Sunday, December 9, 2007

A Long Weekend With a Cuzzie

In the last couple of weeks I've been taking pictures of my walk to and from school, around Budapest, etc. I put them all in a Picasa album. Maybe you'd like to check them out?

I had my cuzzamalina in town this weekend! Thursday afternoon it took a little less than an hour on public transportation to get to Férihegy to pick Kate up, then together we took public transportation back to Deák where we met up with Mihály, Luke, Aaron, Casey and Voula to go out to dinner for Voula's birthday. We ended up at a trendy pasta bar in downtown Pest. After dinner we metroed back to Voula's for surprise cupcakes Casey and I had made Wednesday afternoon and cheap champagne from Tesco. After the festivities had wound down I walked back home and Kate stayed at Voula and Casey's (Éva wanted to charge Kate 3000 ft/night to stay at our flat, so Casey and Voula volunteered their extra mattress)

Friday I met Casey and Kate at the metro and Kate came to Graph Theory with us. After Graph Theory Kate and I departed College International for the Christmas Market at Vörösmarty tér and the other market near Oktogon, stopping for lunch at a restaurant we nearby that had a Greek/Hungarian lunch buffee for 1100 ft. After lunch we poked around the market a little more, then metroed back to Voula and Casey's where we made BAKLAVA. I now know how to make filo dough successfully! Aaron came over and we made pasta for dinner, then Kate and I left to meet Halcy and others at Heroes Square for a walking tour of Budapest. We walked the length of Andrassy, from Heroes Square to the Buda castle, stopping to buy beer at NonStops along the way and meeting Voula, Aaron and Casey at Opera. There was a group of about 15 of us in the end, at the castle. We stopped at Voula's to use her bathroom, then the group of us, sans Voula, Casey and Aaron, went to Morrison's for singing, dancing, etc. Kate and I walked back to Voula's about 2 and crashed.


In the morning(ish) we ate baklava for breakfast, then walked back to my house where I took a quick shower and my host mama fed us (more) breakfast, then it was off to touristy things! We hit the castle, met up with Kristoff, Bridget, and Kelly for the market, went by Szt Istvan's, got coffee, then met up with Kyle at Heroes Square to go to the Szechenyi baths in city park. The baths were wonderful! This was my first time going, even though I've been here for ages now.

After the baths we grabbed gyros for dinner, then it was to Christina's for the BSM Talent/No-Talent show! Minor crisis when we discovered the boy who was supposed to be bringing the guitar couldn't come, but crisis was averted when Kyle and his roommate went back to their apartment and brought back their (very sketchy) electric guitar. Kristoff read some poetry, I brought my traditional talent show act, Paul played jazz piano, Mark and Kyle sang a Flight of the Conchords song, Katie recited a poem in Russian, Sarah showed us how to make cookies without a recipe, Michael Feinberg burped the alphabet, Katie and Haggai swing danced... it really was a rolicking success!

After the talent show, Me, Kate, Mark, Kyle and Haggai went to Szimpla, a nearby bar, and sat and talked for a while, then Kate and I walked back to Buda.

On Sunday morning Kate and I went back to the airport, had coffee, changed her money, bought a pastry and said goodbye. Oh what a wonderful weekend with the cuzzamalina! I took public transportation back to Mihály, Pat and Bruce's, watched the new episode of Scrubs, then it was off to California Coffee Company to conquer Number Theory with Bridget and Kyle.

In happy news, I discovered that Bruce has a Compact Flash drive on his computer... so there are billions of pictures of this weekend! Since this entry is already long, I am going to put them in another entry.

No comments: