A blog about Sweeney and I backpacking around Costa Rica...but we're not doing that anymore...so now it's a blog about me studying abroad in Hungary...actually I'm not doing that anymore but I'm backpacking around Peru for a month before I start work
Today started out with me missing the train. I got there as it was leaving. I rode after it on the path next to the tracks but was stopped by some guy working on the tracks and yelled at in Hungarian. I kept riding until a loudspeaker came out of nowhere and started yelling at me again in Hungarian. I went back to the station and got a ticket for an indirect train through Székesfehérvár that left in an hour and would get me to Balatonfüred one hour after Sarah and Elin.
I don’t have an excuse. I have a problem. I am sick of being late for everything. It’s not fair to everyone who is a victim of my tardiness. It’s personally embarrassing and obscures my better qualities from people who don’t know me well. I can’t tell you how stupid I felt watching the train leaving with Sarah and Elin and without me. So I am saying it here-this is the end. I’m done with my “show up late for things” lifestyle. It would be ridiculous to say that I will never ever be late for something again in my life. I know that it will happen. But I am done with being a “late person.” I know that I have said this before but I mean it this time. I’m actually a little glad I missed the train because I know that this will be the catalyst for a change in my life. Though Sarah and Elin weren’t really mad at me, I was furious at myself and was quite embarrassed. Seriously, it will be different from now on.
Biking to Keszthely
When I got in at 10 we started biking toward Keszthely. One of the early stops we made was in Tihany. The view there was beautiful.
At first the trail was pretty close to Lake Balaton but after a while it went way out into the country. It was a little hilly but not too bad. Plus the weather was great so we had a picnic.
Most of the day was spent just riding bike. It was a really long but fun ride and the countryside was absolutely gorgeous.
About 6 or 7 miles outside of Keszthely Elin’s front tire went flat. I tried fixing it but couldn’t get the tread off. Ya, I know, I wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders this weekend...maybe it is time for a little break from so much traveling (this being the 7th weekend in a row). Anyway, luckily there was a family nearby that had a truck and was able to fit the bike in it. They drove both Sarah and Elin’s bike to Keszthely. Very nice people! Elin and I rode to Keszthely and got in around sunset. After riding all over the whole town trying to find the hostel (and getting directions from several people pointing in several directions) we all met up again. Jannick and Tiffany took the train to Keszthely and met us at the hostel.
After cleaning up and relaxing a little (we probably rode around 45 miles or so) we went to an outdoor pizza/bar place. Lake Balaton is mainly a summer vacation place for Hungarians and Germans so there are a lot of outdoor areas to eat and drink. Also, many of the people who live there speak German because of all the German tourists in the summer. I think that, without really thinking too much about it, we came at the perfect time. It wasn’t that crowed since it was just April but the weather was still great (70-75 degrees).
The Brazilians went to bed early last night since they had to catch the bus at 8 from Centraal Station to Eindhoven Airport. I decided that I would wake up at the same time and go see some other parts of the Netherlands, most specifically the tulip fields the guy had told me about at the hostel the day before. I went to bed early too but couldn’t fall asleep because I was so excited about the next day. I really love those days where you are always moving and see a bunch of things and I knew that today would be one.
The Plan
The plan for today was to take the train to Haarlem. The guy at Bob’s Hostel who told me about the flower fields said that from here I could take a bus to get out to the flower fields. However, someone else told me about renting a bike and riding there (maybe 15km). This is what I was planning on doing. After visiting the fields I was planning on riding back to Haarlem and maybe taking the train to Rotterdam (or some other Dutch city) to see what the Netherlands are like outside of Amsterdam.
Haarlem
After a large breakfast (how big days begin) I took the train to Haarlem (about 15 minutes from Amsterdam). I planned on just renting a bike in Haarlem and biking to the tulip fields but Haarlem was actually a really pretty town and I spent a while roaming around checking out some of the cool buildings and such.
Off to Lisse
The town that the Keukenhof Gardens are in/near is called Lisse so I started biking in that direction. Biking is really popular and easy in the Netherlands. There are a lot of bike lanes and people bike everywhere. Also, almost everyone speaks English (usually pretty well) and there are a lot of friendly people so it is easy to get directions.
The Dutch countryside is beautiful. It is very green, which reminded me of Ireland.
