boldog hálaadás! (happy thanksgiving!)

Thanksgiving in Budapest, even though it did bring up some homesickness for most of us, ended up being almost everything a Thanksgiving should be. Our group headed to the Marriot for a $45 buffet (CIEE paid for half of it, luckily.) A lot of our professors joined us, as well as our director and assistant director. The appetizers alone were enough for a whole mean – caramelized pumpkin soup, venison, buschetta, salad, brie, to name a few. After binging on all of that, we of course had the traditional Thanksgiving food and then some – turkey, ham, salmon, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing and so much more. We definitely got our fix of American food cravings for a bit. Dessert of course had pumpkin pie, which was accompanied by things like chocolate fondue, apple tortes, gingerbread cookies, and Hungarian pastries. I have probably never been more full in my life.

Even though my family was definitely missed, especially since it was my first Thanksgiving away from home, it was an incredible and unforgettable meal. Our group has come together to form it’s own dysfunctional family, and it was nice being with most of them, sharing stories and incredible food. It made me realize how much I’ll miss everyone when this is all said and done.

This Thanksgiving I was thankful for the incredible opportunity I’ve had being here with these incredible people. Though it’s definitely not the normal setting for a Thanksgiving feast, I’m thankful for my Hungarian Thanksgiving.
<3 ali


pics from the recent times - updated
http://tulane.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069745&l=bdb69&id=2808002

prague!

So I’ve been awful about blogging lately with no real excuse- but I figure I better update on Prague before I head off on my next trip this weekend.
After a small scare, Steph and I made it to Prague! We took a bus that deceivingly left from the bus station metro stop, but not actually from the metro station. But we made it on the bus. We took a student agency bus, which only cost us about $45 round trip, and was really nice. Hot drinks for free, movies and Friends episodes in English! The seven and a half hours pretty much flew by. We got into Prague late on Thursday night, and my friends Sara and Brooke from Tulane met up with us at the bus station. By the time we got back to Sara’s apartment, where I stayed for the weekend, we were ready to crash to get ready for our weekend of sight seeing.

Friday morning Sara had class, so Steph and I followed her there and just wandered around the area. The school was in a nice place – right by a church with a gorgeous old cemetery. We also found a park with a lot of gorgeous views, so we took lots of pictures.


After Sara got out of class, we went to brunch at Bohemian Bagel. Steph and I were beyond excited about this – Budapest almost completely lacks breakfast food to our dismay. After binging on pancakes and bagels, we headed back to the Jewish quarter. We bought passes into some of the old synagogues and the old Jewish cemetery. The cemetery was amazing – it had been built up and up since they were given such a small amount of space to bury everyone. Then we headed to the synagogues that had displays in them. Probably the most intense display we saw there was one of artwork of children during the Holocaust. The people in the Jewish ghetto that they had been sent to came together to try to shelter the children from the horrors that were going on by putting them in dormitories and sending them to school. Part of their education was their artwork. The art traced the whole journey they had been through – the Nazis moving in, life in the ghetto, and their dreams of returning home. Sadly, at the bottom of each piece of art it showed their birth date, the date they were sent to the camp, and in most cases the date that they were killed at Auschwitz.

After that intense experience, we went to go meet up with Brooke and Kelly after they had finished up with class. We went to go get hot chocolates at Café Slovakia, a famous old coffeehouse. We did some sightseeing by dark – the mini Eiffel tour, the Czech version of Castle Hill, Charles Bridge. Dinner was at Radost – an incredible vegetarian restaurant.

The next day, Jacque and her cousin Erin made it to Prague, so we met up with them and all the girls for brunch (love that breakfast food) at a New Orleans themed restaurant. It was funny being there with my friends from NOLA. Next door to the place was a tiny grocery store that sold American food for high prices – Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Barq’s Root Beer, Marshmallows. I caved and bought a box of Kraft Macaroni and cheese for about $4 – totally worth it.

From there we headed back up to the castle hill area. We went through a mirror maze - almost definitely a huge tourist trap, but it was fun playing with all the warped mirrors. We walked over to the national palace and saw the national cathedral (it had felt like far too long since we’d toured a church, now that our CIEE excursions are over). The cathedral and castle were both beautiful.

We did a lot more sight seeing around the area, including some peeing statues outside the Kafka museum and the Lennon wall. The Lennon wall was really cool – it has been decorated over and over since John Lennon died.

