Travel Blog Posts
April 13th 2012
Heading to the airport in Budapest was my second time riding the blue metro line from end to end, which takes about thirty minutes. In the airport, most announcements were only in Hungarian, which made it rather surprising that on the flight (Turkish Airlines) Turkish and English were used. The other surprising aspect of the flight was that, despite being in the air only two hours, I was served a lunch, which turned out to be fairly representative of Turkish cuisine. I learned that the two people sitting next to me were part of a group of special needs students and their teachers on a trip to Istanbul. This, of course, meant the kid's conversational skills were about on par with my Hungarian knowledge, so we had some rather satisfying (if simplistic) dialogue. My arrival in ... read more
April 9th 2012
I'll describe things in more detail later, but for now just some reactions. All the planning was done at the last minute, partially because I had to think about housing and classes for next year, and partially because I underestimated how much time it would take. After he responded to a facebook posting about two weeks before our eventual departure, I ended up joining forces with another student in the program I didn't know very well. I'm glad I did, as we ended up having a few things in common and he provided some enlightening commentary on some of the places we saw/experiences we had. Also the location indicator thing on the site isn't working right now, and apparently it lists Turkey as being in the Middle East, which is interesting. Instead of doing what would ... read more
February 7th 2012
I should have written earlier, as far as the number of things that merit being mentioned. I haven't been feeling well, however, so I put sleep as a higher priority than writing. This sort of format/style still doesn't quite feel normal to me, either. The last few days of language classes were about the same as those previous. Last Wednesday, however, the BSM students travelled en masse to some sort of office to initiate the process of obtaining our residence permits. There was some uncertainty about exactly how much time this would take, and when it ended up only being a couple of hours total after arriving at the office, there was some frustration that we had been asked to meet at 8 am. One event of note was that, during my approval process, I was ... read more
January 31st 2012
For no particular reason, I think I will keep track of restaurants and shows and tourist attractions Traditional Foods Goulash - fairly self explanatory, though it is common to get it not served as a stew Dobos torta - several alternating layers of cake and chocolate cream, a burnt sugar wedge on top Kürtőskalács (=chimney cake)- purchased in a metro station. I will have to wait for an actual fair and see if any Hungarians actually buy any Lángos - Klara gave me this as a snack one day, with sour cream and cheese. I added some peppers, as it was otherwise rather bland. Similar to other fried breads, I guess... Túró Rudi - not sure this really counts. I have had a few, though I can see why the plain version is more popular - ... read more
January 22nd 2012
I should have written again earlier, though I am not sure how far I’ve strayed from my first impressions. It's not that I don't have time, it's that writing journal entries doesn't seem too natural to me. I should try to set up something to share it - that might give me some motivation to write, but could also affect what i am willing to say. The first few days of language classes are over, now. I think around two thirds of the BSM students for this year (who I have heard number about 50) are attending classes at Bablion. There are some other students from AIT as well, as well as at least one not affiliated with either. The classes are for the most part following a workbook, moving between learning vocabulary and grammatical concepts. ... read more
January 17th 2012
Almost exactly a day, actually. I left the house at 1 pm eastern on Monday, arrived at the airport 2 pm eastern, the flight, sheduled to leave at 17:30 eastern actually left at 21:45 or so. I then took two more flights, from Berlin to Munich and from Munich to Budapest, at 18:30 Hungarian time, or 11:30 eastern time, Tuesday. While waiting for my first flight I happened to be sitting near an older couple and a guy a couple years older than me. He was Albanian, studying economics, and they were from Bari, Italy. They had initially asked to make sure they were getting on the correct flight, as they didn't speak any English. However, the Albanian guy's Italian was a bit rusty, and at one point, where he was failing to adequately mime skiing, ... read more
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