My Little Town

I went into town today, a bit of a big deal since today was a Sunday, but I went in to see my friend Detty and hung out with her for a little while. We met at the school, since that's the only place I know how to get to, got jegeskave (iced coffee, but a bit different than the iced coffee you'd get at Starbucks. Here, it usually includes vanilla syrup, ice cream, milk, whip cream, or some combination of these things.). Then, we walked around town for a little bit, hung out, and met up with a friend of hers to take his goat, Lolli, for a walk. Yes, I walked a goat today.
On the way home, I decided to take some pictures of the town and of some of the more interesting houses on my bike ride between my house and the school. So, as promised:

My school from the outside (It was Sunday, so I couldn't get inside. I might take some later, but it's not a particularly fascinating place.) as well as some of the neighbourhood:

 

 

Lolli the happy goat:

Some interesting houses in my neighbourhood (Not all the houses are like this, but they're usually small, cute, with a lot of character. Oftentimes they look like cottages from the 1700s. I love it.):

The road to my house:

My neighbour and Csenge's friend, Viktor:

My house (The right hand door on the top floor leads to my bedroom.):

The view from my balcony one morning a few days ago:

My backyard:

Also, for fun, my Hungarian language books (I start Hungarian class on Wednesday!) and a kakaos csiga (literally translated it means chocolate snail, but it's more like a cinnamon bun - cinnamon + chocolate.):

Fun-garian Fact of the day!
Egészségedre, is one of the more widely used Hungarian words. It translates to many things in English including 'bless you', 'excuse you', 'cheers', and more literally 'good health'. So, if someone is sick, sneezes, burps, or you clink glasses, say 'Egészségedre!'.

Love you, my darlings!
Moira

So Far, So Good

It's been a while since I've posted anything, and, even though I don't have a ton of new stuff to say, I figured I should put up a new entry. I like it, it helps me to sort things out.
As you may have guessed, everything's going well. My classmates are helpful and friendly, even if it is a little hard to make conversation. I want to make friends, and meet people, and do things, but sometimes I can't help feel that school is a bit of a waste of time. I get up early, I go to school. I sit in class. If it's English class, I'm usually asked to explain concepts in English, if it's any other class, I just sit. I have a notebook that I bring to school with me so I can at least get some planning done for my novel, but there's really only so much planning one can do. I was sick all last week and couldn't go to school, which was annoying since I feel like I missed out on a lot of opportunities to deepen some of the friendships I've made. But, it's still good.
On weekdays I get up at 6:30 am. At least, I try to. It usually ends up being closer to 6:45-7 am. I get ready and head out by no later than 7:30 am to get to class by 8. I usually bike if I can, so it takes about a half hour to get to my school. I live in Sari, which is technically a part of Dabas, but it's a bit out of the way. It's more residential than Dabas, with even less to do, which, if you've seen Dabas, you'd know that this is a feat and a half. I usually have  five 45 minute classes a day. Tuesdays I have six, but that's only because I have homeroom last block. I'm usually home by 2 o'clock either way, which is nice. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays I have handball practice. Most of the time I'm in bed by eleven, especially after practice.
Even with all of this on my mind, I still have time to be homesick, it seems. I don't mean crying at night, wanting to go home, moody, passive-aggressive homesick. I really don't think I'm the type, or at least, I hope I'm not. Sometimes, I just forget that I'm here for a whole year, you know? I'll be sitting there and I'll think of something that I would tell my mom normally, or my best friend, Courtney, and then I'll realise that I can't really just tell them when I get home, or when I see them next. That won't be for another ten months or so. It's hard when with everyone here, from the kids at school, to my host mom (anya in Hungarian, whom I love), there's a language barrier. I can't just go home and tell anya about my day, or something funny that happened. The hand gestures alone would tire me out, not to mention half the words I want to use never seem to be in the dictionary.
It doesn't help that I keep having dreams about my family. They always seem to be me, back in Canada on a day trip (which my brain rationalizes somehow). They usually involve dogs, except for the last one which involved me running through a crowded, underground station of some sort, wearing socks. Because I was wearing socks, I could slide across the floor. It was kind of fun, actually. They always involve my parents, though.
I'm starting Hungarian lessons, though, which is good. Erzsi, Felipe's current host mom and my future host mom, will be teaching the both of us. I have books and everything. I'm excited, but also nervous. From what I can tell from the taster I got at the language camp, learning Hungarian is no picnic. I just want to know it, you know? Can I please skip all the gross learning and skip straight to speaking? Fluently? There's a part of me that wishes I'd gone to France instead, or, better yet, England. Not a big part, not like god-what-have-I-done-why-did-I-do-this part of me, just a little part.
I think, more than anything, I'm just bored. I'm not experiencing these amazing new things all the time, not anymore, and I'm also not fitting in completely. I don't have close friends that I talk to on a regular basis, except Felipe and Detty I guess. Everyone's really nice, but I was never particularly good at making friends in English, and now I'm expected to do it in another language.
But, like I said, so far, so good. I'm happy, I'm safe, and I'm getting used to how things work here, I think. The food still comes as a bit of a shock sometimes. I eat a lot more meat than I'm used to, and dairy, and potatoes, and pasta, and bread. Today I actually ate breaded, fried cheese. Once you get over the ick factor, it's pretty tasty. I just wouldn't eat too much of it. There isn't usually a lot of fruit in the house, which led to me asking anya if she could buy apples. I asked as nicely as I could, but alas, that's another thing that's hard to convey across language barriers. At least now I have fruit to munch on whenever I want. I think that was part of why I was sick at first, the lack of fruit and veggies, combined with the increase in dairy, which I'm already not supposed to be eating.
Anyways, I'll post some pictures of the town and my house when I have them. It's been a bit of a whirlwind but it's starting to settle down so I'll have a chance to take some. It might even be tomorrow, if you're lucky.
TTYL
Moira

Second Day of School

I think I left things on a rather dark note yesterday and I feel that I should remedy that.

