Since the language school started (on Tuesday) I've been spending most of my free time with friends I've met through the program. There's five of us who have been hanging out a fair bit; me and Voula, who both live in Buda (the west side of the Danube), and Bruce and Michael (now dubbed Mihály: mee-hi), who share an apartment by the Opera in Pest. We're all in the language class together, since all of our last names are at the beginning of the alphabet. After class we end up hanging out in Pest, sometimes missing one, sometimes joined by others. I'm glad I've been making friends so easily here!
I've gotten used to using public transport here, and I'm finding that public transport in a big city is way more convenient than a car, except when I want to get home from Pest after 11 (that's when the metros stop running). The metros come every 5-10 minutes, or less, and the busses come fairly regularly, but are often a little behind schedule. Besides a few funny situations IN the metro stations themselves, riding them has been pretty uneventful.
Funny metro experience 1:
Yesterday Sarah and I were on our way to language school. We had gotten off the metro at Astoria and were on our way up the (ridiculously long) escalators. A 30-something man caught sight of me as he was going down and I was going up and after a funny look he started yelling at me very heatedly in Hungarian. He yelled his entire way down and when he'd reached the bottom, he stood at the foot of the escalators and yelled up the escalators at me until I was out of sight. Sarah caught the word "blue" so we think it might have had something to do with my hair.
Funny metro experience 2:
The payphones have been the cheapest, most convenient way to keep in touch with Rob since I got here, since you just need a T-com phone card. You put the card in the slot on the phone, then dial the country code and the number, and then are only charged 9 ft/minute to talk to the US. I called him quickly this afternoon from the Deák station and while I was standing there at the phone a young-ish man (maybe a year or two older than me) situated himself about 10 feet away from me with a camera, crouched down, and started video taping me talking on the phone. I gave him an inquisitive look and he just smiled, gave a half wave, taped for a few more seconds, then got up and left.
Again, besides those two experiences, public transportation has been quite uneventful.
And now... it's the weekend! I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to hang out with Voula, Eva (a UU from Boston) and Mihály... and probably others, since Bruce said he'd call if anything came up. I'm at my usual internet cafe right now, and once I leave here I'm going to go down to the grocery store and grab some bread and a tomato and eat that with the cheese I have in my backpack over at Voula's before heading over to Pest.
But before I go... THERE ARE PICTURES!!
Air show by the Danube St. Stephen's day weekend. There's a little plane around the middle of the photo... it was doing tricks and practicing for the big race on the holiday itself. Sponsored by Red Bull. Thank you, America for all you have done for Budapest. That big impressive building in the background is the parliament building
Budapest <3s Critical Mass!
My Internet Cafe
The Courtyard in my apartment building. All the apartment complexes have private courtyards, even the complex my language school is in.
Fireworks on St. Stephen's day. This was far and away the most impressive fireworks display I have ever seen!
I plan on taking more pictures tonight and this weekend, and I'll try to be regular about posting them!
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