Beckster’s Birthday! (November 5, 2007)

I carried some of the cupcakes to school on Monday afternoon and Ali and I gave them to Rebecca before Hungarian. She got really excited and told us how hard it was to be away from home on your birthday and then she started crying after hugging us both like 5 times. It was soo cute!
That evening a bunch of us went to Morrison’s to celebrate her birthday where Beckster had a number of shots and I finished all of my beers. It’s hard to sum up a night at Morrison’s on paper, but it was basically amazing. (Oh, and we loved the performer. He was great.)

Icing vs. Chocolate (November 4, 2007)

So the instructions on our icing was to boil the bag it came in for 10 minutes and then pour it over the cupcakes. It was kind of strange. But we went along with it and after it hardened it was actually more like actual chocolate than icing but it was surprisingly good.

Cake mix or Icing… (November 4, 2007)

We finally made it home and made Vin come over to cook with us, even though it was all pre-made so our limited cooking skills would have sufficed. When he got over he only saw our icing packets on the table and not the muffin mix which Ali had put in another room. Thinking we were complete idiots, he yelled at us that those weren’t cake mix, but icing. I just went along with it saying, “What?? Are you sure? Let me see that?!” Ali and I kept this up about 2 minutes before we finally told him it was in the other room.

Birthday prep (November 4, 2007)

After visiting the House of Terror Museum on Andrassy Avenue, Ali and I decided it would be nice to make Rebecca cupcakes for her birthday, figure she’d flip over something like that.
Since it was Sunday we had to go to the 24 hour super market a few stops away from our apartment, but conveniently right on the way home. We stood outside for about five minutes finishing our Burger Kind version of a McFlurry, which was excellent, all the while waving, yelling, and making faces at Chris and Vin who went with us to the museum but decided to take the 4-6 home without us.
Finally we went in and began searching for our necessary cooking supplies, basically, something that comes in a box and you add a few simple ingredients. We had no luck finding cake mix, or cupcake mix either actually, but we did find icing (or so we though) and chocolate and vanilla muffin mix. We figured that would do and I went to the check out line while she searched for oil.
The guy in front of me in the line must have overheard us talking and asked if I was from the states, I answered that I was and then we have a nice little convo. I told him I was studying abroad, and he said he was working at the embassy—which I figure it’s always nice to know someone at the embassy. We continued to talk about how confusing grocery stores here can be and finally moved on to where we were from. Ends up he went to Clemson, so that was an exciting moment for me, even though I’m a Gamecocks fan.

Third time may be the charm, but we’ll never find out (November 3, 2007)

My econ professor recommended Bratislava, Slovakia as a good day trip for our four day weekend. It’s only a few hours away so I decided to go with Caitlin, Ali, and Vin.
We were going to go on Friday but after going to Morrison’s the night before and staying out until about 2, getting up at 4:45 to catch the 5:50 train didn’t seem like such a good idea. I actually got out of bed, went to wake up Ali, who said, “Lets just go tomorrow.” I was awake, but still pretty tired, so I agreed. We told Vin and Caitlin and reschedule for Saturday.
Only waking up early was still difficult, and we were running a bit late. We would have been okay except the red line wasn’t running as often and we had to wait 10 minutes at Blaha. Had we known that we really could have just walked and may have had a chance.
As it was we got to the train station at about 5:45, giving us five minutes to find the international ticket booth and the train—as you can imagine it didn’t work out.
Since we were all there we thought we could at least alter our trip and go somewhere else. We asked the woman at the ticket counter when the trains were going to Vienna and found there was one leaving in 5 minutes that if we hurried we could make. To speed things up Vin decided to just charge tickets for the four of us. The woman asked for our passports but was confused as to how many he wanted. She wasn’t sure who was going or if we wanted round trip or not. The number of people never changed, but we did vary between one way or two. She gave us the total cost, which ended up being about 30 dollars per person, one-way, and we decided that was too much for a day trip and canceled. At this point the ticket lady got really upset and was like, “I don’t know what you want! One person, two person, one way, round trip!” She literally threw her hands up, so we quickly grabbed our passports and left.
Although briefly considering going to St. Andrew’s we gave up since none of the other ticket booths spoke English.
Moral of the story: after two failed attempts, we decided to give up on going to Bratislava.

There’s been an ABC a block away from us this whole time!!! (November 2, 2007)

Ali and I decided to pick up Chinese food and diet coke for dinner. It was kind of late but Ali told me the Jewish supermarket stayed open later than the others and it was right by the Chinese food place. I suggested we get the diet coke first, but Ali thought it’d be easier to carry the Chinese food, so we headed there first.
Naturally, we got back to the Jewish supermarket right as the employee was locking the gate out front. I let out a very audible sigh of disappointment and the women pointed down the block in response. Ali and I thought maybe there was another entrance still open, there wasn’t, or that there was another store down the block, there wasn’t one of those either.
We ended up wandering back to our apartment and ended up finding an ABC on our street a few blocks down. We successfully got our diet coke there (where we overheard some other foreigners talking about how good vodka and coke is. I thought this was weird since soda was like my first mixer ever and it struck me as sad that someone actually had to be told this). For the record, an ABC here is just a small general store, although it does sell alcohol, it's not a liquor store like the ones at home.

