashed the site. So, Chuck Norris won obviously (Chuck Norris can’t even lose honestly), but the Hungarian Gov wasn’t cool enough to name the bridge Chuck Norris officially so it’s actual name is Megyeri Bridge. At least that's the story I was told. However, according to Wikipedia, Chuck Norris lost to Stephen Colbert (so my tour guide lied to me a couple weeks ago). In any case, this story is hilarious and true I’m afraid. I guess it also proves that Americans leave nothing left sacred. Wiki says Colbert wasn’t allowed to have the bridge named after him because he wasn’t dead and didn’t speak Hungarian. Maybe if I learn Hungarian they’ll name a bridge after me when I die… We’ll have to wait and see ;)

On Wednesday I was ready to throw another pity party after realizing I had lost my student pass for the metro. Of course I can buy a new one, but it seems like a waste of money. Luckily the day was saved by some off brand Nutella, Ultimate frisbee, and a snap decision to wake up in the middle of the night to watch the GOP debate with Megan and Julie. I could barely keep my eyes open during the debate, but what I saw was entertaining enough to be worth it.

On Thursday I was pretty tired, so I just stayed at home all day intermittently napping and doing homework. Then I went to graph theory and to play frisbee. I’m starting to realize that you could argue that I’m not getting enough of a cultural experience by spending all my time playing frisbee, and doing math and CS; however, I went to parliament this week, started taking Hungarian, and have grand plans to continue exploring this city over the weekend (let’s just say there’s a candy festival happening). 

Lots of my friends in my program are traveling to places like Prague and Brussels this weekend, and I thought I’d travel a lot when I got here too. But, I’ve begun to realize that I kind of like spending most of my time in Budapest. I did book tickets to go to Madrid/Cordoba and Copenhagen in late October to see some friends from Wellesley. So maybe that’s exploration enough. There are so many amazing cities to see across Europe and of course I would love to explore them all, but my semester abroad isn’t a backpacking trip and I want to feel like Budapest is a kind of home soon. 

Between trying to stay up to catch the debate and playing frisbee this week I’m exhausted. It’s going to be a battle to convince myself that Netflix and sleep are not better than wandering around this city’s cool ruin pubs tonight. This weekend’s plans are still a little up in the air, but there’s talk of exploring caves, eating chocolate, and going to a nearby town called Eger. In any case I’ll update you on what I actually did later. Oh, and as for post cards I have them but don’t know how to send them yet. I’ll probably figure that out on Monday before or after I visit a museum. 

First I ought to confirm that I was in fact drinking wine and eating bread with brie and ridiculing the GOP debate on Wednesday. My friends and I were also discussing how we don’t really understand how socially conservative people exist. And, I was seriously offended by Mike Huckabee’s defense of the Kentucky Clerk that argued that if we let terrorists grow beards in prison then we should let religious people oppress the gays. Excellent. At least the wine was there to take most of the sting away. 

On the note of queer people, I miss Wellesley. This week I took a buzzfeed quiz (arguably my favorite pastime) that told me the seven sister’s school I should attend was Wellesley and it only made me miss it more. What I really miss is the feeling like I can just be unapologetically myself. I think I am one of very few queer girls amongst at least a couple closet homophobes here at my study abroad program. In my head it feels like I have green skin or something. I suppose I could make things easier for myself by shaving my armpits and cutting down on all the queer feminist talk, but those things are pieces of myself I shouldn’t have to let go. I’m not trying to say I have an abnormal attachment to my armpit hair, but I am saying it’s amazing to never shave. I recommend every woman tries it. Think of never buying or using another razor again. It occasionally feels like a constant battle against the patriarchy, but I think I’m winning. 

I can’t really shake the feeling that none of the people here really want to hang out with me, but I think it’s in my head. I’m a reasonably smart, nice, and pretty girl who’s generally good at making friends. I just feel like I don’t wanna make a lot of new friends right now. I want my old friends who I don’t have to explain so much of my life to. I want to be around people who just love and understand me. This attitude is probably my reaction to how much I loved the other interns I worked with this summer and just as I was getting truly comfortable with all of them the summer ended. I have to swallow the dread that’ll happen again and just make friends. I know it’ll be ok, but I’ve just got get out of my own head I guess. 

On a happier note, the guy who coaches my frisbee team on Thursday is one of the most attractive men I’ve ever spoken to. I have a bad habit of forming school girl crushes on good frisbee players, but I’m just hoping my affection for him will turn into wanting to be better and work harder. Then I’ll be an awesome frisbee player when I show back up at Wells. 

