Week 6

This week was much more low key than the others so far. After Transylvania, I guess I needed a bit of a rest. This week got COLD all of a sudden. Every day was rainy, pretty chilly, or both. The Hungarians tell us this isn't really normal weather for October, which is unfortunate. It was shocking to the system! Hopefully it'll be a bit more mild for a couple of weeks.

Tuesday was my first day of volunteering at the Ministry--recall that I visited in Week 5, but this was the first official meeting of the...- I feel most comfortable calling it a discussion group. Yvonne, the organizer, calls it tutoring, which gives me a little too much credit. I sent them an article at the end of last week, but I'm pretty sure it was too difficult. Before this week, I had only spoken with Yvonne, who speaks very good English. The other group members are a little less advanced--one isn't even confident enough to contribute, and just comes to listen. We ended up conversing more about my life than the article, which was...interesting. I definitely can't maintain that level of me-talk every week, so hopefully our articles will be more conversation provoking in the future. I don't think the article interested everyone else as much as it interested me, mostly because my main interest was in the social implications of the scientific findings, but there was too much specified science vocabulary that I imagine was difficult to translate without a science background. One of the members of the group volunteered to pick some articles for this week, which I am perfectly satisfied with. The same woman also requested that I give her feedback on my English during the group, which I don't feel great about. I definitely don't want to interrupt her while speaking, so I plan on writing down notes and summarizing them for her afterward. Still, I don't like the idea of taking notes during a friendly discussion. Luckily, all the other group members seem more interested in practicing conversation rather that improving technical elements.

Yvonne, who headed off to China on Wednesday to visit her fashion designer son for ten days, offered me some free tickets to a Chinese cultural show in town on Tuesday and Wednesday. I clearly responded with "how many can I have?" I ended up taking 5, because I was nervous about not being able to use all of them. I shouldn't have been, though--seven of us ended up going on Wednesday night. Eta and Kelsey, attempting to buy tickets at the door, showed the lady our seat numbers and were given free tickets. How fortuitous! The show was AMAZING. I forgot my camera, so I'm depending on my roommate Audrey for pictures. However, she went on a surprise trip to Slovenia on Friday morning and has not yet returned, so I will have to update with those later. It was a long show, 2.5 hours with intermission, and every consecutive act kept replacing the others as my favorite. Every act was introduced in Chinese and Hungarian (DOUBLE language barrier!) Luckily, I had Audrey sitting next to me, and she translated the Chinese for us. Some highlights: a tea dance, where 20+ women danced with a stack of bowls balanced on their heads; a warrior dance with grunting and acrobatic leaping; a big man with shaggy locks who sang Mongolian music with a voice indistinguishable from a didgeridoo; a man, apparently famous on TV, who played a Chinese instrument with flying fingers; and group of dancers who wore shiny talon claws and moved them as a group in amazing patterns. Overall, it was absolutely enthralling.

Fast forward to Friday, when I went "camping" with a group of Cognitive Kids (the friends from Buda.) We had reservations at a campground in outer Budapest, much deeper in the Buda hills than I have adventured thus far. We started out at about 3:30, after their weekly test and some procuring of feast ingredients. On the bus that was supposed to take us directly to the campsite, we were informed by the nicest lady that the bus was not going up in the hills because of a bomb threat. How convenient! The woman, Ildikó from Transylvania, ended up adopting us and taking us on a complicated public transportation circuit, including a "special tram." Finally, we learned that the bomb threat had been cleared and we were able to get on the original bus...again. At this point, Ildikó left us, but only after inviting us to come to her flat some weekend. We called her our guardian angel. What a woman! We rode the bus past our stop, as there were conveniently several stops named Csilleberc. We walked back one stop and decided to catch the bus back, as we had to travel 3 more stops. As we were waiting, Meghan and I decided we had to pee, so we snuck behind the bushes at the...restaurant. (The stop was called something Étterem, which means restaurant.) Truthfully, though, it looked more like some creepy office building than anything resembling a restaurant. These suspicions were confirmed as security pulled up beside us waiting at the bus stop. Apparently, we weren't supposed to go so close to the creepy looking building with tall cement walls topped with barbed wire? Weird. We definitely got out of that situation lightly because they didn't speak English. They asked for our passports (I was told not to carry mine, but one girl had hers) and checked the area quickly, then drove away. Whoops.

After a few more problems, we finally arrived at Csilleberc. There, we found out that instead of a campsite, we had booked rooms in an exceptionally dorm-like hostel. At that point, though we mourned our lack of campfire, we were just ready to hang out. The evening included a large, ridiculous feast, lots of wine, temporary tats, snuggling, and lots of general love. Only one serious injury--a cut toe from kicking a bag of glass. No big deal, as she was still able to run a 10k on Sunday!

Some pictures:












Saturday morning, after cleaning up and rehydrating, we set off for Jánoshegy, the tallest of the Buda Hills. We took the children's railroad, which is actually run by children. It's the cutest thing. When we went to buy tickets, the boy at the desk called in his coworker, a little girl who spoke English.

Val buying tickets.



From the train stop, we hiked up to the lookout tower, trying not to feel outdone by the many runners working their glutes up the hill. Despite to clouds and glum, it was an extraordinary view.

In real life, you could see Parliament off in the distance here.



I really liked this area.



Johna being cute and recording things.



Megan looking stoically off into the distance.



Finally, the only creepy child picture of the week. I seriously am losing my touch. Nice hat, though, right?



After the hill, we took a random path back, walking in the forest for a while, and ended up spitting ourselves out in some little town. Once we found the bus, it was super easy to get back--when you're in the outskirts like t hat, everything leads back to Budapest. I spent the rest of the day lounging mostly. That night, I videochatted into singing practice. Due to homecoming, the team sang at 4 PM, an hour much more reasonable to visit with the time difference. I was so very proud of them for beating St. Michael's, often our hardest game, that day. The score was 55-3, aka St. Mike's had their asses handed to them on a plate, NO BIG DEAL. Absolutely wonderful to see everyone's beautiful faces together in one place. Even loving Budapest as I do, I look forward so much to reuniting with those girls in January.

Sunday, I did more lounging. Finally, I went for a run and then did the week's shopping before heading over to Buda for some movie time. A lovely relaxed end to a relaxed week.

I'm planning on going camping in Slovakia this weekend (REAL camping this time), so be ready for updates on that next week!

Love love love,
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