Happy Budapest!

Call the Washington Post! Send an email to The Guardian! Send smoke signals to NRC Next! The biggest news of the past weeks is.. that I turned 21 =D

I am probably the only one (besides the Americans here) that is that excited about this news, but still.. worth mentioning! Especially, because a lot of the events I will be telling you about in this blog are related to this. Happy birthday to me =)

Monday, 3rd of October - Liszt Ferenc Tér, Budapest

First of all, my parents arrived on the 29th of September. They booked tickets for this weekend just to be with me on my birthday. Initially, they tried to get my younger brothers to come as well, but that did not work out. (However, it was for a good reason! My brother made his debute in the base of FC Den Bosch the next day! Proud!) Anyway, I had classes until six that day, but decided to meet my parents in between at Deák Ferenc Tér, to give them some guidance around the city. It was really surreal seeing them there, because Budapest and exchange feels like a totally different universe from home and all of a sudden they were in it. After my classes, I showed them the university and we had dinner at For Sale Pub, where I have been before with friends. Again, I forgot to order the small portion and got served a huge, but lovely, amount of traditional Hungarian food again! After that, I took them for a walk along the Danube, which is extremely beautiful by night. The liberty bridge, the palace, the chainbridge, the Four Seasons hotel.. all lit against a background as black as night. It keeps amazing me every time! Of course then they were very curious about where I lived and after showing them our appartment, we went together with Geran for a drink on our lovely square. Around midnight my parents went to bed. Did we go to bed? Of course not ;) Me and Geran met a lot of the Corvinus girls at Moulin Rouge, a club that was opening that night and really breathes the atmosphere of feathers and cancan. Do not go there without dressing up!

The next day I transformed into a Budapest Guide. First, I took my parents to Erszébet Tér, where I let them execute a typical (Eastern) European tradition: they carved their names into a lock, attached it to rack, held the keys together in their hands and threw them in the nearby Danube. It symbolises an inexctricable love, though some people use locks with a code or keep the spare keys.. Then, walking around Castle Hill, I told them all the stories I knew about Budapest. The facts, the funny details, the urban legends and my personal experiences. We went into the Matyas Church, which is on first sight just a 'normal' church. However, when you take the effort to walk up the stairs, you see a variety of beautiful colours and interesting patterns.. go there if you are in Budapest!

After eating a "Hummus is sexy" szendvich, we went to Vörösmarty Tér to join the Communist Walking Tour. By coinsidence, this is where my parents first met some of my friends from the language course! The tour was really interesting, since the guides told, next to facts and historical information, a lot about their personal experiences of the Communist regime. I totally recommend this tour! At night, my parents invited Geran and me over to their studio-appartment, which was just around the corner from our flat. It was a lovely evening! We cooked (well, tried to cook) traditional Hungarian food, drank some tea and wine, and mostly chatted about everything and nothing.. (Is that also a saying in English? Is it even correct in Dutch..?)
On saturday I took my parents to see the day to day Budapest life, apart from the touristic things. We first went to Margaret Island, where I run two times a week and where a lot of citizens of Budapest come to recreate. They experienced langos for the first time as well and guess what, they actually liked it! After that, when we managed to get round the protests in front of the Parliament, we went to the Central Market Hall, where we always get our fruit and vegetables. To top it all off, we had coffee (a lemonade shake for me) and cake at one of the oldest coffee houses in town! After all this, we got 'home' and prepared ourselves for the night.. In 6 hours I would be 21 years old!!
After dressing up, my parents and me went to dinner with Geran, Emma and her boyfriend. Thai food it was, since the Morroccan restaurant we initially wanted to go to turned out to be closed for already four years now.. After again a delicious meal (seriously, everything here is delicious! Or we just make good choices), we went to one of the Ruinbars in the city: Szimpla. In Budapest a lot of old ruin building are turned into bars, which gives a really nice atmosphere. At this place they met all my friends that were in Budapest this weekend. A lot of them were actually on trips, so my parents were really suprised there were still so many people! And then it was midnight! I turned 21!! Of course everyone sang Happy Birthday for me and especially the American people were extremely enthousiastic. It was a really nice! Unfortunately, we could not get the group to go to a sophisticated club.. However, because we ended op at Gong Cafe again, I was still in bed at 5 in the morning, so that was succesful!
The next morning I was at my parents' studio at ten o'clock, where my mom had a suprise for me: champaign for breakfast.. Thanks mom =P Just what I needed. After getting loads of lovely, fun, beautiful, hilarious and sweet presents (Thanks to everyone!!!), we took the metro to go to the Széchenyi Bath. You can imagine this was the most relaxing birthday I have ever had, also for my mom, who is normally just running around with drinks and bites. In the night, we did the next luxury thing: After eating three sorts of pie, we went to the Ballet in the Operaház. It was so beautiful! We just felt like royalty and although my father felt asleep for a minute, we all really enjoyed it.