Also, a poem I wrote while sitting at the river this week.

Almost Sunset

The music is good

But hey guys when do 

You want to leave?

I don’t belong here.

Maybe I don’t belong anywhere around here

But I’ve got

To Try.

So what if I pretend

I’m an Introvert

Fall into my own head

As I dream about how pretty it looks to see

The sun set over the 

Danube

And how the lines of green 

On the tops of trees

Bleed into the sky

Hoping to be a part of the sunset too

But always rooted too deep

Attached to the earth instead.

Wine Weekend

On Friday after my classes ended I went to get macarons with some other AIT students, went grocery shopping, and then went out to dinner and to taste wine with my friend Megan. We got a little lost looking for the wine tasting bar and wandered around Litz Ferenc Tér. We ended up at this really cheap and delicious traditional Hungarian restaurant for dinner and I ate fried mushrooms, chicken paprikash, and mashed potatoes. Hungarian food probably makes people fat, but it can be really delicious. I’m starting to really miss Indian and Chinese food though, so I’ve begun to research where I can find some good takeout. After dinner we went to a wine bar called Kadarka and tried a couple different wines each. Megan tried a couple dry white wines and I tried a spicy rosé and a siller wine (both were pink if that translates better). It was really fun to pick and taste from such a large menu, and each glass was so cheap! 

On Saturday I decided to some homework and eat at this adorable cafe Zoska around the corner. I ate fruit and a ham and cheese sandwich while trying to prove facts about distributive and ortho-lattices for my Quantum probability and logic course (which is already impossibly difficult, but fascinating). Eventually I gave up on my proofs and walked to get gelato with Megan. Then I went home to get ready to go watch the opera Carmen. The opera was at the Erkel theater just down the road from me. It was beautiful and in French with Hungarian subtitles. I made up what was happening in my head since I couldn’t understand a thing. I focused primarily on the beautiful voices and music. It was a contemporary adaptation of the original and there were a couple of scenes with what I can only describe as pom pom girls twerking. That was probably the most entertaining thing to me because it seemed a little ridiculous, but I was worried it was rude that I started laughing. From talking to the other students who came with me I found out that Carmen was a promiscuous gypsy who was in love with a bull fighter and running from the police. One police officer ends up setting her free after she’s arrested in the second act and then runs off with her and the gypsies. Then the police dude kills Carmen in the last act after she refuses his proposal to marry her (presumably because she was in love with the bull fighter dude). Obviously there are holes in my understanding, so if you’d really like to get a synopsis of the Opera Carmen I suggest wikipedia. And if you’d like to see it I’m sorry I spoiled the ending…

On Sunday I went to city park near Hero’s Square to toss frisbees with Megan, and our new friends Nancy and Kendall. After frisbee we wandered around to find lunch. We chose to eat at this delicious pizza place and then Megan and I set off to go to a wine festival at Buda Castle. The wine festival was amazing. I spent around $30 USD on a wine glass, entry to the Budapest history museum, 8 glasses of wine, 3 types of cheese, and langos. It was a wonderful afternoon of trying wine from all over Europe, and French cheese. I ate this soft goat cheese with chives in it that I definitely dreamt about last night. I also had the best wine! The coolest types I tried were a white Pinot Noir (which is cool because Pinot Noir is generally a red wine), and a golden Azuz Cuvee wine (not really the right name but it was basically a super delicious rich and sweet dessert wine). We had a lot of fun rating the wines and trying all different types. I tried so many it’s hard to really recall my favorite, but I definitely left with a much better idea of what different types of wine taste like and what I like. 

I don’t have class on Mondays, so today I woke up to do homework and visit the Hungarian Parliament Building. I met up with three other girls in my study abroad program and we went on one of the guided tours. The building was built in the late 19th century, had marble walls, and gold-painted ceilings. The gold was real, so they say the air’s very expensive inside. We got to see the main staircase leading in to the parliament room, the coronation artifacts from past Hungarian kings, statues of Hungarian kings, a hand-woven carpet that took 14 million people to make (and they let us stand on it!), and lots of stained-glass windows. The windows were the originals which is amazing given how much Hungary was bombed during WWII. They were preserved by someone with the foresight to take all the windows out and store them in the cellars during the war. That must have been hard work since the building was huge boasting something like 700 rooms. Of course they only showed us maybe 3 rooms on the tour, but it was still quite magnificent. I’m very happy I went and if you’re ever in Budapest you should go too. I also bought postcards, so get excited to receive them! (If you haven’t already told me you want one just let me know any time, make sure I have your address, and I’ll send you one). 