Planning on just grabbing some food and leaving, I stopped in a restaurant Hillegom (a small town on the way to Lisse). The only people in the restaurant were the person working there (Tinakay...I don’t know about that spelling) and a guy who was sitting by the gambling machine named George who was either her husband, a regular or both. I never asked. They were really friendly. When I ordered a second coke (I couldn’t resist, it was from a glass bottle!) George bought it for me. I stayed and talked with them for a hour (or two? I don’t know; time flies). George told me some intersting things; one is the words in Dutch and German are the same (spelling and pronounciation) but have different meanings. Also, he told me that he thinks more Americans should learn foreign languages so that they can be more accomodating to tourists who visit. He said that in the Netherlands they learn English and try to accommodate for English-speaking visitors. In America they do not. I agree with him that it would be good for more Americans to learn foreign languages but not for that reason. The chance that you can use a foreign language other than Spanish in the U.S. is very low. It just doesn’t make sense to learn Dutch and sit around waiting for some Dutch tourists to come so you can use skills. Also, so much of the world speaks English and tourists who come to the U.S. will probably come speaking English. It’s rare that you will be walking down the street and hear a little Dutch and be able to jump in. Also, I think that George has a huge economic benefit in learning English and that this is probably the main reason he learned it. Either way, nice guy. Keukenhof Tulip Gardens
The tulip gardens were really beautiful.
I don’t really know if it is worth it to pay the 13.50 or whatever it is to go in the gardens. Inside, it is just a bunch of different flowers. I was all about seeing the big rows of tulips (like you see above). These are outside of the gates so you don’t have to pay for this part. Inside is this kind of stuff:
Probably worth it for people who are really hardcore about flowers. Rotterdam
When I got back to Haarlem it was maybe 7:30 and after I turned my bike in I went to the ticket counter at the train station. Rotterdam was about an hour away from Haarlem and a little more from Amsterdam. Going to Rotterdam would cost at least 15 more Euros and I would only be able to spend a couple of hours there if I wanted to come back at a reasonable hour, which I determined was 1am since I had to wake up early the next morning. I walked around and debated it for a few minutes but finally just said, “What the hell!” You only live once, right?
Rotterdam wasn’t that exciting and I only ended up staying for maybe an hour and a half.
Rotterdam is a very nice, new and modern city but the downtown was kind of dead. Either way I am glad that I went because it was totally different than Amsterdam. Actually, out of all of the places I have visited I think it felt the most like a U.S. city. I don’t know why but it just felt that way.
Two interesting things did happen:
-I met a Hungarian working at McDonald’s who, when I told him that I lived in the Astoria area of Budapest, said, “oh man, that isn’t such a great area.” He also said that he hasn’t been back in so long that he “doesn’t know his country anymore.” Wow, things must really change around here because I have to say Astoria is definitely considered a pretty decent area here. Nothing fancy but pretty fun and safe. It’s interesting because it kind of reminded me that we are living in an area of the world that is still rapidly changing. It couldn’t have been that long ago that he was here since he didn’t look very much older than maybe 25 or 30 and he grew up in Hungary.
-I met some Greek girls by the statues in the above picture. They were studying abroad in Rotterdam and asked where I was from. I told them to guess. I gave it to them after four guesses because they were getting close with Great Britain. I still can’t believe the guesses they made:
1) The Netherlands 2) Germany 3) Sweden 4) The UK
For a guy who always sticks out as American this was pretty funny :)
Back to the Hostel
Tired and ready to get a goodnight sleep. As I am about to get ready for bed, one of the three Spanish guys staying in the room asked me what kind of music I like. I told I really like just about everything except really dramatic, middle-schoolish R&B. He then randomly asked me, “do you listen to the Killers?” This was the end of my chances of getting to bed early. These three Spanish guys were obsessed with the Killers and we spent almost an hour and a half talking about exclusively about the Killers (we talked about Green Day for a couple of minutes). They went to a Killers concert in Spain and showed me some video of it. Too bad they are playing in the U.S. right now and will be in Europe when I am back in the U.S.
We woke up today at about 9:30 so I ended up getting around 9 and half hours of sleep! Wow do I feel great!
There was a Mexican guy staying in our room who was pretty cool and he told me about a place with some awesome tulip fields. He said that him and his girlfriend (she’s Italian but they both are currenlty living in Spain) went there and it was pretty nice. He told me basically how to get there and I think that maybe tomorrow, when all the others fly back, I will go there.
