nem beszélek magyarul

I don't speak Hungarian.

Today, Julie and I went to a Turkish place for lunch, and when I got to the cashier, I did what I normally do, and say the bare minimum of "good day" and "thank you," while relying on the cash register display to tell me how much money I owe.  The man asked me in English if I spoke Hungarian, and I said no, and he proceeded to lecture me on how I should have told him that so he could have communicated.  I understand that, I guess, but I'm so used to getting by with the basics and not needing anything else because in most cases, the people I interact with do not speak English.

We were told when we came here that assuming people speak English is rude, so I never make that assumption.  I feel uncomfortable using the few words I know because I often get weird looks when I pronounce them incorrectly.

When I was in Paris with Rhaelynn, people would be supportive and helpful with our pathetic attempts to say French words, and I felt comfortable trying.  But here, I don't.  I dread the moments when I am expected to speak the language other than to say "thank you" or "hello," because people seem annoyed at my lack of knowledge of the language.  I don't feel comfortable trying to learn it.  I've even had a couple of people kind of *tsk tsk* at my Americanism, which is disappointing.

With that said, not every encounter with a Hungarian is like this.  I just had lots of awkward moments today and recently.

I wish Marketing didn't overlap with Basic Hungarian.

Oh well.

I go to Prague tomorrow, so I'll be experiencing a different language barrier.  The bus leaves at 7 AM, which means I've got to get up rather early.  It should be fun, but I've got a lot to do tonight.

"Widgets" is a fun word

Since the last time I posted, two McDaniel Budapest students and I have successfully made a website for the McDaniel Messenger, the student newspaper at this campus.  Check it out here.  It's still a work in progress, but most of the work that remains is obtaining and posting the archives.  We used Wordpress, which isn't actually as hard as I thought it would be, and widgets are fun.  Gotta love those widgets.

Laura, Julie, Caitlin, and I went to Arriba Taqueria the other night before Laura and I watched The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, thus concluding the Stieg Larsson obsession until the American movies come out in December.

I can't stop listening to the Sucker Punch soundtrack.  There are a few songs I'm not so excited about, but there are a few I can't get enough of, so it balances out.

I also had a dream about Chuck E. Cheese's.  Strange, but it's relevant because today, someone asked me if there are arcades all over the place in America.  This same person had never had peanut butter and jelly before.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised, because it's not like most people in this country have ever had peanut butter, but I felt awkward explaining peanut butter and jelly because it's such a normal thing for me.

I have a whole bunch of newspaper stuff to do, but that's ok because I usually think it's fun.  Tomorrow, though, we have an extra Journalism class at 4 pm.  That'll be awful.  I'm basically gonna be at school from 10:15 to 5:30.   This is unfortunate because it leaves me little time to prepare for the next day's trip to PRAGUE!

Yep, Prague is this weekend.

And then on Monday, I get to go to my first press conference!

Post-Romania, Pre-Prague weekend

This has been an uneventful week for me, which is why I haven't really written anything.  I needed a break after so much back to back traveling.  It was awesome- I spent a whole day doing nothing.

But yesterday, I actually left the apartment for something other than school or food.

Julie, Laura, and I went to the Holocaust Memorial Center.  It ended up costing 100 HUF, which is like 50 cents (again, being a student in Europe has its perks).  It was less emotionally intense than the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., but still really good.  I think what I liked was not just how well everything was explained with various forms of multimedia, but getting to see things from a non-Western perspective. I learned about how the Holocaust happened in Hungary and how it affected people that lived here where I'm living now.  I found out that my apartment is located in what used to be one of the ghettos, and that my bus stop is named after a 20th century Jewish author who was shot in that time.  It was really interesting, and luckily almost everything was in English as well as Hungarian, unlike some of the other museums here.

We went to Kaiser's after, and I didn't need anything but I ended up buying Hungarian Easter candy.  They had MASSIVE kinder eggs.  So amazing.  And kit-kat bunnies, which looked interesting, but I haven't eaten mine yet.  Basically, Easter candy in Europe is super exciting.  They lack all of the jelly beans and stuff like we have in America, but the chocolate selection is awesome.

That night, I reluctantly joined the group to MOM Park, which is a mall, to go see Sucker Punch.  Getting there was a minor adventure, as we somehow managed to leave the sidewalk without noticing because it transitioned to some kind of decorative path on the side of the highway that we were not actually supposed to walk on...but we survived and finally made it to the mall.  When we got there, we realized we couldn't taken a tram.  Oops.  Anyways, the movie was AWESOME! As soon as Emily Browning's cover of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) came on, I knew I'd love it.  It was so visually appealing, and the plot took place on multiple realities, and I just bought the soundtrack and am listening to it because I just can't get enough.  Totally gonna buy this movie when it comes out.

Today, I went to Arena Plaza with Laura and Julie to go shopping.  My pants have all developed holes in them so I needed new ones.  I got new ones, but not after exploring the ENTIRE MALL before finding stores that had normal-sized clothes at prices normal people can afford.  Honestly, the the first 2/3 of the experience, I was under the impression that all Hungarians are rich and anorexic.  So I got two new pairs of jeans.  Awesome.  I also bought lettuce at Tesco because I needed lettuce and Tesco is awesome.

Good day.

But now my feet are killing me.  My shoes are just awful.  New blisters almost every day.  I tried on some shoes at the mall but they were expensive and I didn't love them.  I really ought to get some new shoes soon, though.

My friends are going to see Sanctum tonight, but I'm not interested.  Gonna actually get some work done, I hope.  I read all of "Tracks" in Paris but now that we're discussing it in class, I can't remember anything so I need to reread the chapters for this week.  Also gotta get some work done on the website for the Messenger.

It's Midterms Week.

I'm awful about remembering when exams are.  Today, I have a midterm in Multicultural Voices in American Literature, and I was thinking that it was going to be on Tuesday.   It'll be fine, though, because it's not like I didn't study.  The only other test I have left to take is in Marketing, which will be on Thursday.  

Last night, I attempted to book bus tickets to Poland for this weekend, but the transaction didn't go through because the Internet connection was too slow.  I later talked to my dad about it, though, because it's basically gonna be 1 day traveling there, 1 day in Krakow/Auschwitz, and 1 day traveling back, and I felt weird about spending money on two days of transportation and one day of actually doing stuff.  Don't get me wrong- I'd love to go there, but I'd like to have more time.  Three day weekends aren't always as conducive to travel as one might think.  Anyways, my dad said I should save my money for Spring Break. Or to buy new jeans, because all the ones I've brought have developed holes.  He brings up a good point.

I'm afraid of the malls here, though.   I'm pretty sure they need their own zip codes.

Transylvania, day 3: My boots were not actually made for walking

I woke up way before everybody because I've been getting used to getting up around 7:30.  So I showered and got ready to go, since we planned to check out at 10.  Once everyone was ready to go, we checked out, stored our luggage in the hostel, and set off to go up the mountain to the Hollywood-stlye Brasov sign.


First, though, we bought soft pretzels for breakfast.  We haven't found any in Hungary so it was exciting.  I was unfortunately crippled by my feet at this point and felt really pathetic for holding the group back with my sad attempts at walking.   Seriously, who gets blisters on the bottom of their toes?!

We walked up the base of the mountain to the cable car station and bought our tickets.  I didn't really like going up because there were a lot of people in there with us, but we survived the ride.   We then walked around until we found the sign.  There was snow on the ground and the trail was slippery, and Laura slipped at one point in a precarious spot.  Finally we made it to the top, and it was gorgeous.  We could see the whole town, and there was also a random cave with a tomb in it.  We took lots of pictures before heading back to the cable car to leave.

Lunch was at Pizza Roma, which we think is owned by the same people as Pizza Pasta Venezia because they even had the same plates.  It wasn't as good as Pizza Pasta Venezia, but it was still better than Hungarian pizza, and it was enjoyable.  American TV shows were playing, and I saw more of "I didn't know I was pregnant" than I've ever wanted to.  It was actually nauseating.

We had so much time to kill before our train departed so we went back to La Republique, where we went the first night, to get tea and hot chocolate because it was so cold outside.

Still having lots of time, we decided we needed a mission so we set out to find me a new purse to replace the one I broke in Paris.  I finally bought one at Terranova.

Even that didn't take up much time, though, so we went to McDonald's.  I hate going to Mickey D's in foreign countries because it makes me feel like a stereotype, but it was so warm in there...

Finally we got back to the hostel after enough time had passed to figure out how to get to the train station without walking there, because I was not in a good place to handle the 30 minute walk.  We got bus information first, but then learned that a taxi would be 8-10 lei, which is about $3.  The woman at the hostel offered to call a taxi for us, so before she did that, we set off in search of snack food for on the train.  European snack food sucks.  It's all potato chips, chocolate, and alcohol.  It's awful.  We were all running out of lei at that point, too, so we pooled our money to buy stuff.

We got to the train station really early, sat there waiting for it to come, finally got on, and then we were off!  This train, in my opinion, was not nearly as nice as the other, but it was fine.  We had fun talking and hanging out, as our original plan was to stay up all night.  Around midnight, though, I felt really sick from not eating real food for dinner, and we ran out of water and got really thirsty, so it became less fun, and I went to sleep in hopes that I'd feel better.  Border control came about 15 minutes after everyone fell asleep.  We arrived in Budapest at Keleti station at 5:25 AM, went to McDonald's for breakfast but it was closed, went to an ABC for water, and then went our separate ways to get home.  Caitlin and I rode the bus home together because our apartments are only a block away from each other.

I got back and felt so sick, I could barely walk and couldn't even force myself to eat rice. I wrote Dani a note explaining not to worry if she didn't see me because I was asleep and asked her to grab some groceries for me if she had time, and then hobbled to my bed for some much-needed rest.

I'm feeling so much better now and Dani is awesome because she got food for me so I wouldn't have to limp to Kaiser's.  My class for the day was cancelled, which worked out well because our heat is broken and I can't shower and don't want to go out in public.

Transylvania, day 2: A palace, a castle, and a fortress

We woke up Saturday morning early enough to shower and eat by 9:30, because the night before we had signed up to go castling, which may or may not be a real word.  Kismet Dao Hostel really has redeemed my opinion about hostels.  The showers were clean, the sheets were clean, the kitchen was clean- the whole place was generally clean.  They provided cereal and tea and coffee for breakfast.  And most importantly, they organized our trip for the day for about 80 RON, which is around $32.  This got us a car and Romanian driver to take us across the Romanian countryside to three locations.

Romanian driving, though, terrifies me.  Apparently lanes and speed limits are merely suggestions...  The cool thing I noticed is that traffic circles usually replace intersections, and people in Romania actually know how to drive through them, unlike drivers in America in my experience.  The driver was nice and pointed out stuff on the way, but I was holding on to my seatbelt for dear life in hopes that I would not die in Romania just to see a castle.

Peles palace was the first stop, and when we arrived, it became apparent that we were much more highly elevated than I'd anticipated, because it was really cold with remnants of snow/ice on the ground.  It was beautiful, though.  We took a lot of photos outside because inside, it was required to purchase a photography pass.  Our student IDs got us in for 5 RON, which is less than $2.  When we got called in for the tour, we were asked to put on slippers over our shoes, which was only a slight ordeal, because they were all either too big or too small for our feet.  This caused us, particularly me, to have to shuffle around the palace in order for the slippers to not fall off.  The palace was beautiful- much less gaudy than Versailles but still just as impressive.  The woodwork was amazing.  There was one room in which 14 types of wood were used, which was astounding because I don't even know if I could name 14 trees off the top of my head.  We were shown the location of a secret passageway, which was super cool.  There were beautiful paintings and wood inlays and furniture throughout the place.  We only got to see the lower levels because we paid for the basic tour, but it was still an amazing experience.  The guide was very informative, too, because he explained what things were for and where they were from and who used them and how, and it was clear that most of the things in the palace were kept in their original state/location, so we saw it how it actually was.

Our driver made us an offer afterward.  He said the for 30 euro, we could experience a traditional Romanian meal at a real Romanian countryside restaurant that normal Romanians go to, and we'd get there by horse and carriage.  Matt flipped a coin to decide, because we were all kind of indifferent since we were planning to eat Romanian food in Brasov that night for dinner, but when the coin said yes, we later knew that it was the right decision.

The carriage ended up being a wooden cart.  We all climbed in with the assistance of a milk crate and a small Romanian boy, who was also the driver of the horse.  It was really funny and really cold.  Seeing the countryside from a horse-drawn cart is way different from the inside of a car, and it took us 15 or 20 minutes to get to the restaurant from the point where the cart ride began.

We arrived at the restaurant, which was scenically located and family-run, I think.  Everything was homemade.  Our driver helped us order and explained that his normal job is actually to take tourists around Romania and help them experience the culture.  He gave us his contact info, which I'll add to the bottom of this post once I get it from Caitlin, in case anyone reading this ever wants to go to Romania, because his prices are fair and he really was instrumental in making Saturday as much of an experience as it was.  So anyways, first course is a soup.  I got vegetable soup, because I don't like soup and I don't usually like meat, and I didn't like the soup, but the others liked theirs.  Caitlin got pork and Matt, Laura, and the Taiwanese girl with us liked their meatball soup.  The bread we were given was pretty good, too, but the weird thing was that sour cream is basically a butter substitute here.  I hate sour cream, and barely managed to escape eating any of it, because our guide was kind of pushy with trying new food and eating everything the Romanian way.  It's not a bad thing, but I have limits.  They all tried sour cream on bread with salt, though, which was apparently the thing to do.  For the main course, Laura and I tried homemade sausages with polenta.  I disliked the polenta, which the guide described as "poor man's bread," but liked the first half of my first sausage, but it was really intense sausage and I couldn't eat more than that, even with pickles.  Some of the others tried it so it wouldn't go to waste.  I'm proud of myself for eating real Romanian food!! Dessert was apple cake, which was actually rather good except I couldn't finish it because I was feeling sickly from too much sausage.  I'm so glad we did that, though.  It would've been hard to order from a Romanian menu without the guide, and we wouldn't really have known what to do with all of the stuff like sour cream and pickles without him, too.


Our next stop was Bran Castle, which is the famous Dracula one.  Vlad the Impaler is the actual historic Dracula, and my guidebook says it's "possible he defecated there once," but it really is inaccurate to call it Dracula's castle.  It was cool anyways, though, although a bit kitschy.  There was a not-so-secret secret passageway, and awesome views, and low doorways, and general coolness.  Even without a photography pass, we took pictures because there was nobody there to tell us not to and absolutely everyone inside was taking photos like crazy.  Afterwards, we wandered around the marketplace nearby and I bought a tacky t-shirt each for me and my sister, and Laura accidentally knocked over a shot glass, broke it, paid for it, and received a broken Dracula ashtray in return.


Finally we went to Rasnov fortress.  We were all getting tired by then.  A tractor pulled us up the mountain to the citadel.  Our guide actually went in with us this time, which was nice because he kind of gave us a tour. The top of the fortress had a 360 panoramic view of the area, and it was gorgeous.  Rasnov had it's own Hollywood-style sign, too, which was kind of strange but still cool.  My feet were so sore at that point from my blisters, and Laura looked ridiculous because her boots were warped to the point that one of her ankles looked broken when she walked.  This is how we became the gimpy twins.














Back at the hostel, we took a nap before going to dinner.  My guidebook had a restaurant in it called Pizza Pasta Venezia that we went to, and it was really good.  I had some spectacular pizza, Matt had spaghetti, Laura got a HUGE calzone, and Caitlin ate some kind of pasta.  I was glad we went there because it was delicious and fairly priced.  Laura and I ate chocolate gelato for dessert.

On the way back to the hostel, Caitlin kept laughing at my pathetic attempts to walk.  I probably did look ridiculous.

We hung out in the hostel lounge for a few hours.  We eventually were joined by other people staying there as well as the hostel owners, who played darts and video games while listening to loud psychadelic rock.  We didn't really interact with them much because we were having interesting conversations on our own, but they were all nice enough.  On the TV, I caught a glimpse of something going down in Libya and attempted to ask the person watching it to tell me what they were saying, because I couldn't understand the Romanian, and he didn't understand what I was asking.  We soon went back to our room and I got on the Internet to check the news and realized how awesome the Internet connection is there compared to the one here in Budapest.  We didn't go to bed until almost 2 AM.