Onwards to the next adventure!

My Monday was very chill I went to class and Flora, and I hung around the dorm for some much-needed chill time. I also worked on some posts for the sheep account (finally done lambing!!!) and did some shopping around on different sales.

Tuesday was a shower and laundry day to start preparing for the Budapest trip. I had my first Hungarian Language Course, and it is going to be challenging keeping up with our professor. Most of the students in my section are French and Turkish with a few other countries mixed in like Germany, United Arab Emirates, and Korea.

Wednesday, my American Literature class has moved into the poetry unit so lots of Robert Frost mentions! After class Flora and I grabbed lunch at the canteen where I had fish and chips but the British version. After Flora’s afternoon class we met in the city center to go shopping for our carnival costumes for the party at the Bakelit cafe that night. Turns out, there are not a lot of costume options over here, so I bought a witch hat, a black dress, and some boots and Flora bought a devil headband and some jewelry - all of this took 2.5 hours between the walking and trying to find options! We came back to our dorm reheated leftovers for dinner and slowly started to get ready. While I was doing my hair, mom called, and I caught up with her quick. We picked up Adeline (one of our French friends) and started the trek over to the pregame at Eetu and Tommy (the Finnish guys) where they had “punch” (vodka, soda water, and juice) and visited with Gabriel (the Brazilian) and the Marianas (they are Portuguese and are roomies). The guys made us try a Finnish candy that was basically salty black licorice - nobody but them enjoyed it! After the punch was gone, we took a little walk over to Bakelit and met some more of our friends out front. The French and Spanish students that were here last semester for Halloween went way out on costumes, but it was fun to see everyone in a different element. The group is breaking the ice more and more each week and it’s fun to see all the different groups of people out partying til 3 am. After lots of dancing and a few too many vodka shots we sat in front of the bar waiting for the tram and visited with 2 guys from Nigeria that are also studying here on campus just not in the Erasmus program. Flora and I made it home at 4 in the morning and were exhausted from the day/nights events and slept in the next morning!

Thursday was day 2 of my Hungarian language course and we learned the alphabet - all 44 letters but some of them are 2 or 3 letters long and all the vowels have 4 different accents on them to determine long or short sounds. Flora and I went to ALDI to grab dinner and some snacks for the road this weekend.

Friday was a chill day leading up to leaving for Budapest. We showered and packed before walking over with Adeline and Charlotte to the bus station. After we arrived in Budapest, we checked into our hostel and went out looking for dinner. We settled on a Turkish restaurant and I had a doner tortilla. After dinner, our group went out sightseeing and met up with the ESN group for a round of flunky ball next to the Duna river. We met some more Debrecen students including 3 Italian girls and 1 German girl. After a round of the game we decided to move the group to a bar (you can see the map in my photo gallery) where we found approximately 6 dance floors that were spread out all over the place. We stayed out til 2 before deciding we should get some sleep before the next day!

Saturday was jam packed, starting with breakfast at the hostel and grabbing a coffee to go from a nearby shop. We grabbed our lunches from the hostel and went a nice walk to the Pest Concert Hall where we learned about the history of the town and the hall. We had a break after the tour for lunch and to explore along the Duna. We picnicked on benches next to the river and walked towards the next meeting point. While we waited on the benches at park, Tommy and Eetu wandered over to ride the Ferris wheel while us girls watched them go around a few times. We met up with the rest of the Debrecen group and started a walking tour through Pest and over to the Buda side for some spectacular architecture and views. We had cake at a confectionary shop before heading back to the hostel for a quick nap. We grabbed dinner at the Goulash Museum and as we were ordering our food the owner asked us where we were all from since we all had very different accents! The ESN groups from Debrecen and Budapest met back up for a pub crawl. Unfortunately, our group did not make it very long since we were starting to get sick and called it a night at Midnight.

Sunday was a free day for us to explore between 8 and 4. We ventured over to the Buda Castle and went through the museum. We grabbed lunch at a Langos place (another Hungarian cuisine) and decided to go sit in the sun and relax in another park. We did some more shopping on our way back to the bus stop and started our journey home.

This week has been jampacked with activities and Flora and I are going to try and get healthy again before Karaoke night on Wednesday at Bakelit!