At breakfast I talked with a German guy and he seemed surprised when I said I think it is interesting how Europe is such an old place but Germany is kind of new as a country (have been fragmented until the late 1800s). He said that he thought that Americans don’t know anything about history (or anything for that matter). Sure there are some Americans who don’t know anything about history and such. Is that sad? Sure it is. It’s almost as sad as when someone from Europe thinks that the American tourists they meet and the actors they see on t.v. are what all 300 million of us are like. Seriously, there are so many great people in America. How come more of them don’t go and visit Europe?
We had to check out of Bob’s Hostel because we had a place booked for tonight. I didn’t want to leave. That bed was amazingly comfortable and more importantly, warm! Supposedly we were supposed to leave our mark in our room:
Shelter City Hostel
Next we made our way to Shelter City, which was one stop out of the city center on the subway. It looks like a pretty nice hostel. Here’s a view out of the window:
Another hot shower...finally...I am warm!
I need to find the name of this park
Next we went to a big park in Amsterdam that some people told us was cool. It was a pretty large park and so we just walked around for a while and relaxed.
Nemo Science Museum
We then walked through the Waterloo District (people told us this was supposed to be cool but actually it didn’t seem so special) to Nemo Science Museum.
It was pretty cool but it was mainly a kids museum. I wouldn’t pay 15 Euros or whatever to go there. More Pictures
We walked around for a few more hours taking pictures. Here are some of the best:
Last night was awful. Though the day was really warm, the night cooled off very quickly. Outside of the city where we were was even colder. We weren’t really prepared to camp, we just saw the weather was supposed to be warm and that we were going to sleep in a hut-like thing and figured we would be fine. Man, were we wrong. Here is what are beds were like:
No blankets...also there was no heater in the hut. The insulation wasn’t very good either because it was pretty much the same temperature as the outside...which probably got down to 40 or 50 degrees. I ended up sleeping (or at least trying to) with two t-shirts, a long-sleeved jean shirt, a polo and my fleece curled up in a ball. We didn’t bring coats because it was supposed to be warm! I know this is all our fault but man, it was pretty rough.
We all woke up still shivering and exhausted since we barely slept. We then all took warm showers which interestingly enough you had to buy special coins to use! Ya, I know what luck...otherwise I would have stayed in there for hours.
Finding another hostel
We got up early not just because we couldn’t really sleep but also because we needed to find a hostel for the next night since every place we checked beforehand for Saturday night was either full or full for reservations (but had a little space left for walk-ins). We were planning on asking the if the Bostel had open spaces but changed our minds based on how the previous night went! Once we were downtown again, we went straight to Bob’s Youth Hostel since we called them a few days before to put in a reservation there but they were full except for some places for walk-ins. We were able to get five spots. They were in three different rooms but didn’t matter to us all...we were just glad to find a warm bed! I then took another shower...a long, hot one! It was great because afterward I was so warm that I started wearing only two shirts and a fleece!
Marijuana Museum
Gabriel and I went to the Marijuana Museum (the others didn’t want to go). I don’t really know much about drugs so it was pretty interesting. They had a display about smuggling that was pretty cool. It showed some of the things that people have done to smuggle drugs (and probably still do). Here are some pictures of their methods!
There was also stuff about medical marijuana and drug policy (mainly comparing the Netherlands with the U.S.) which I found the most interesting.
I don’t know if these stats are legit but they are disturbing!
One thing that was really confusing was this:
I’m not really sure how you tax something that is illegal...
They also had marijuana growing in the back. After long and hard consideration I decided to not put the picture of me standing in front of the glass outside the room (you couldn’t go in but could take pictures). I thought about putting a disclaimer on the picture that said, “THIS PHOTO IS FROM THE MARIJUANA MUSEUM IN AMSTERDAM” but decided that not much good can come from a picture of me standing in front of a room full of weed being on the internet.
Walking around/Taking pictures
We all met up back at the hostel and then walked through the red light district. I don’t have pictures of what this is like (out of respect for the prostitutes they ask you to not take pictures) but it is quite a different experience. The girls work behind a door with a glass window facing the street wearing only a bra and panties. They are sometimes dancing and winking at guys who walk by. When a man is interested, he simply walks up to the door and the girl opens it. They talk for a little bit. The guy steps in. The girl closes the curtains and ya... Seeing this is just kind of crazy. Prostitution is so taboo in the U.S. so it was interesting to see it happening right in front of you! It was also interesting to be with four Brazilians because prostitution is much more accepted (and some cases encouraged) in Brazil though it is still illegal.