First Week of School - Falling Asleep in Class

The jury’s still out on whether or not I’m narcoleptic. Orientation this weekend was amazing since we toured around the city; however, I haven’t quite re-realized what it feels like to not be exhausted. One could argue that I don’t know what an exhaustion-less life feels like if you watched me sleep from 6PM to 6AM voluntarily as a child. I guess I’m always tired. This week I’ve been especially tired from things like adjusting to this time zone, meeting tons of new people, and getting back in to the habit of coursework. I’ve fallen asleep in class, a lot. A few times it was due to me being pretty bored, but on Monday after classes I went home to take a 5 hour nap so you could say I may have had a spot of jet lag or something. Aside from constantly wanting to sleep, this week has been really nice. 

On Monday I went to my Quantum Probability and Logic class and then a class on Hungarian Music. I really wanted to take the class on Hungarian Music since I believe it’s important to get a good taste of the culture surrounding me. Unfortunately, classical music puts me to sleep better than a day of playing ultimate frisbee so I decided to drop that class and take Monday as a “museum day” instead. I’ll make up my own Hungarian culture class. It’ll be great, and include lots of Gelato eating. My first step towards my version of a Hungarian culture class was finally trying Lángos on Monday after class. Lángos is kind of like a Hungarian Indian taco. It’s fried potato dough covered in garlic, sour cream, and cheese. It’s delicious. It was also gigantic, so I didn’t eat the entire thing, but I did slowly discover how to eat Lángos without getting sour cream all over your hands, face, and shirt. 

On Tuesday I had classes all day and spent my time at AIT. I ate Hungarian meatloaf (not my favorite) and some other food at the school’s cafe, took tons of notes, fell asleep in some classes, and went home to crash. On Wednesday I had two classes with a giant break in between. I woke up early, determined to get a photo for my residence permit, tried to use the photo booth at the subway station, and ended up with the machine eating 1000 forints and returning no photos. I was afraid I would have to skip frisbee Wednesday night to track down another photo booth, but was kindly informed by a friend that the grocery store Auchan (it’s like a Hungarian Walmart) had a photo booth. So, I ran over there, took my photos, and felt accomplished. Then I played frisbee and went to bed to get up early to go to the immigration office this morning. Once I got to the AIT meeting spot I realized I forgot the stupid photos and had to take them again once I got to the immigration office. Then I waited around for a million years and finally filed to legally stay in Hungary for the semester. 

I didn’t have class again until 4, so I went home to gather my stuff and ate lunch at this fancy restaurant in Astoria. I had some sort of truffle risotto and Belgian chocolate cheesecake with raspberry sauce. I then jumped on the train to school and promptly fell into a food coma. 

Budapest is great and I’m so excited for this weekend when I’ll go to see the Opera Carmen, try out some new bars, and catch up on some sleep. I’m a little homesick and a lot exhausted, but it’s ok. I’m hoping that soon I’ll be almost entirely adjusted and used to everything from the buses and trains to the grocery stores and food. 

Facts, Friends, and Fatigue

I’ve been in Budapest 4 days. When I think about it that way I get a little shocked. By how much I’ve seen and how tired I am I feel like I’ve been here at least 2 weeks. I’m exhausted, but excited about how much you can pack in to an afternoon here and how much I will get to see/experience this semester. Today we had more orientation where we listened to more professors discuss their courses, and toured the Pest side of the city. We saw Hero Square, discussed how the streets of Pest were laid out, saw a giant concrete slab area that turns into a giant outdoor ice skating rink in the winter, walked through the city’s center, learned about the Parliament building, heard about how communist Hungary affected the area, saw many statues/monuments (including a really cool one of Ronald Reagan), walked passed the US Embassy, and saw St. Stephen’s Basilica.

My tour guide today was very animated and taught me a lot of Hungarian history. The most striking things were about communism in Hungary and about St. Stephen’s Basilica. The Basilica is striking because of its architecture. An untrained eye like mine just sees a beautiful old church, and of course it is that too, but it is also has a fascinating eclectic architecture due to the first and second architecture each dying before they finished and finally leaving it to a third to complete. Each architect fancied a different style of architecture and added their’s to the mix. 

