Arrival in Budapest

Although I am posting this at the same time as my final Israel update, for organizational reasons I am posting this separately.

In a slightly nerve wracking episode, my mom calls me after she got back to the US to tell me that my Saturday flight to Budapest had been cancelled. Uh… what???? I could either take a Friday flight or Sunday flight. As I have been really excited to get here for a while now, I went with the Friday flight but did not receive confirmation that I was on the flight until 34 hours before my flight left. I then did not know if BSM, my program, had received information about my flight change until 15 hours before my flight left. This all was a little scary to say the least. If I arrived in Budapest with no one to meet me, I would not have known where to go (I did not have my apartment address) or what to do. But luckily that was not the case.

I got to the airport at Tel Aviv super early Friday morning (try 3:30 AM Tel Aviv time, 2:30 AM Budapest time) and went to check my bags. Everything was going quickly until I ran into a major problem. My bags were very overweight. While I had called the airline and checked about luggage restrictions and learned that Malev (the Hungarian airline) only allows one carry on, the thought of only allowing one checked bag never crossed my mind. I was sure I could take 2 bags of 20 kg each. Yeah, no. I could take 20 kg TOTAL. That’s about 50 pounds. For 5 months. Yeah right. I tried saying I was coming from the US and studying in Budapest for 5 months and hadn’t known to no avail. My carry on baggage was also overweight (Malev allows 8 kg while every other airline basically allows 12 kg… let’s just say I’m not a fan of how Malev has different luggage restrictions than the rest of the world). I had my laptop bag inside my carry on suitcase so ended up just carrying on my laptop bag and checking my carry on suitcase- checking 3 bags. I had to pay $16 for each kg I was overweight- 25 kg. You do the math and try to imagine how happy I was that morning.

After that whole fiasco, I got super emotional. I learned my first abroad lesson. Anything that doesn’t go well while abroad becomes 100 times worse because then it brings on doubts about the whole abroad experience. The whole flight I was just ridiculously overwhelmed and emotional. I wanted to go home to the US, to the familiar. I was just so scared. I was greeted in Budapest and taken to my apartment (more on that later) and then left on my own. I wandered the streets near my apartment, managed to find my bank, exchanged money for what was not a great rate, decided I wanted to eat lunch and this led to being completely and totally overwhelmed yet again. Although I haven’t yet decided if I will stay vegetarian while in Budapest, I was not in a hurry to eat meat. So I wanted a vegetarian meal. Well, I speak no Hungarian, menus were only in Hungarian. Even fast food places with pictures of food left me with no clue what was in the picture. I didn’t have internet and couldn’t get in touch with anyone in my program so I was on my own, confused and hungry.

And then, I found a saving grace- an internet café. It could not have come at a better time. I went in and used the internet and even though I was just sending emails, not receiving emails, I felt much better being in touch with the familiar. My apartment does not have internet and I for some reason cannot connect to any of the nearby unprotected wireless networks. My landlady said we could get internet if we paid a slightly higher rent so I’m REALLY hoping my roommate will agree to that. I will just feel so lost and confused if I can’t have internet in my apartment- I need that connection to the familiar.

By pure and total luck, I was on the facebook group for my program minutes after a guy from my program had posted saying if anyone wanted to meet up they should message him with their phone number (the people who had my apartment before me had left a phone with my landlady which is now mine… wohoo). I of course messaged him and as he didn’t yet have a phone, a couple minutes of facebook message gave us a place to meet up. It was pretty lucky we were able to find each other. We agreed on a train station to meet at and described out coat colors to one another and that was all we had. But we met up! Things became so much better when I had someone to wander around with and talk to. We covered a good portion of the city near-ish to where we live by foot. There is a mall about 5 or 6 blocks from my apartment that we ate lunch at. It was a fancy, more expensive restaurant for Hungary but it had an English menu and I really needed that since I was feeling overwhelmed. But this expensive meal? Between $11 and $12 each, with tip. I am a fan of the price of things in Hungary (except for overweight luggage)! I really enjoyed seeing the snow (okay, there are just little piles of dirty snow in some places but it was really exciting for me) but I didn’t feel too cold, which is great news. I mean, it is pretty warm in Budapest this week for this time of year (somewhere in the low to mid 30s) but I’ll take it! The buildings in Budapest are amazing. So much old architecture. As it started to get dark, buildings and bridges were lit up, which was really beautiful. We got to walk along the river for a little bit. By the end of the day, I was starting to like the city. Even though everything was in a foreign language, with my map I could get around and it really was beautiful. We covered so much ground- I am so sore right now.

I had posted my phone number on the facebook group and got called by another girl who actually lives quite near me. She and I will meet up sometime this morning. Also, my roommate flies in early this afternoon. Now that I have someone else’s phone number and people to see and my roommate coming in, things feel much better. I will figure this city out and it will be fun! The people so far seem nice and we talked about math all over lunch. It does seem like CMC does math a little slower than other schools putting me at a lower level than other students, but that just means I won’t be taking the hardest classes. I do think I can do well in the lower level (for the program) classes.

Lastly, let me describe my apartment. I live on the 8^th floor of a big building not too far from the city center. It is quiet, a block off a main street, which is perfect for me. There is a 24 hour corner store across the street. A block down on the main street there is a market. It is similar to the Shuk in Israel. There are produce stands (and the produce does not seem expensive or bad, I didn’t think I’d be able to get fruits and vegetables in Budapest) and bakeries and candy shops and stands with basic toiletries. I have not yet found a regular grocery store, which I would like to find rather than going to one stand for fruits and vegetables, another for bread, etc. My apartment itself is pretty nice. There is a kitchen, bathroom, 2 bedrooms, and a balcony. It seems like it is supposed to be 1 bedroom and a living room because although both rooms have beds, one is much bigger and has the door to the balcony, a tv, a couch, and 2 lounge chairs. I took the smaller room because I wasn’t convinced I wanted my room to be the hangout room and I don’t need the tv and couch and all. The one problem is the smaller room has a doorway with no door. I will ask the landlady if we can get a door and if not I will put up a sheet or something. It already will not be the darkest or most private room because there are glass double doors between the two rooms so if one room has a light on, the others room will be fairly well lit up. I am sure we will make do, it just would be nice to have a door at the very least. I have not yet met my roommate, but I am not worried. Right now, I feel good about being here. The complete and total sense of being overwhelmed I was experiencing earlier has passed. I will be okay. In fact, I will probably even be great. There will be tough times but I will grow so much this semester, I’m sure of that.