Next, Victor and Gabriel went to the Heineken Museum. I wasn’t really interested...part of the cost was for the two drinks you got with admission and I wasn’t feeling so great. Drinking was the last thing that I wanted to do. Also, I already saw the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.
Samir, Maurício and I walked around and took pictures. We all really like taking pictures so this was fun for us. Amsterdam is a really beautiful city.
We went over to check out the Nemo Science Museum but it was closed. Luckily, we found out it was FREE tomorrow (instead of 15 Euros or so) so we will probably go then.
Red Light District tour
We were all pretty tired so we went back to the hostel to take a nap. I’m not sure what happened but somehow my alarm on my phone got turned off and I woke up at 8pm. That wouldn’t be a big deal except for the fact that I had a tour of the red light district booked for 8pm! I jumped out of bed and ran there. Luckily, I was able to find the tour group down the street and didn’t really miss anything.
The tour was really interesting. It was expensive (21 Euros) so no one else wanted to go on it. I went because I was interested in learning about how all of this worked. Here were some of the things that I learned:
No safety rules (concerning condoms, kissing, etc...). This is all up to the prostitute.
Prostitutes can rent one of the windows for around 150 Euros for an 8-12 hour shift
Along with this rental fee comes security services from the landlord. The prostitutes have a panic button that sets off an alarm on the street in front of the window.
The going rate is about 50 Euros for 15 minutes
Part of the tour was visiting a Red Light district visitor center run by a former prostitute who answered our questions and such.
After the tour we all met up back at the hostel. Gabriel, Victor and Maurício went out but Samir and I were tired so we both went to bed.
This morning at 10am we flew from Budapest to Eindhoven, Netherlands. I pretty much just fell asleep right after the plane took off and woke up in Eindhoven. I was pretty tired. Last night someone ended up convincing me to go to a bar instead of going to bed early. Oh well, it was a lot of fun and I’m glad I went but I really need to start getting a little more consistent sleep. This is my six weekend in a row of traveling and almost every one of these weekends I have pulled at least one almost all-nighter with less than four hours of sleep.
When we got into Eindhoven we immediately got on the AirExpress bus to Amsterdam (about 40 Euros for round trip). This was around a two hour ride. I sleep a little more during this ride.
When we first got into Amsterdam (around 3 or so) we were all very hungry so we stopped at McDonald’s. Not my choice but it seems that people outside America aren’t as disgusted with American fast food as us Americans are. McDonald’s is pretty interesting in other countries though...
Ya, I also have no idea what a “bitterballen” is...google translate says they are “croquette balls” and the dictionary says that croquette is like mashed potatoes and minced meat and stuff....interesting!
After grabbing some food we headed to the hostel. It was called the Bostel Amsterdamse Bos Youth Hostel. It was about 30 minutes outside of Amsterdam. It was hard to find a place that we could get a reservation for five only a couple of days beforehand. We stayed in a bungalow...more about this later!
We pretty much just dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then headed back downtown. We grabbed some food at this really cheap pasta place. It’s called Spagi in case you go to Amsterdam.
We spent most of the night just walking around looking into stuff to do the next day and checking out some shops and stuff in town. We headed back to the hostel pretty early to get a good night of sleep because we all were tired.
Since had to leave tonight at 10:30pm we had to check out of the hostel by 10 in the morning. We were a little tired because of going out the night before but not that bad.
We went out for breakfast. One nice thing about Prague being filled with more tourists than Disney World is that you can get eggs and bacon for breakfast! Try going out for breakfast in Budapest...I hope you like McDonalds!
Tour
Samir and I went on a sightseeing bus tour. The other guys didn’t want to and so they went and looked at this church that had a Brazilian saint in it.
We kind of wanted to know a little bit more about the things we were looking at around town. It was about 10 Euros which is a pretty decent price (it was 1hr and 15 mins). They just drove you around and a recording played that told you about the things you were seeing. They had it recorded in 20-some languages! This was cool because this way Samir could listen to it in Portuguese (his first language) which was probably a lot easier. Unfortunately, it was Portugal Portuguese and he kept debating whether it was easier to understand the English or the Portugal Portuguese! Castle (again)
We went back to the castle to go in the Cathedral. Really cool cathedral.