Today was far from perfect, to be sure, but I find myself in a much better mood than I was yesterday. I woke up late and again had to impose on anya to give me a ride. I found that people were again nice to me today, though, and a couple of my teachers insisted on dedicating all of their class time today to asking me questions about life in Canada. While this wasn't unwelcome, I did find it somewhat odd. (Do they not have actual things to teach?) I was given a lot of free time though.

I've created my own schedule, free of unpleasant things like gym class and physics. A part of me is curious to see what a Hungarian gym class is like, and I also know that it's important for me to get out and get some exercise, but, 8th grade gym scarred me enough that I never ever want to do that again and haven't since then. I also have only given myself about five classes every day, so while school starts at a nauseating 8 am, I should be home no later than 2 most days.

I'd like to start getting some exercise in my routine. Biking to school is a good start, and I'd like to start running again since it's so flat here. I feel like I should join a team of some kind, but I feel like that can only end badly. I like exercising, and dancing is one of my favourite activities, but somehow I have never managed to translate these things into the coordination that it takes to play sports without injuring either myself or the people around me. This is one of the many reasons I stopped taking PE.

Lizzie, my future host mom, has arranged for both Felipe and I to be on the school lunch program. While this seemed like a good idea two days ago, I have now seen the food that they serve. Today was a bowl of soup, which had no taste other than the large amounts of salt that had been added to it, as well as a bowl of what I can only assume was pasta in a cream sauce. The pasta, however, had the texture of cucumber when bit into and the sauce, while white, was more oily than creamy. On top of this were bits of pork in a red oily sauce.

I waited until I got home to eat.

Anyways, I've had better days, but my jitters from yesterday are considerably better than they were today. I think, once I actually figure out what I'm doing, it could be good here. I'll keep you guys posted.

Moira

First Day of School

Today was my first day of school. It was... Well, I hate to use one word to sum up a whole day, but 'awful' is the one that's coming to mind. To be fair, it didn't start out well, and it didn't get much better from there.

I had decided that, in an effort to stay in shape while I'm here, I would bike to school every day, unless the weather was bad. Needless to say, today, the weather was bad. 

Last night, I'd tried to go bed early, since school starts earlier here and it would take me a lot longer to get there. At ten thirty, I shut out my light and went to sleep. At midnight, I woke up to flashes of lightning lighting up the sky outside my window and peals of thunder that shook the house. Resigning myself to the fact that I wasn't likely to be able to sleep until the storm passed, or at least settled down, I got up. I read some and stood out on the balcony outside my bedroom and watched the storm. It was 2:30 am before I got back to sleep.

When I woke up again at 6:30 am, it was still raining. Anya drove me to school. Since I had budgeted enough time to bike there, I was a half hour early, and, since I didn't speak the language, or know anyone else, I was not only bored but feeling very anxious. I couldn't decide if breakfast had been a good idea or a bad idea since I was feeling sick to my stomach as well. On top of that, I had no idea where my first class was.

I did find my first class, after being pointed in the right direction by a friendly classmate and when I got there, I was beckoned to sit next to a girl and her friends. I didn't know them but was glad to see friendly faces. Not that anyone was unfriendly per say, but I did attract quite a few stares. It didn't help that, having a short supply of clean clothing at the moment, I'd gone to school in a dress and quickly realized that Hungarian school is a strictly jeans affair.

A few people there spoke English, namely my teachers, but I found myself with very little to do and so I read most of the day. I didn't like appearing anti-social, but I wasn't sure what else to do. Before class had started, I already wanted to go home.

Not home home. Just back to my house. The girls I was sitting next to in class were nice and showed me how to get lunch at the end of the day but no matter how nice to me they were, and how helpful people tried to be, I felt very awkward and shy.

Oh yeah, and did I mention, their school day works entirely differently from anything I have ever seen before in my life. I'm supposed to be creating my own schedule based on the schedules of about five different classes but considering a large part of me doesn't want to go back to school, I'm having some trouble.

Ugh. And everything was going so well.

I've looked up culture shock online. I'd say I'm entering phase 2 and leaving the honeymoon phase. This phase wasn't supposed to come on for at least another month and who knows how long it will last.

I don't know what I'm doing and I don't think I've ever felt more alone. I'll keep pushing through, like I always do and I'll make sure to ask some more questions tomorrow. Things have suddenly gotten very difficult, though and I keep getting headaches because of it.  I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.

Moira

Budapest

I went into Budapest yesterday (and yes, in case you're wondering, I am posting twice in one day).

I love Budapest. It reminds me of being in one, huge museum. I've been in several times now and every time, I seem to have trouble knowing where to look. Every building is a piece of poorly cared for art that's lasted for decades and decades simply by using the sheer will that seems to fill the Hungarian people. It's a city where the most insignificant things are usually the most beautiful. There are some famous sights, like Buda Castle and the Chain Bridge and St. Matthias church and Hero's Square, and those are very impressive, but it's the other buildings that fascinate me. There are so many buildings there that, in Canada, would have been ordinary buildings. Things like grocery stores and pubs here are housed in the bottom floors of beautiful old buildings, each one decorated with ornate sculptures. So much of it is worn and broken, but still beautiful. I love it.

Anyways, I was feeling poetic. 

Moira