Fun, Packed Week in Budapest

This week has been so much fun. Something exciting has happened after language school basically everyday this week! On Tuesday, we got student tickets for the Slovenian Philharmonic. They were $1 (plus $0.75 for coat check...) and supposed to be standing room but as the orchestra is not typically packed on a Tuesday night, we go to sit in fairly decent seats! It was awesome. You could go up on the terrace of the building and see the Buda Castle and the Danube. We also bought roasted chestnuts off the street, which was really fun! And we bought them in mostly Hungarian haha.

Wednesday night we had a Heath Ledger mourning party. The girls of the group organized this one- we made dinner and then watched 10 Things I Hate About You. It was great fun. Nicky, one of my friends here, brought a ton of movies so that will definitely be nice.

Thursday night was La Boheme at the opera. We bought $2 tickets and were told we wouldn't be able to see. As I did not think they would built an opera house with seats where you could not see, I did not believe this. Well, they did not lie. As the opera went on, people left and we moved down the row allowing us to see better but the subtitles were in Hungarian and I only saw part of the second half so next time I think we might splurge for the $8 or $9 tickets... Afterwards, I went with 3 others to watch Rent (again, Nicky's movie collection) since La Boheme is based on Rent. I have to admit, I enjoyed Rent a little more than the opera haha! On the tram back to watch Rent, it was completely packed and this one guy who is really tall had his hands in his pocket and when the tram started moving, he fell over onto this short little old woman and could not stop himself at all since his hands were in his pockets! Poor old woman... Then, when the tram stopped and someone had to get out, there were in the corner completely far away from the open door so we just shoved her through the crowd of people to get her out of the tram. It was hilarious- best public transportation experience so far, for sure!

They have the craziest method of clapping here, as I discovered at both the opera and orchestra. In the US, we clap constantly (clap clap clap clap) but here there's like a beat to clapping (clap...clap....clap...clap). They clap in unison with pauses between claps. It seems so weird to me! I never would've thought people could clap differently...

At language school yesterday, we had a scavenger hunt in Hungarian, which was pretty fun. I got pretty competitive... I couldn't help myself... but we had this impossible question (that took the judges like 20 minutes to deliberate) and we came in 2nd. Last night (Friday night), I had my first going out in Budapest experience. After dinner, myself and 3 others (the same group that watched Rent) decided to play some Beirut before going to the bar and it was a slaughter with myself and my partner winning, resulting in one guy becoming drunk very quickly! We then went to one bar, which was way too smoky, so then we went to a club to go dancing. It was so much fun! It was all American music (although probably not what they would play at an American club) and I had a great time going out dancing! The one issue with going out in Budapest is public transportation shuts down at around 11:30 PM and doesn't come back til close to 4:30 AM. The city is small so it is not a problem to walk places and luckily, a bunch of the people I have befriended (including 2 of the 3 I was out with last night) live really close to me so I got walked back to my apartment. It was really nice- there was like no one out near where we lived and we walked along the river and saw everything lit up at night. It was beautiful.

I am having a great time here. I am loving having all these opportunities to go to so many places. We are already talking about traveling. It is awesome because 2 of the people I have become close with (who live really near me) are taking many of the same classes as me so we will be a study group and travel together so we can do our homework all over Europe! I am really excited.