Church
We ended up going to the church that they went to while we did the sightseeing tour. It was a really pretty little church.
Going home
We took the overnight (10:30pm - 6:00am) bus home. I like overnighting the travel because it saves time. The bus ride was a little bumpy but we were all able to get at least a couple of hours of decent sleep.
Impressions of Prague
Don’t get me wrong-Prague is a cool place. It is cool to see a city that has never been destroyed by war. With this being said, Prague didn’t even come close to meeting my expectations. Prague has been hyped to the point where I was expecting to see one of the coolest and prettiest places in the world. I don’t think that it is. Also, it is overflowing with tourists. I’m not one of those people who are against touristy places. I just don’t like it when there are so many people that you can’t even get a good picture or see somethings because of the huge crowds. I also go to other countries to experience and learn about the culture. This is impossible in Prague. It is likely that the only Czechs that you’ll meet will be the ones selling you souvenirs on every corner.
To be fair, we did have some crappy weather which can take away from the beauty of a place. My conclusion on Prague would be this: go there for a day if it is a nice day and you really like pretty old buildings. Don’t go to experience Czech or Eastern European culture and don’t expect it to be “breathtaking.”
Today we went to the old town square and saw the clock tower. The clock tower was really cool and the view from it is very good It was, again, hard to get good pictures because there were just so many people.
Next, we went to go see the castle. It was a really cool castle with another great view.
Unfortunately the cathedral was closed so we will go back tomorrow to see it.
Dinner
We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant in town. Good food. You are probably thinking, “ok, cool Elliot. Why is that worth mentioning?” It is worth mentioning because it was the first time in my life I did something: not leave a tip. This waiter was a jerk. First thing he did was downright lie to us about the size of the pizza saying it was really small (using his hands to show us the size) and only for one person. We later saw the pizzas. They were quite large and definitely shareable. He must have just wanted to sell us more expensive things. Next he wouldn’t fill up my glass with water. He said that I would have to buy a bottle. And here was the last straw...I was over talking to this group of Irish girls at the table next to us and he comes up and asks me, “Would you like to buy some drinks for these ladies?” I knew exactly what he was doing-trying to put me on the spot in front of them where it would be harder to say no. Kind of like those guys who try to sell roses to guys sitting with their girlfriend at a restaurant. Not going to happen. I just told him, “no thanks, we’re good.” He seemed surprised and stood there for a second and looked at me. He then ignored our table for the rest of time that we were there. We gave his tip to the Italian guitar player who was awesome.
Going out
We went out to a club (Karlovy Lazne) with the Corvinus kids. It is supposedly the biggest club in Central Europe (it is five stories with dance floors on each). It was all right. Definitely a step above the places I have been here in Budapest (not counting the Spa Party I went to) but definitely a step below that club we went to in Serbia (on the 8th floor of an office building in Belgrade).
I thought that while I was here I might as well try absinthe. I actually tried it twice. A French kid from Corvinus bought a bottle and had it at the hostel. I tried a taste of it and it wasn’t really a big deal. A little strong but nothing crazy. The lady who sold it to him said that “here’s the fake stuff I sell to tourists and here is some real (and more expensive) stuff that I’ll sell to you.” That poor kid actually fell for it. The next time I tried absinthe was at the club. This absinthe was entirely different. It was probably the strongest alcohol that I have ever tasted. It burned up into my face. It was so strong. Unlike what most people think it doesn’t really make you hallucinate. It is just a strong, hard alcohol and a couple of shots of it will make you so drunk you can’t count to four.
Today we (Samir, Danilo, Victor and I) left for Prague. We are all pretty tired because the bus left at 7am. I am really tired because I didn’t go to bed until like 2 and got up at 5:30. I really need to fix this sleep schedule. Speaking of being tired...I accidentally had booked our tickets to Prague for one week later (March 20th). Whoops. Luckily I was able to change us to be on this bus for 2,000 forints (about 8 dollars)! Our tickets for the way back were fine because we had booked two one-ways (Budapest-Prague on OrangeWays and Prague-Budapest on Volanbusz) and I didn’t book our return tickets incorrectly.