For dinner we tried out Czech food at an old beer hall. I went with the Czech version of goulash and dumplings – it was funny how different it was from Hungarian style – definitely good though. We went out for drinks after at a cool wine bar that was made up of lots of caves. We called it an early night though since Steph and I had to catch our bus at 6:30 the next morning.

Prague was a great trip. I had an amazing time catching up with my friends – lots of telling of embarrassing freshman year stories. The city itself was beautiful. I was surprised how different it felt from Budapest. Prague had a unique feel – I feel like I heard a lot more English and there were a lot more American conveniences. But at the same time, it was clear that we were in Central Europe. It was fun knowing that Sam, my brother, had studied there the year before, so now we can compare thoughts on it, though he definitely had a more in depth experience with the city (I somehow managed to get by without getting any black eyes though…)
<3 ali

prague pics: http://tulane.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070630&l=31ab6&id=2808002

what a city

this weekend was a nice one - after the stress of midterms last week, we finally had a chance to breathe and actually enjoy the city. it is easy to get frustrated with the city when midterm stress is already in action, since being in a city where people don't speak your language is stressful enough. but my roommate had a visitor, so we got to play tourist, which was a fun time to enjoy the city.
it's random moments when i realize how much i love it here.

-parliament runs. during the frustrationg of midterms, my roomate and i decided to blow off steam by running. to run to parliament and back is a little over a mile for us, so it works perfectly. even as negative as we'd get with our midterms, it was amazing to be able to just run down the street a bit and see this gorgeous building all lit up at night, and then be able to look over the river and see the lights reflecting on the danube. blowing off some steam and realizing that the work is worth the opportunity of living in such a cool city makes these runs like no other.

-szechenyi baths by night. okay, the prospect of going to outdoor baths at night in the freezing cold in a bikini soundss absolutely horrifying and insane, i'll admit. but stepping out into the courtyard, you see this gorgeous yellow building surrounding you. the steam rises up from the thermally heated baths creating such a cool effect. on the first of the three outdoor baths has tons of jets shooting up where people just stand and enjoy the massage. in the middle of it, theres a whirlpool area that gets going incredibly flast - a blast as long as you're careful to not run over the children. in the middle there is a big pool for swimming thats freezing cold, which i always avoid. the third is the warmest, and is full of people just sitting and enjoying it. old men sit around playing chess on boards in the water. inside there are more mineral baths and the hottest sauna known to man. the baths never fail to be a refreshing and gorgeous experience.

- the sunset on the danube. it was a gorgeous day friday, and we had just walked along vaci utca, a big pedestrian shopping street. we decided to head over to the river to wait for the tram, and the view was absolutely gorgeous. the clouds gave the city a cool effect and the sun was starting to cast colors over the city. looking over to buda you can see the fisherman's bastion, castle hill, parliament, and other amazing sites.

- the grand market. i am so lucky to have this place right next door to my university, so i can run in to grab a quick peice of fruit or lunch between classes (or who am i kidding, a pastry.) stands are chock full or fresh fruit, strudels and pastries are hot from the oven, raw meat is well.... raw. upstairs are stand selling hot gyros, langos, stuffed cabbage, along with every kind of hungarian souvenir anyone could possibly ever want. i have stands that i frequent, and the people who work at them like challenging me to order and pay entirely in hungarian now. they used to use engish to tell me prices, but no more of that pampering for me. they think it's cute that i try i think.

-the fisherman's bastion at night. i still hadn't been, but saturday night i headed over with a couple of the boys to take in the view. the bastion is in buda, and is a terrace overlooking the river. during the middle ages, fishermen were responsible for defending the wall, now it's just a gorgeous site. at night it's absolutely breathtaking, as i can imagine it is during the day. it's frustrating taking pictures, since the camera does it absolutely no justice. it's full of staircases that lead to small castles with arches where you can look over the river from. the whole thing feels as if you're in a fairy tale. the tour groups have left for the day, and the whole thing is quiet and almost churchlike as everyone is taking in the view.


regardless of the inevitable stresses of school, this is a pretty amazing place to be coping with them :-)

