My First Week (mostly without internet, hence the lumped entry)

Limited internet access is a bitch. But, I am still alive and enjoying Budapest.

Since I last posted, I have continued wandering around with a constantly increasing group of people as more and more people have been arriving. A student here for a full year (so he was here last semester) brought us a tea house where you order a type of tea (they probably have 200 types) and then just sit around and drink tea. We’ve already gone twice. It’s just a really cool, relaxing place. The second time we got our own room and had cushions on the floor to sit on and just sat around for hours, hiding from the cold. It could very likely become my favorite place in Budapest.

Some other places we explored include this park with a zoo and a circus and an ice skating rink (we still plan to go back to go ice skating), a museum of applied arts that had all sorts of handmade crafts like dishes and books and dresses and jewelry, parliament, St. Stephen’s Basilica, Buda Castle, labyrinths under Buda, and we hiked up a hill in Buda to get a great view of the Danube and Pest. It is fun being a tourist but also discovering a place I will spend a lot of time in- a sort of weird combination.

Things here are nice and cheap although more expensive then they were a year ago and therefore more expensive then we thought they would be. In my past few meals, most have been between $2 and $4. A more expensive meal where I ordered dessert too was about $8. We of course haven’t gone to expensive restaurants so there definitely are places with more American prices but you can also eat for really cheap here. Museum entrance prices usually are between $2 and $7. We also heard rumors today of student opera tickets for under $2. We need to investigate this more but it is definitely nice having these cheap opportunities around us.

On Wednesday we started Hungarian lessons. When they say intense survival Hungarian, they are not kidding about the intense thing. In 3 half days (and they become whole days after tomorrow), I feel like I have covered as much of a language as I did in a whole year of 7^th grade French. That being said, I still can’t really say anything. We’ve learned three verb conjugations, numbers, and some basic foods, jobs, and nationalities. The pronunciation of certain letters is weird. For example, cs makes a ch sound, sz makes an s sound, s makes a sh sound, zs makes a j sound, gy makes a d-ish sound. And the vowels… I can’t even tell you about the vowels… I’ve never been any good with foreign language pronunciation so it’s a struggle. But being in the country where the language is spoken while learning it does seem advantageous because you see things around. Like, I went to the store today and I saw the names of some of the fruits and vegetables we had just covered. And various words become obvious over time, like the word for open on store fronts and the word for push on doors. So, I definitely don’t think I will become fluent in Hungarian anytime soon but may be able to at least read labels on food to get the gist of what I’m buying… hopefully, at least.

Speaking of food, that’s one of the biggest adventures for me here- living on my own. Well, yes I have a roommate, but I have never had to feed myself or anything like that. There’s always been a parent or a dining hall taking care of that. But now I either need to go out or cook myself something. I have eaten most of my meals out but things here take a while- dinner out last night took 2 ½ hours. Which was fine for last night but won’t work out so great once classes start. So far, I have stuck with really basic things- canned tomato soup, pasta, peanut butter and jelly. But most prepackaged foods here are relatively expensive. Also, I have only found canned soups are Tesco, which is not that nearby. Otherwise, there are soups in a bag that I think you just add water to but of course I can’t read the instructions and can’t even tell what type of soups they are. It is definitely going to be interesting figuring out to feed myself while being unable to tell what a lot of foods are and how to prepare a lot of foods I can buy.

The worst thing that I have experiences so far is internet trouble. My infrequent posting has had nothing to do with lack of desire to post. Our internet in our apartment was installed Wednesday evening and worked fine for a little while and then stopped working. My roommate’s then went back to working while mine continued not to work, no matter what I did. I finally called the landlord this morning and he came over this evening, unplugged it, plugged it back in, and it immediately worked again. For an hour. (I am actually currently typing this in word, intending to post it later when I can.) Again, my internet stopped working after a little while. I followed the instructions my landlord gave me about unplugging and plugging back in about 3 or 4 times to no avail. I will have to call him in the morning and tell him the same thing happened again. It is a real hassle. Internet is my way of communicating with my family and friends and I feel really isolated without it. It has really been stressing me out not having regular internet access. I feel really bad bothering my landlord about it AGAIN but I really need internet. It is also a hassle because he will estimate a time that he can be here and both times with the internet he has been late (90 minutes once, 30 minutes the other time) and that means I need to stay in the apartment and wait for him while other BSM students are out and about, enjoying themselves. But, I desperately need internet so I guess that’s the prices I have to pay. Hopefully, he comes by tomorrow and this gets fixed for good.

Update as am I posting this: I called my landlord, he said try again. So when I was home, I tried again and it wasn't working. Then, all of a sudden, I looked down at my computer and it was connected. I actually think when it first became connected, the wireless router was technically unplugged. I don't get it at all but I will go with it and hopefully it will last. Please, please put a prayer into the internet god for me. My sanity will greatly improve with constant internet access. I've been a little homesick and having internet will help me out with that a lot.