The bus was pretty nice. It’s kind of funny-they played Wedding Crashers dubbed in Hungarian with English subtitles. Great movie but I slept most of the time. The bus only made one stop (in Bratislava, Slovakia) so it made pretty good time (though we left a little late).
There were a bunch of exchange kids from Corvinus (another school here in Budapest) on the bus. Funny enough, I already knew one of them. A couple of Mondays ago at Morrisons (the bar all the exchange kids go to on Monday nights), my roommate was hanging out with all the other Brazilians and this pretty girl walks by him. He shouts out loud “GOSTOSA!” (Portuguese slang for “really hot girl”). The girl gave him a funny look and so hey said to the other Brazilians, “hey, she’s looking at me weird...” She then turned around, looked right at him and said “I’m from Brazil; I speak Portuguese!” Wow, was he embarrassed.
When we got into Prague (around 2pm) we asked the attendant at the bus station about what times the buses left for Český Krumlov. Both Kerry (the girl working at the hostel in Belgrade) and Yusuke (the Japanese kid that we met in Slovenia) highly recommended it. Supposedly it is a cool little town that has a good castle. Unfortunately, the lady working at the ticket booth told us that this was “impossible” on that day because the bus left earlier in the day. She was really mean and cranky. The people who work at the ticket booths at the Budapest train stations are really rude too so we were kind of used to this kind of behavior. I was thinking that we could spend Friday (since we only had part of a day there anyway in Český). The Brazilians didn’t seem like they really wanted to go there anyway but were willing to follow me there.
Since we didn’t know where we were going to stay we just followed the Corvinus kids to the hostel at which they had reservations. They had an open four-person room which was nice. It was called Hostel Downtown.
After finding and checking into the hostel we went to go look for some food. The Brazilians didn’t want to go to the Czech restaurant that the guy working at the hostel suggested because it was a little expensive. We ended up going to KFC. Awful decision. I felt sick and couldn’t seem to get rid of the KFC smell after washing my face and brushing my teeth. I don’t usually eat KFC in the U.S. just because it is really unhealthy but I will admit it is good. Not here though. It was like a McDonalds with chicken. It had a very simple menu (like most of the fast food restaurants here in Eastern Europe) and was chicken burgers and fries. No mashed potatoes and stuff like that. Sightseeing
After the KFC we went sightseeing. We went to see the famous Charles Bridge since it was near the hostel. It really is a beautiful bridge but it is kind of hard to appreciate it because it is swamped with people. It’s really hard to even get a lot of good pictures while you are on it because there are really just so many people.
We then went and climbed up a hill to get a better view of the city. Unfortunately this hill was covered with trees so you really couldn’t see much. There was a mini-eiffel tower thing on the hill but it looked closed so we didn’t go up it. From things that I heard later it probably wasn’t but whatever.
We took a nap when we got back (we were still exhausted from the early bus ride) and then got some food. We were too tired to go out so we just hung around at the hostel with the Corvinus kids for a while.
I have been really bad about keeping my blog up-to date. I am going to try to be better about it. This entry (along with many others) are written after the date they happened.
Things are going well here so far (I've been here since February 3rd). The trip here was a little crazy. I was stuck in London for a day because every flight was canceled due to snow. Then they couldn't find my bag for five days...after about five or six days in the same clothes (because I didn't have my bag while stuck in London either) I ended up buying some clothes because my mom was worried about me not being able to make new friends when I was wearing the same clothes everyday. The clothes were in general pretty cheap but the weird thing is that every article of clothing cost about the same (1000-2000 forints or $4-8 dollars). That is cheap for pants. It is quite expensive for boxers!
Not much to see from London. I spent most of my time in the airport and when outside of the airport it seemed pretty much like an expensive version of the U.S. where people talk funny.
It's interesting though that British Airways serves wine on the flights (for free). This Italian kid who sat next to me, Andrea, chugged two (maybe it was even three) of these little wine things...some people are just built to drink. I realized after about a half bottle that I am not one of them. I just wanted some water! Hostel
I stayed in the Hostel (Hotel Ventura) for the first eight nights. It wasn't a bad place but after a while you are pretty ready to get out! It was cramped and living out of a suitcase makes it hard to stay organized (as you can see in the picture). It was also a long way away from everything. We were glad to get an apartment. Apartment
Here's what my apartment looks like
I was living with a kid from UW, Brett and a guy from Turkey named John.