Today was the last day of their visit. We tried to go to the Parliament, but it failed again. Therefore, we decided just to go and relaxt a bit. Get some Kürtoskalács, chimney cake, and see the St. Stephens Basilica from the inside out. We even went on top of it! At two o'clock then, it was time to say goodbye again.. As surreal as it was to see them in Budapest in the first place, as weird it was to see them leave again. It was a lovely long weekend though and I would like to thank them for that!!

Tonight, I am going to celebrate my birthday with my best friends here in Budapest. Ashley is turning 23 today as well, so we decided to do it together and invite all our mutual friends (from the language course) and some people from our university. Totally looking forward to it!!

Tuesday, 4th of October - Liszt Ferenc Tér, Budapest

That was a perfect birthday!! We started it off with an all you can eat ánd drink dinner at Troféa, which basically meant: unlimited champaign, salads, meat, fish, sushi, cheeses, paté, desserts and anything else you can imagine. The staff of the restaurant was also really nice. When I came in, everyone remembered who I was from making the reservation and they all came over and congratulated me.

After three hours of eating and drinking, we left to continue the party at Morrisons 2, where we partied until.. well, I do not know until when actually =D. We had a blast! Now, I have to go and be the responsible 21 year old.. Let's get to university!

Sunday, 9th of October - Liszt Ferenc Tér, Budapest

Again, during this week it was just the 'normal' exciting life we live here in Budapest. (Not intending to make you jealous or anything.. or well, maybe I do =P) Studying interesting subjects, having dinner with lovely people, partying until the break of dawn, walking through one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen.. Just random stuff you see ;)
This weekend however, we got to see a whole different side of Hungary, when our professors took our 'underclass of middle- and eastern Europe' and 'poverty and ethnicity' classes on a fieldtrip to Pécs, in the south of the country. The purpose of this trip was to see how the underclass, especially the Roma people of this group, lived and to hear about their struggles and the problems that they have. On saturday we all gathered at Déli Palyaudvar (= south trainstation) at 05.40 in the morning. Indeed, that meant I needed to get up at 4.30 hr, but keeping in mind the hard knock life the gypsies have, I managed. After a train ride of three hours we arrived in Pécs, where we first visited a school in the poor area that is Ormansag. Honestly, it was kind of boring and we started to loose our faith for this trip.
No worries! The next stop was a small village with 66 inhabitants, where we met with the major. He told about his town and the problems they had, mostly with the authorities. The most shocking thing he told us that about twenty years ago the water company made a drainage system, because there was too much water in the village. Nowadays, there was too little, but they kept on draining the water and are then selling back the clean water to the villagers. These villagers do not have the money to pay for this water, since almost everyone is unemployed, and therefore they have to drink the water that comes from another source in the town. The thing is that this water is totally poisoned by former Soviet experiments and all villagers will probably get cancer within 20 years. The water company and the other authorities do not care. It got me so angry. Where is Erin Brokovich when you need her? In the second village we had a lovely Lécso meal, which is traditional Roma food. The guy was hilarious and told us all about the positive things the gypsie community is doing. Though we were critical, it was also nice to hear about some ambitions and positive attitudes. (Oh, and we saw the cutest kids ever! I wanted to take one home.. but the teacher told me not to.) This town was the complete opposite of the third one. In this last village we visited we could really feel the tension. I did not see it personally, but when we got back to the bus the guys told me there were people throwing us middle fingers and carrying stones when they followed us around the village. I do not agree with their attitude, but imagine living in a village that is totally given up on by the state. No government officials coming there anymore. No police men and no health organisations. Living in a town that is totally exclude from the rest of society, where you are born with no real hopes for the future and where you will probably stay until you die.. that must develop a lot of frustrations.