<3 ali

more pictures- including the halloween party we hosted (which i feel wasn't nearly as wild as my parents :-P)
http://tulane.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067541&l=04b19&id=2808002

terror házá

today i made my second visit to the house of terror museum (it's free on sundays for EU students!). it's on andrassy avenue, a gorgeous tree lined street full of posh stores and gorgeous buildings that ends with the incredible hero's square. however, the museum used to be headquarters for the nazi and communist regimes, so it doesn't have such a beautiful past.
the museum is amazingly set up. it looks incredibly modern, and there is effective mood setting music throughout. flat screen tvs everywhere show images of people under the regimes, speaking of the regimes, and speeches being delivered.
it's slightly frustrating being an english speaker there though. each room has a piece of paper in english giving historical information (lots of reading!) but the descriptions of what we are actually seeing are all in hungarian. however, it's pretty easy to get the idea that a lot of suffering was going on, and it should never happen again.
as you make your way down to the basement, an elevator slowly takes you down while showing a video of a man describing the hanging and torturing process. that's when it really hits you how many people were tortured and killed in the same building where you're standing. walking through the reconstructed prison cells is such an eerie feeling, it's amazing that people could actually do such things to each other. it's also disturbing how few people know about the atrocities that took place during the communist regime. having been to house of terror and recsk, the former death camp, it's so weird knowing that people were treated as such subhumans, yet we hardly hear of it. i'm as guilty as anyone else, i'd never know this much about it had i not been here.
at the end there is a beautiful memorial for the people who died. however, perhaps the most chilling part is a hallway full of pictures and names of the victimizers. it's sickening to look at the people and know the horrible things they did. they look like they could be anyone, but they were capable of such awful things.
house of terror definitely is a must see in budapest.

pecs and riots: a hungarian weekend

so as weird as it sounds, this weekend was a pretty relaxed one. it was our first long weekend, so jacque and i were the only ones on the program who were around and not traveling. my friend courtney from tulane was in town from brussels, so we had a great time showing her around the city.
she got into town on thursday night, so we took her out to dinner at marxim- our favorite pizza place. it's quite an experience. the restaurant has a communist theme, and the pizza's have names like "pussy pussy monica and bill." but the pizza is awesome and the beer is cheap, so it has quickly become a favorite of ours.
friday we did a lot of site seeing around pest. it was absolutely freezing though - the coldest it's been yet. saturday we decided to go for a change of scenery, so jacque, courtney, and i woke up at 5 in the morning to make our way to the train station. we headed to pecs, a city in the south part of hungary, about a 3 and a half hour train ride away.
pecs was an adorable little town. it was fun to wander around a new place with no guide book to tell us where to go. we got there starving, so our first priority was to find breakfast. "breakfast" ended up coming in the form of incredible desserts and the largest coffees that i have seen since i've been here, so we were pretty excited about that. after that we made our way to a mosque that had been transformed into a catholic church. it was cool to see the combination of both types of symbols in one building. after that we found the big basilica, which was amazing how beautifully and elaborately decorated it was. one of the main attractions in pest is the early christian underground burial chamber. we saw one, but i have a feeling we didn't get the full experience since we left not entirely sure what the glass covered room was.
after that we wandered around a little more before meeting up with garret and tyla, who were spending the weekend there. we headed to lunch and ice cream with them, before taking the train back.
sunday courtney and i spent wandering aroud margaret island and buda. along the river in buda we saw the craziest little outdoor art exhibit. using a panoramic shot of the city, secondary and university students had created what they imagined the city would look like in 2056, a hundred years after the 1956 revolution (more about that later). the best part of the display was the music - while we were looking at it, we heard the beatles, frank sinatra, and some kind of indian music. once we saw that and got our fill of buda, we met up with jacque and made our way to the szechenyi baths. it was about 6:30 when we got there, and cold and dark, so the idea of changing into our bikinis was slightly horrifying, but so worth it. the outdoor baths are heated, and the steam looks gorgeous in the courtyard of such a beautiful building. we hit up the indoor ones and the sauna too, and left feeling incredibly relaxed and refreshed.
courtney left yesterday morning, and then jacque and i spent the day at her apartment catching up on work and the internet. things got interesting though when we headed back to figure out what the McCafe was right by my apartment. as we were walking in we noticed tons and tons of police cars and ambulances rushing a couple of blocks away, but we didnt pay them much attention. but as we were leaving, we noticed the tram line and a lot of streets were shut down so we knew something was going on. we hurried the couple of blocks next to my apartment and turned on the t.v. to see that hundreds of police officers in riot gear were right where we had been ten minutes before. today is the anniversary of the 1956 attempted communist revolution, when hungarians overthrew the communists, then the soviets brought in tanks and stopped the revolution. last year the riots turned crazy- the t.v. station got overtaken and a lot of tear gas was used. we called our RD to find out what was going on, since all the news is in hungarian, and she basically told us everything was fine but not to leave our apartment.
as of today things are a lot calmer, but i'm at jacque's apartment which is outside of the city, so i'm not sure what's going on back where i live.
anyhow, among all this craziness, i have a history midterm tomorrow, so i better get back to studying! it's hard to believe that 2 months from today i'll be back in the states. time is definitely flying (and having a 2 day week this week should help!) it should be a good week after i get through with the midterm - poland on thursday, i can test the pierogies already!
<3 ali
more pictures
this weekend:
http://tulane.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067536&l=80439&id=2808002
random budapest: http://tulane.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067541&l=04b19&id=2808002