Unfortunately, John had to go back to Turkey because of some class scheduling conflicts that would delay his graduation back home. It's too bad because he became a good friend while living here (him, Brett and I were also in the same room in the hostel).Brett and I hope that we can go visit him in Turkey sometime this semester.
A guy from Brazil, Mauricio, took John's spot when he left. He's a cool guy too and we're good friends.
I didn't know Brett before studying abroad here but he's a good guy. He goes to UW but is from the Boston area.
Friends
Everyone here is pretty nice. There are seven of us from UW. Many of them are friends from back home so they hang out together a lot. I hang out with them sometimes but not all of the time.
Since this is a technology-orientied school mostly everyone is in engineering or architecture. I think that this gets a pretty good group of kids because anyone who is going to study abroad is somewhat social and engineers who have people skills are often very fun people. Just ask Lisa, she loves engineering boys! (We'll see if she's reading this!)
I play soccer with the Brazilian guys once and a while. It's a lot of fun. In the U.S. soccer is really rough and dangerous (lots of knee injuries). When they play it's almost more like basketball where passing is more important than just kicking it really hard. Language
Hungarian
The Hungarian Language is kind of crazy. It isn't related much to any other language in the world only distantly to Finnish and Estonian. Only newer words like szenvics (sandwich) which is pronounced "send-veech" are anything like English. Also, multiple words are sometimes concatenated so if you see a word you don't know, it can be very hard to look it up in the dictionary. Either way, I'm trying to learn a little bit of the language. I feel like it is rude to go somewhere and not at least learn to say "Hello" and "Thank you" in their language. Spanish
There are some Spanish kids here so I get to use my Spanish while talking to them. Spanish is an awesome language. It just flows so nicely. I really wish I could have studied abroad in a Spanish-speaking country but it just didn't work out with my summer plans.
Portuguese
My Brazilian friends have been trying to teach me a little Portuguese. I don't know if you have ever heard Portuguese but it is a really cool language. It sounds like a smoother and softer version of Spanish. I would say Spanish makes English sound ugly and Portuguese makes Spanish sound ugly. If you know Spanish you can read some Portuguese (a decent number of words are spelled similar their Spanish counterparts) but when spoken it is much different. It is not "the same thing as Spanish" as many people say. The pronounciation is quite difficult because like English (and unlike Spanish) the same letters don't always make the same sound. Also, at least in Brazilian Portuguese, many words can be pronounced a few different ways.
Hey everyone! A lot has happened in the last few months and I haven't talked to some of you who live far away in quite a while. Here's a little update:
I'm studying abroad in Hungary!
Why Hungary?
It actually wasn't too much of a choice. Since I am studying abroad as a second-semester senior, I will be in school an extra semester (now I'll graduate in December 2009). Since I'm going to be in school another semester, I also get another summer break. Unfortunately, many schools in other countries have school schedules that go much later into the summer than schools in the U.S. I decided that at as awesome as study abroad sounds, doing a summer internship (see "This Summer" below) has also been a great experience and that I should fit study abroad around that. Mexico and Hungary were the two places I considered. UW-Madison has an engineering study abroad program with a similar school schedule in both of these countires. Mexico would be cool because I could use my Spanish and Hungary would be cool because I would be in Europe and could travel around to other places in Europe. Eventually I decided that I wanted to go to Hungary.
This Summer
I am going to intern at Facebook. I guess this means I have to get better at responding to wall posts!
I'm really sad to leave Intuit. The people that I have met there the last two summers (maybe you who is reading this) were so much more than my co-workers. They are great friends and they also often felt like family away from home. I'll still be in the Valley this summer and so I will still get to hang out with all my old friends. Even the ones who now work at Google. I won't mention any names!
I bought a mac!
When Apple came out with the new MacBook Pro I bought one of the old ones (because of the several hundred dollar price drop). It has taken a little while to get used to but it's pretty awesome.
One of the best features the mac has is that it comes with a program Apple created specifically for easily and efficiently downloading Firefox. It's called Safari!
I hope that all of you are doing well and that you are now up to date with my life! If you have a blog or personal website make sure you put a comment with a link (or e-mail me it). I'm in the Chicago airport right now so I will write more when I get to Hungary!
