I have been here for over a week now, and I think in some ways, I am feeling more acclimated to this new environment, and in other ways, I feel just as out-of-place as I did when I first stepped off the plane. After four days of my Survival Hungarian 80-hour intensive course, the language barrier seems more like a very thick fog, rather than an impenetrable wall, even though all I can actually say is, "Hi. My name is Charlotte. I am an American student. Can I have one peach? Thank you. Bye." Incidentally, "peach" in Hungarian is barack. As in Obama's first name. (But if you want to say it, you should say "Bawrawtsk.")
I should apologize for not updating sooner, but it's been quite hectic. Between meeting new people, walking around the city, and trying to learn a new language, there isn't really time for much else. I don't know if it's going to get much better, either, in terms of busyness. I think I'll make it a goal to update this blog twice a week. We'll see how it goes.
In any case. A few days ago, we went to the math school for the first time! It's a campus exclusively for three study abroad programs: Budapest Semesters in Mathematics, a pre-med program, and this other program that has slipped my mind. It's a really pretty place, I think, and next time I'm there, I'll take more pictures. For now, here's a picture of the front entrance of the main building.
In a few weeks, I'll be spending almost all of my time at the school. All my classes will be there, and I'll probably end up doing a lot of studying there also. (I didn't get to explore the building, but it looked like there were some nice quiet areas.) Also, it's only a couple blocks from my apartment, so when the months turn bitterly cold, my commute won't be too painful.
One thing about Hungary that I'm a bit on the fence about is the food. I'm having trouble getting used to the cuisine, but I don't know if I want to get used to it. It usually tastes quite good, but it's extremely oily, and I get a stomachache after almost every meal. On the one hand, it would be lovely if I could spend the next four months enjoying Hungarian food. On the other hand, if my stomach got used to the über-oilyness, that would mean I would have eaten enough oil to get it acclimated to such unhealthiness, and, well, I don't know if I would want that. You might think, "Well, it can't be that oily," but this picture might convince you otherwise.
Those are massive slabs of meat being fried in oil. And that's only the first round of oil. After they cook it here, they put it in a huge wok-type pan for temporary storage. And then when you order it, they take the meat to another pool of burning-hot oil and drown it again. When they take it out, it's dripping in grease, and they don't even bother to let the excess oil drip off before plopping it onto a plate.
There are other places to eat, though. For instance, just outside the language school is this place:
I had a falafel laffa there a few days ago and it was delicious. Even talking about it is making my stomach growl. It's located across the largest synagogue in Europe...
... and tastes absolutely splendid. You can sit outside in the shade and enjoy the slight breeze and the nice view. They also make the best lemonade I have ever tasted. You can tell it's fresh-squeezed, and they didn't overload it with sugar, which is great.
But places like Hummus Point are rare, and most of the time, places advertise their super-fatty-super-greasy meat.
A beef gyro from the place above made my stomach turn itself over for hours. : / That same day, we got a group together and headed to a mall. We took the subway there.
It's pretty crazy how fast the subway goes. The Boston T is nowhere near as fast as the Metro here. It's really quite incredible. The Metro must be at least two or three times faster than the T, and I think it's older, too.
We got off and emerged in front of one of Budapest's train stations:
The yellow tram in front of the station is Budapest's newest form of public transportation, I think. We crossed the street and came upon our desired destination:
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| The mall! |
On top of the mall is a whole open garden-type thing, and the view from the top is quite nice:
We had dinner in the food court of the mall (can you guess my complaint?), and then my apartmentmate and I walked back to our place. We passed by this group of buildings all with these majestic statues in front of them. I don't know what they are, and actually, I don't remember where they are exactly either, but I took a picture:
You can't see it very well here, but hidden behind the tree is one of the many churches in Hungary.
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| (P.S. Look at the sky!) |
In terms of apartment life, my roommate and I are working on a puzzle at the moment. It's a map-of-the-world puzzle that we're going to glue and put up on the wall. I think our landlady will appreciate it---she loves maps, and the walls are covered in them. She does not, however, have a puzzle-made map of the world. This is how far we've gotten so far:
And for fun and to satisfy our sweet tooth (sweet teeth?), we had some chocolate:
We chose this from the collection of chocolate bars that she got for me from a shop in Seattle. There are all sorts of flavors, and Coconut Curry was one of the most exotic of the bunch, so we decided to try it first. It was actually really good. You wouldn't think so, and I was extremely skeptical at first, but just one bite convinced me otherwise. It had this great sharpness to it that spread all around your mouth and made it feel warm with its slightly spicy curry flavor. It was great. Here are all the ones we're going to go through eventually:
Well, that's all for today! I hope you are having a lovely day, and if you ever consider traveling to Hungary, I would recommend buying food from the grocery store and preparing it for yourself. All this oil makes me feel like by the time I finish up my study abroad program here, I'm going to need to make a doctor's appointment for an angiogram.
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