transylvania: vampire count = 0

i haven't fallen off the face of the earth! things have just been insanely busy, so blogging has lagged behind. but before it gets too far in the past, i better get my act together and report on the trip of transylvania!

after waking up insanely early and taking a insanely long bus ride (with pee breaks wayyy to frequently) all the way to transylvania, our first stop was a big outdoor market, one that is only open for a week of every year. to be completly honest, i could have turned around and gone home right then and there. it was absolutely freezing and it was raining, and our bus was parked way far away, so we had to walk down the side of a narrow street with semis blowing past us. but after a miserable couple of hours, the trip perked up. we made our way to a small hungarian village we were staying in, and there split up into our host families. i ended up staying with a woman named ibi and her husband istvan. they were absolutely incredible, even though we had a hard time communicating, as it was all based off of our tiny hungarian vocab skills. they had a pig, which we decided to name norbert after they laughed when we asked his name, along with some chickens, and a dog who was actually named rex who was chained to the outhouse. and yes. i did say outhouse. and transylvania's temp averaged around 0°C during the day. so going at night was always an experience. not only would you wake up the rooster and have him "cockle doodle doo"-ing at 3 in the morning, but it was absolutely freezing. and i of course had the extremely smart (and possibly palinka influenced...) decision to go out there in shorts and a t shirt. times like that i was glad steph, jacque, and i were all stuck in the same bed, thank god for body heat.

during the trip we did a lot of sight seeing. lots of churches, as always. we went to another market place where we got to see a man make chess sets, and then we did a lot of shopping around. transylvanians are into beautiful textiles, all made by hand. 2 families invited us into their houses to see their "clean rooms" where they had gorgeous beaded and embroidered textiles and clothing. another night, a family had us in to see them do a traditional hungarian dance performance. another major site for us was seeing people skinning a cow on the side of the road, and deciding that we should stop and watch. intenseeee. i'll spare everyone the site of that (but it is in the photo album) but we saw the cutest old lady there.

every morning and night we were given some of the absolute best food ever home cooked by ibi. breakfasts were huge spreads of cold cuts, jams, breads, and cheese. dinner she'd make soup, cabbage rolls, or potatos with pork chops. it was definitely an authentic and hearty dining experience. and of course every meal started with shots. our last night there was istvan's 55th birthday, so we got to celebrate with him by having an even bigger feast than normal, plus more palinka and beer from the bar. we were sad to have to say bye to our family, and we exchanged gifts with them. they gave us cutting boards that istvan made himself, and we loaded them up with chocolates and wine.

on the way back to budapest, we stopped in the same place we stopped on the first day for the market. the last day of the market, it turns into an animal market. it was a wild experience. there were trucks everywhere carrying cows and sheep, and horse drawn carriages running around. andrew even got his foot run over by a truck, but luckily it turned out to just result in a bad bruise. the market was fascinating, but at the same time hard to take in. there was a sheep being skinned right next to two other live sheep. it was insanely dirty, and the animals weren't all in the best shape. but it was one of those things that we couldn't look at through american eyes.

overall, transylvania is nothing i expected, but so much more. there were no thunderstorms and vampires, but instead an incredibly different society from anything i've ever experienced. it was a place where it was entirely normal for cows to be wandering our street in the morning, and for horse drawn wagons to be the main form of communication. it's weird how the things that i take for granted and assume everyone does is not the way at life at all for people in other parts of the world. transylvania is a place i'll never forget, and not just because of the outhouse...

<3 ali
p.s.- pictures:
http://tulane.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066898&l=e3998&id=2808002
http://tulane.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066904&l=149e9&id=2808002

the northern hungary pictures are up...
http://tulane.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066102&l=aca98&id=2808002