At least I didn’t steal candy from the kids I took out (November 2, 2007)

In honor of Caitlin’s being here, Ali and I headed to the Szenchiney Baths near city park.
In addition to the numerous pools with different temperatures and sauna, there was one pool that had both water jets and a whirl pool. The whirl pool was fabulous since the water jets were stationed on the side of the walls and you literally were pushed around. It was similar to when my sister and I would run in circles in our swimming pool at home and get a current going, only a lot stronger.
Unfortunatley not everyone was keeping pace, which lead to some near collisions. Then two kids, probably about 10 years old, were holding on to the side of the pool (a bad move in my opinion, at least on the fast side) and I accidentally, well, knocked them off the wall. I felt really bad and grabbed them really quickly to be sure they didn’t fall under water and then helped them get back on the wall.

Morrison’s—with Vin and Jacque’s dad—weird. (November 1, 2007)

As most of you have figured at this point, Morrison’s is one of my favorite places in Budapest. It’s one of Jacque’s too and she thought it’d be fun to show her dad where she hangs out. In fact, pretty much the entire group went out that night, which was odd, but fun too.
Well, Jacque expected her dad to hang around a little bit and then be like, “sweetie, I’m heading back to the hotel.” Only he didn’t, he just sat by the wall and said he would wait for her. Luckily, he and Vin ended up having a lively conversation and numerous people, myself included, were shooed away whenever we stopped to speak to them.
Other than that it was another fun night at Morrison’s.

I saved a marriage on Castle Hill (November 1, 2007)

I was walking by the Palace on Castle Hill when I overheard this couple arguing about who was going to be in the picture this time, each telling the other to be in it, so I stopped and offered to take one of both of them. They got excited, accepted, and told me that I'd saved them from having a fight! I told them it wasn't a problem and would hate for a picture to ruin their vacation, at which point they told me they were on their honeymoon! How cute!!

Hungarians take their national holidays too seriously (November 1, 2007)

I didn’t quite make it out of the apartment in Halloween, so today was to be Caitlin’s first day really seeing Budapest. Unfortunayely, it was also All Saints Day, which I don’t celebrate, nor does anyone really in the US, and pretty much everything was close.
We got the see the Grand Market, Jewish Synagogue, and Royal Palace from the outside and then it took us forever to find a restaurant that was open. Pretty much the only things we were able to do was to visit St. Stephen’s Basilica, Fisherman’s Bastion, and Castle Hill.

People think my life is way more fabulous and interesting than it is (October 31, 2007)

While still laying in bed, my roommate got a call from Kata out assistant director about how our neighbors had been calling complaining about how loud our party was. I totally understand their anger, however I don’t feel too bad as Ali and I haven’t had any previous parties and rarely have company either. Our neighbors, however, seem to think other wise as they reported that we were always drunk and bring home boys. Poor Kata explained that she knew us and was pretty certain that wasn’t true. However, it works out for me because now we have a legitimate excuse for not hosting anymore parties, because frankly, the random people and the huge mess just didn’t make it worthwhile, even though we did gain a bottle of wine, a small amount of vodka, and five beers out of it.

Some days it’s just better to stay in bed (October 31, 2007)

I had the hangover of all hangovers on Halloween thanks to my Halloween party and decided not to go to my internship or my class. But once I found the perfect position laying down where my head didn’t hurt, things were glorious.
Eventually Caitlin convinced me to walk to McDonalds for fries and a diet coke, which was a remarkable hangover cure. Not really a big McDonalds fan, but it did the trick...or treat (couldn't resist the cheesy halloween pun. sorry)!

Halloween Party (October 30, 2007)

Will add later.

Tesco! It’s like walmart (October 30, 2007)

After my economics exam Garrett mentioned that he was going by Tesco to get some things for his Halloween costume. I felt like a complete failure at this point because 1) I’ve been here 2 months and haven’t been to tesco once, and 2) I was hosting a Halloween party and didn’t have a costume! In my defense, I didn’t know I was hosting the party until a few hours before my final—so clearly I didn’t have time to plan for it.
We boarded the other half of the two tram and took it to the end of the line, so basically, the opposite of how I get home.
Tesco was quite fascinating too! When you go in you get a grocery cart and then they have this escalator ramp that you roll up to the second floor on. Once you get to that floor there are numerous small stores in Tesco, including a food court, but then at the end you get to the store itself, which is like a small walmart. I guess by itself it wasn’t that exciting, but I’ve really been missing my walmart runs as of late.
I purchased a bottle of palinka and some construction mouth masks because I decided the easiest costume ever would be to be a doctor. It was an exciting outing.

Congratulations and Best Wishes (October 29, 2007)

After completing my super intense Political Problems of Transition exam, I decided to treat myself to a chocolate cigsa. I then sat outside my Econ classroom, where I had a few extra minutes, and checked my email. I got one from my mom who responded to an earlier rant I’d sent her but then closed with a post scrip of: “OH and PS I forgot to tell you the announcement at yesterdays dinner was Chris and Dana got engaged (ring and all) Friday at the Biltmore House. YEA!!!”
I cannot describe how stunned I was at reading that except by saying that my jaw literally dropped. A moment later, Chris here walked by and asked how I was and I stupidly, still confused, blurted out my cousin got engaged. He said, “Oh, congratulations!” And I answered, “Yeah.” As I hadn’t mentally processed to that point yet.
I’m not surprised that it happened. They’ve been dating seriously for quite a while, and Dana is perfectly lovely, they work very well together. I was just so stunned to receive the news right then.
After my last class I proceeded to the Spar to get champagne!
And just a reminder, Congratulations are for the groom; best wishes are for the bride. (Thanks to Emily Post, and Emily Gilmore)