We were told both personal and general history stories of Hungary’s time behind the Iron Curtain today which I found horrifying and shocking. We drove passed the KGB’s house of terror on our tour which is where the Russians used to torture people with dissenting opinions or just locked them up until they could kill them. Many of the people fighting against the Soviet Regime here were young boys under 18, and there was a law you could not kill children. So, some were locked up for 3-4 years before death on their 18th birthdays in the early morning. Our tour guide said his mother, even after the Russians left, refused to pass in front of the House of Terror and would cross the street a block in front and behind to avoid it (when she walked in front she could hear the cries of people being tortured). Surely the House of Terror represents pain and suffering here in Hungary, but I want to go tour it to further understand just what these strong people survived. In 1956 the Soviets had been in Germany for around 11 years and people were tired of them. Thousands of Hungarians started a peaceful protest out front of the parliament building to demand that the Russians give back their country. The response by the KGB police was to shoot machine guns down into the crowd from the rooftops. Hundreds of people died and to remember they’ve added large steel spheres to represent the bullets that killed those people to the pillars of the building across the square from parliament. This subtle remembrance of tragedy is starting to seem like a trend in Hungary after I heard about the city putting the Russia statues together in a park, making a museum out of an old torture house, and putting metal shoes along the Danube River where Jews were shot by Nazis during WWII. There has been so much painful history in this city where governments take over and oppress the people that I suppose they were forced to find a tactful and powerful way to remember and teach the history around them. I have a lot of respect for what I have learned about Budapest’s preservation of their history; especially since 60% of the city was destroyed in WWII and what was rebuilt was destroyed again by the Russians in the 1950s when the Hungarians tried a revolution. Remarkably the opera house has outlived all destruction. I cannot wait to see an opera there.

Everything I’ve learned about Communist Hungary sounds scarring for this city, but somehow they have at least a slight sense of humor about it. When Hungary became free again they began to move all symbols of communism to one place to keep it for historical reasons, but still remove it from their culture. There is one Russian monument in front of the US Embassy that remains an unwanted symbol of communism in Budapest. For diplomatic reasons the government doesn’t have permission to officially move it; however, they still prevent it from taking any notion of freedom from them. The monument is mostly hidden by small trees and shrubs planted around it, but what’s really quite funny is that they asked the US for a statue of Ronald Reagan to put facing the Russian monument. So, now there’s a mini recap of the cold war right here in Budapest just a stone’s throw from the US Embassy. If you can’t already tell this city’s making me like history more. 

Budapest is also making me like dogs more. There are so many beautiful dogs just wandering around. Their owners just let them off the leashes and they play in the city. It's amazing. There's a park right in front of the US embassy where we saw a ton of dogs playing. I didn't get any good pictures of them, but made a note I needed to go back and make friends with someone who owned a dog. 

Our tour guide pointed out a place to get really good strudel, so after our tour some of us walked over there to try it. I got an apple poppy seed flavored one, and it reminded me of baklava, apple pie, and canolis because it was flaky like the outer part of baklava, had an apple-y taste like apple pie filling, but also the consistency and some of the richer taste of a canoli. It may have had ricotta in it, but I have no clue. I’m glad I tried it, but I think I’ll stick to the gelato. 

 

After pastries I met up with my dear old pal Megan for dinner. It had only been a couple days since I saw her, but it still felt like too long. We wandered around the city center for a while, saw a really good Hungarian acapella group performing on the street (at one point they sang the Beach Boy’s Barbara Ann), and picked out a place to eat dinner. We ate a a place that served sushi, soup, salad, pasta, and fried rice. The menu was overwhelming and diverse in the same way the Cheesecake factory’s is. Megan ate this yummy gingery turkey and rice, and I ate creamy salmon pasta. I also drank the “iced tea” which was super different from tea at home, but quite delicious anyway. We sat outside and got cold, but the restaurant had blankets for us. It was a bit more expensive than most Hungarian restaurants since it was in a tourist area, but they gave me a blanket so I didn’t mind :) The company was pretty wonderful too! I knew it would be invaluable to have Megan in Budapest with me, but I’m only starting to truly benefit from and appreciate having someone from so close to home here to experience the city with me. Our friend Maddie comes to visit in a couple weeks and it’s only going to get more fun.

Classes start tomorrow and I’m very excited. My first class is Quantum Probability and Computing and second is Hungarian Music. I’m done with class at 1, so my plan is to spend the afternoon in a museum and continue to explore this remarkable new home I have. If I keep busy then I won't have time to be tired I hope.