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.
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