Bad Dreams and Big Caves

Good morning, everyone.

I know it's a bit of a stretch with th me alliteration in the title, but I have two subjects for today's post and I wanted to make it work.

Bad Dreams: My mom asked me this morning if I was okay after reading my last blog post. The answer is yes. At the moment, I am okay. I have sustained no injuries and am in no danger of doing so, and I'd say to an extent that I'm happy sometimes though not usually. It doesn't help that for about a week now, I've been plagued by bad dreams almost every night. They change every night, and I can't always remember what they're about, but what I do remember is horrifying. Last night I dreamed that someone was pouring boiling oil on my hands. It didn't hurt, or at least not much that I remember, but there's something terrifying about watching your skin redden, blister, and fall off before you own eyes. Another dream I had, and I may have said this one already, involved baby spiders hatching under my skin, crawling inside of me and eventually bursting out as fully grown things that size of my fist. The others aren't as clear, but I usually end up waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and it takes me ages to get back to sleep.

Whether this is caused by my unhappiness or is causing it, I don't know. I can't remember if depression can cause bad dreams, I'll have to look that up when I get home because, as I write this, I'm not at home.

I woke up late this morning (courtesy of a nightmare last night) and anya wasn't pleased to see me heading off to school after class had already started. I tried to tell her that no one cared when I got there as long as I made it there eventually, but she either didn't understand or wasn't convinced. My bet's on the former but at least I tried.   Truly, it doesn't seem to matter when I get to school. Maybe this is because very few things seem to matter to me at the moment, but I never quite understood why it was so important for me to attend school every day, especially when I rarely go to class even if I'm at the school. At home, I could see the importance of attending class, even if, in the throes of my depression, that became harder to do. Here, I'm not learning anything and I have my budding writing career to think about. I can get some work done in class, but not as much as I would like. 

Anyways, I biked to the school but couldn't bring mysf to go inside, so I'm sitting in the town square nearby, eating my usually breakfast of sandwiches and enjoying the morning air while I write this. Later, I think I'll get some coffee at my favourite local coffee shop. I've already trained two of the girls there into making my order (one Americano, here called hosszú kavé, black) as soon as they see me come in the door. 

Big Caves: I really should have written this earlier, and I tried but I lost everything I had written and I didn't want to have to rewrite it. My mom wants to read about my trip though, so her we go.

This past weekend, almost a week ago now, my host family took me on a trip. We drove across the country to the town of Josfávő on the border of Hungary and Slovakia and saw some caves that are there. It was cool, although, if you're going to look at caves, I suggest taking the shortest tour that you can find. There's nothing that exciting to see in caves in two hours that you can't see in a half an hour. That being said, I enjoyed myself, and got lots of bad pictures of stalagmites that I, in my teenager-ness, think look like penises. I'll let you be the judge.

After the caves, we drove to Miskolc, to anya's aunt and uncle's house. I love driving in Hungary, especially eastern Hungary. It's full of long flat planes, rolling hills and deciduous forests that seem to go on for miles. It's really beautiful. 

We stayed the night in Miskolc and the next morning drove to a park. The entrance was littered with shops and restaurants, but once you got into the park, it was just trees and nature and other people walking through on the giant paved path they'd put that led to the top of the park. It was nice there, very peaceful. We went on a train ride back to the bottom before getting back in the car and driving back to Dabas.

It feels weird thinking about driving across the country on an overnight trip, like it should be more significant than that. I know that's just because I'm Canadian, but it still seems strange to me. It also seems strange that I'm going to Austria for three days next week, like that too should be more significant. It's another country, shouldn't it take more than hopping on a bus for a couple of hours?

I'm excited, though. I've never been to that many places, and I want to see everything. Dabas feels a bit like a cage sometimes, especially since I can't go anywhere by myself for another month. I like having my bike, because at least then I can move around within Dabas with a certain amount of freedom, but there aren't many places to bike to.

I was excited to come here, and I'm still glad to be here, but sometimes I wonder if I'll ever have the freedom I long for. It sounds weird and deep, but I think about it a lot. High school, now exchange, then university and I'll have to have a job, then I'll be an adult with all the responsibilities that come along with that.

Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked and I promised pictures of penis-shaped rocks. So, without further ado: