greetings from budapest!!!

a huge hello from hungary.

:)

as noted in advance, i don't have free internet here, and i'm usually out with people all afternoon/evening until after the internet cafes i'd actually pay for are closed.

at any rate, here's my life in the past half week.

last tuesday night was my last night in prague... jan, josef, and marek took me, sarah, and sam out to a czech jazz club for the night... it was a lot of fun... it also meant i didn't get home until 12:30am when i had to be awake at 5am on wednesday... so wednesday i was pretty out of it.

but that's ok... wednesday i was up at 5, out the door by 6, and at the train station by 7 to catch my 7:30am train to budapest. i shared the cabin with 3 students from amsterdam who talked in dutch the whole ride, and two older czech men... not much leg room, but i had a window seat, so whatever :P sooooo many fields of sunflowers in czech republic and in slovakia like you've never see... amazing....

the geography changes completely when you get to the slovakian/hungarian border, even though it's just a really short ride from there to budapest.

wednesday, shalom and william met me at the train station when i got into town around 3pm. shalom is a good friend from 3 years ago... william is a friend of hers who i'm renting an apartment from. when i lived in budapest before, i lived in the buda (western side) about even with the center of town... the apartment i'm renting is awesome, but a little south of the parts of town i know best... what is nice is that it's on the 2nd floor of a building where the 1st floor is a convenience store... so unlike when i lived here before, there are no grumpy neighbors if i drop something late at night! :) for $23 a night, i have a bathroom, full kitchen, and then a large room with everything else i need... including tv, which i haven't watched at all in 3 weeks... at night cnbc europe plays leno, so i generally have been falling asleep to that :P, otherwise it's good to catch up on news while i make my breakfast... it's slightly more than i'd pay for a hostel, but worth it for the personal space since i'm here for so long... moving on... :P

wednesday night, though exhausted, shalom and i went to the nearest mall to get dinner from a food court, then met her parents at a local hungarian church where an american choir called the "continental choir" was doing a concert... that was fun.

thursday, i wandered a LOT to places i'd been to before and have missed... then i met up with shalom and her japanese friend chickako for dinner and for a concert... the concert turned out costing more than we expected though, so we went to sit by a nearby lake, where we discovered we could still hear the concert (orchestra) for free, AND talk and watch the stars too. :) that too, was quality.

friday, i met up with shalom and with our friend zsofi (one of my hungarian friends) at a really cool teahouse to chat away the afternoon... it was not your typical teahouse though... it had lots of nooks and crannies and rope bridges and lofts to hide in, and we ended up at a table made of pillows hiding in a corner in the floor... it was a fun time to catch up... zsofi commented that she loves hanging out with me because "not only can i practice my english, it's like you've never left, i feel just as close to you as before" :)

after i parted ways with both of them, i met up with henk to go to a coffee house i used to hang out at most fridays when i lived here before... henk is in his early 40s and is from holland, and is tons of fun for chatting with... besides him, i spent quite a bit of time chatting with arpad, one of henk's hungarian english students, and with laszlo, an extremely friendly hungarian guy who happened to be there too.

saturday, i met up again with shalom and with her friend bethany. we spent the afternoon playing cards on margaret island (the beautiful island in the middle of the danube here), and then after dinner (at one of my favorite hungarian restaurants near where i used to live here: st. jupat's), we went to visit the chain bridge. apparently every weekend this summer they've been doing live music and selling crafts and making it open to pedestrian traffic only, which is lots of fun... we heard a hungarian gypsy jazz band for awhile before going home.

this morning i was back at my old church here in budapest, where i got to see my supergood friend bernadett finally again... she's like 10 years older than me to the day, but was my prayer partner most of the semester i was here, so we chatted a LOT about many things and have been well in touch since. her daughter was 4 when i left and is now 7!... my how she's grown! bernadett is expecting baby #2 in september, and since she's usually extremely skinny it's so funny to see her 8 months pregnant! (not haha funny, different funny)... after church, 9 of us had a barbeque at bethany's apartment, which is where i am now... there was mike from new zealand... joseph and jean from australia, but korean by birth... jean's husband eduardo from spain, anna from france, chickako from japan, and then me, shalom, and bethany (americans although i'm the only one who actually lives in the states), which made for quite the entertaining dinner... the guys took care of the grill on the balcony, and all us girls took care of everything else in the kitchen... this is one thing i've missed hugely from here, is the guy-girl dynamic in the 20-30 something group at my budapest church. it's hard to explain why, but it's different in a very good way... there are things / divisions that definitely single me out at a girl or that i would consider too girly to do with certain groups in the states, but here somehow it's ok, because of the atmosphere... i'm not phrasing this well at all... but there's a difference... moving on..

things i've missed, and am glad to have back for a bit...
* the hungarian language... i've forgotten waaaay more of it than i wish i had just due to lack of practice in the past 2.5 years, but it's still beautiful to hear. :)
* gum that tastes strongly of menthol
* the 24 hour crepes restaurant at batthyany ter
* my budapest church... even though there are many new people as well as many the same, it's a beautiful community of people from so many places, but all who are so friendly and all about God... it's a wonderful place to return to... it's a gift to be back with a community that was such a powerful place for me to be in the past
* the danube... kinda gross by day, but at sunset, it's one of the most beautiful things ever
* the selection of fruit juices in the grocery stores here. :) that's the one thing america will never compare on
* the budapest yellow line metro (3rd oldest subway in the world, it's very quaint :) )
* the flowers on margaret island
* my friends in hungary (although as you may have gathered from the rest of the post, half are hungarian, half are expats from other countries)

at any rate, one week to go, and i count on it being a fabulous one. :)

szent istvan day (THE national holiday around here) is on saturday, so that will come complete with a fabulous fireworks display... the annual folk arts festival is coming up this next weekend at the castle downtown... more quality time with everyone listed above plus some others...

it's a beautiful week in hungary (weather wise), and people wise it should be more of the same. :)