Lee B. and I are at an internet cafe in Budapest, Hungary. The funniest thing about the Hungarian language that I've learned so far, in learning one word only, is that "thank you" is pronounced in a way that it sounds like "curse your name" (Köszönöm).
Lee's mom asked in our last post about cool weather clothes. While we were in Scandanavia I definitely wondered if I should have brought another long sleeve shirt instead of one of my tees. (For anyone interested, I brought three t-shirts, two tank tops, one orange hoodie, two pair of convertible pants, one skirt, one scarf/sarong, four pair of socks, seven pair of underwear and two pair of shoes, one hiking, one flip-flop, on this trip.) In the Baltics, I still got a little chilly, especially when it was rainy, but when we got to Warsaw it was hot. When we got to Krakow it was Hot. Now that we're in Hungary, it is HOT. I got so hot today walking around that I was hiking my skirt up around my thighs, highly tempted to raise it above my head, little-girl-in-a-church-dress style. No, mom, I did not. We took an air-conditioned break to eat Hungarian Goulash. Of course, not as good as mom's ;) Lee had mushroom, I had chicken. Mmm.
As a result of the heat and our proximity to the sun, I am really tan. (Yes, I am wearing sunscreen.) I suddenly realized today why I must have been so tan as a child. It's because I was outside ALL the TIME. So it is now. Were I in Saint Paul, I'd probably be on the couch. I think all last summer I was outside maybe as much as we have been in the last week.
So, yeah. We're two weeks in, starting week three, and everything is great. I got to call my mom the other night because some girl in a hostel left me a Polish phone card and she was leaving Poland that day. The card advertised "15 kredits," which I mistakenly thought meant 15 minutes. Well, not when you call America. I talked to my mom for about two minutes and the last thing she asked was, "Are you and Lee fighting?" I hope she heard me shout, as the Polish operater's voice cut the connection, "NO!!!" It's true what you've heard; the longer you spend doing this the easier it gets. (Not sure if you've heard that or not. That's what I'd heard.) I am surprised by what I notice. I don't miss any of my clothes. (But I do want to buy all new ones-- European women, mullets withstanding, have great fashion.) I'm not homesick, as in, I don't miss Saint Paul, but I miss our kitchen and knowing where everything is and that everything works. I miss grocery shopping and knowing what everything is. I don't miss driving. I don't miss mass media marketing. I didn't realize how inundated I've been with media-- walking around here there are, of course, advertisements everywhere, but I don't understand them. So I am active in the visual choices I'm making, whereas at home I'd probably just read every sign, billboard and newsstand I passed.
I'm hoping to be able to add more pics to the blog but I'm loading some onto Flickr right now and it's taking FOR-EV-ER. Maybe the advertised price for this internet cafe-- 170 Florint for 30 minutes, 300 for an hour, really WAS too good to be true. (1000 Florint= about $6, so 300 Florint= $1.92. And Boy Howdy was it ever difficult to find the calculator function on this computer. In Hungarian it's called "Számológép.")
In closing, we're doing well, no major catastrophes. We're moving even more quickly than we expected to. Here's where we've been since June 9th:
Oslo
Stockholm
Vaxholm (part of Sweden's archipelago)
Helsinki
Tallinn
Riga
Majori (part of outlying Riga coastal area)
Vilnius
Warsaw
Krakow
Auschwitz/ Birkenau
Budapest
And I think tomorrow we'll go to Bratislava, Slovakia, where I hope they'll have faster internet and cooler weather.
Lee's mom asked in our last post about cool weather clothes. While we were in Scandanavia I definitely wondered if I should have brought another long sleeve shirt instead of one of my tees. (For anyone interested, I brought three t-shirts, two tank tops, one orange hoodie, two pair of convertible pants, one skirt, one scarf/sarong, four pair of socks, seven pair of underwear and two pair of shoes, one hiking, one flip-flop, on this trip.) In the Baltics, I still got a little chilly, especially when it was rainy, but when we got to Warsaw it was hot. When we got to Krakow it was Hot. Now that we're in Hungary, it is HOT. I got so hot today walking around that I was hiking my skirt up around my thighs, highly tempted to raise it above my head, little-girl-in-a-church-dress style. No, mom, I did not. We took an air-conditioned break to eat Hungarian Goulash. Of course, not as good as mom's ;) Lee had mushroom, I had chicken. Mmm.
As a result of the heat and our proximity to the sun, I am really tan. (Yes, I am wearing sunscreen.) I suddenly realized today why I must have been so tan as a child. It's because I was outside ALL the TIME. So it is now. Were I in Saint Paul, I'd probably be on the couch. I think all last summer I was outside maybe as much as we have been in the last week.
So, yeah. We're two weeks in, starting week three, and everything is great. I got to call my mom the other night because some girl in a hostel left me a Polish phone card and she was leaving Poland that day. The card advertised "15 kredits," which I mistakenly thought meant 15 minutes. Well, not when you call America. I talked to my mom for about two minutes and the last thing she asked was, "Are you and Lee fighting?" I hope she heard me shout, as the Polish operater's voice cut the connection, "NO!!!" It's true what you've heard; the longer you spend doing this the easier it gets. (Not sure if you've heard that or not. That's what I'd heard.) I am surprised by what I notice. I don't miss any of my clothes. (But I do want to buy all new ones-- European women, mullets withstanding, have great fashion.) I'm not homesick, as in, I don't miss Saint Paul, but I miss our kitchen and knowing where everything is and that everything works. I miss grocery shopping and knowing what everything is. I don't miss driving. I don't miss mass media marketing. I didn't realize how inundated I've been with media-- walking around here there are, of course, advertisements everywhere, but I don't understand them. So I am active in the visual choices I'm making, whereas at home I'd probably just read every sign, billboard and newsstand I passed.
I'm hoping to be able to add more pics to the blog but I'm loading some onto Flickr right now and it's taking FOR-EV-ER. Maybe the advertised price for this internet cafe-- 170 Florint for 30 minutes, 300 for an hour, really WAS too good to be true. (1000 Florint= about $6, so 300 Florint= $1.92. And Boy Howdy was it ever difficult to find the calculator function on this computer. In Hungarian it's called "Számológép.")
In closing, we're doing well, no major catastrophes. We're moving even more quickly than we expected to. Here's where we've been since June 9th:
Oslo
Stockholm
Vaxholm (part of Sweden's archipelago)
Helsinki
Tallinn
Riga
Majori (part of outlying Riga coastal area)
Vilnius
Warsaw
Krakow
Auschwitz/ Birkenau
Budapest
And I think tomorrow we'll go to Bratislava, Slovakia, where I hope they'll have faster internet and cooler weather.
2 comments:
I can't wait to hear about Bratislava! I heard from the folks in the Bulgaria that it's awesome!
lauren
Also, as for you comment on the mullets, I coined them the "Eurotrash Trend Mullet" and the "Eurotrash Trend WoMullet". They are also popular and some fashion-forward Asian Club members!
Lauren
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