After all the impressions of the day, in the night it was time to relax, we thought.. At a quarter to eight our professor told us we needed to hurry! We had experienced what hurrying meant for hiim during the day, since coffee breaks of five minutes lasted five times as much and he eventually changed his statements to 'we are in a relative hurry', but this time he seemed serious. So, two minutes later we were downstairs and followed him through the city. At eight o'clock sharp we arrived at our destination: a bar! Our professor thought it was time to drink and to underline this he decided to order jägermeister ('unicum, but then not disgusting) together with us. It was really nice to have a social chat with him, since this man, Ladanyi Janos, is one of the most respected sociologists in middle and eastern Europe. Unfortunately, we got kicked out of this bar, because there was a birthday party starting. We went to another one and when we got up the stairs there was a really nice suprise! On the table in the middle of the room were some of my lovely friends from the language course, who apparently also decided to go to Pécs for the weekend. After chatting with them, I joined my class again for cocktails, sisha, pizza and then clubbing! It was a very fun night =) One tip though: please do take either a phone or a key when you are staying in a hostel somewhere, else you end up waiting outside in the cold at five in the morning with your colleague trying to climb the building.. Today we did some sightseeing around the city, at some carrot cake and then went back to our lovely Budapest, exhausted but extremely content. Going to sleep now..!

Wednesday, 12th of October - Liszt Ferenc Tér, Budapest

Well, that is nice. As great as the fieldtrip was, that awful is the aftermath. Monday during the day, there was no cloud in the sky yet.. During the night however, I got really sick. I have not been sick in ages. Sometimes I feel not that good, but I always withstand it and never get sick. This time I did. Basically, I have been in bed ever since. Yesterday I went to class, but my teacher told me to get back to my bed: "You should go home, you look awful." Well, thanks. So I did and here I am. Sick. Going to try to sleep again now..

Saturday, 15th of October - Liszt Ferenc Tér, Budapest

Luckily I am all better! Wednesday night Airi cooked us some lovely lasagne, which was full of all the nutrition I needed ;) On thursday I was almost completely recovered and went to university again. At night, we met some of the Corvinus girls for drinks at Szimpla, where we also met Mona's sisha-smoking father who came all the way from Hong Kong! Afterwards, we were supposed to go to a Suit Up-party, since it was International Suit Up Day (How I Met Your Mother - fans know what I am talking about). However, when we arrived there were about one hundred guys in suits and girls in dresses in front of the door.. it was full. Therefore, we decided to walk with almost sixty of them to the other city of the city centre, to Moulin Rouge! I really enjoyed this night. All the dancing made me regain the energy I had before I got sick! Friday, after waking up late and some studying, we went to the underground area near the Metro. There was this bar called Westbahnhoff at which they held some alternative Oktoberfeszt. Basically, this meant 0.5 liter beer for 99ft (about 35 eurocent) and some weird rockbands. The party went afterwards was more my taste: Balkanbeats on the A38 boat! Igen! On a boat! It was really cool and we had a blast jumping and dancing around. Are you ready? Are you ready to bounce on the balkan beats?! Yeah!! Of course this was mostly a cultural experience, where we integrated in the middle and eastern european traditions. Of course. Today I spent my whole afternoon with Jorien, writing our first draft resolution for International Debate. It is about Libya and we are proud of it! Hopefully the teacher likes it as well!

Concludingly, I am on top of my game again =) Ready for the upcoming week of living the Budapest life to the fullest!

Xx