Reverse Culture Shock?

Hello Blogosphere,
I have officially been back in America for a little over two months now, and as I write this I cannot believe that it is true. It seems just like yesterday I could walk down the Arany Janos Utca and buy some beer at the Match and enjoy it at Godor, before hitting up Morrison's! Oh my gosh. If anything, my time abroad feels like I entered into some sort of time space continuum. I honestly feel that it cannot be real life, I did not go to Hungary for a semester, it was literally too good to be true. I would believe it if someone told me that I had fallen into a coma for 5 months and then woke up and started my life in San Francisco again, having dreamt the whole thing up. Well all of this being said, here are some of my experiences that shocked me upon my arrival to the US.

1. Customer Service?!-- I had essentially grown accustom to pretending that this phenomenon did not exist. In Hungary you had to bag your own groceries, beg for the check, and pay for water (grrr), now that I'm back in America I can't believe that people act as if they want me to be their customer! It's pretty awesome.

2. Free water-- So when I first got back to the US, one of the first places I went was to Gig Harbor's best (in my opinion) Mexican Restaurant (which might not be saying a lot), Puerto Vallarta. Here I was given, not only free water, but free chips and salsa! Can you believe it! Things are for free because they want to provide good service! Amazing!

3. Being Carded-- Turing 21 abroad made the whole novelty of being "legal" fairly non-existent. I showed my ID maybe once in Hungary, and even then it did not really prove much since my Washington State ID probably did not make sense to the Hungarian's at the grocery store. Now that I'm back in the US, I have begun to realize what a huge deal Americans make of this drinking business. Anytime I try to buy something alcoholic (which, don't worry mom, is not too often), I feel as if I'm trying to do something very, very bad and that the person selling to me is helping me get away with some evil bidding...which kind of makes me like it. Maybe that's why we have such a problem with drinking, while the European's seem to just accept it, somewhat more responsibly.

4. Military Time-- In Hungary I switched all of my clocks to military time (mostly because when I first got there, I tried to go to the grocery store and I couldn't figure out when they opened for a while, since the signs were posted in Military time and my mental math skills are subpar). While abroad it was everywhere, so I got use to it and learned to use it. Now that I'm back in the US, on Mod12 time, my clocks do not make sense to me! I feel like I have to struggle to figure out what time it is when I look at my clocks, it's so bizarre!

5. English Everywhere!-- So while most young Hungarians do speak English, typically when on the street, what you hear is Hungarian. This became very normal to me, and I kind of liked not being able to understand all the side conversations...nonsensical jibber jabber served as my soundtrack for the city. Now that I'm back I've found myself actually shocked that I can understand what everyone is saying and have even thought to myself, oh wow, other Americans!, before I remember that I'm actually back in America. Also, I tend to think that all background chatter is in another language (and while sometimes it is, it is usually English!).

6. Same but Not-- The biggest shock of all was how things here in SF had not changed...but they had so much. I think overall my outlook was what changed the most. Going abroad gave me a much wider sense of humankind, and while it sounds cliche, it did make me more of a global citizen. I was able to realize, to a certain extent, how we are shaped by our environments, and how much of an impact that has on ones life. Furthermore, I became very grateful of the fact that I was lucky enough to be born in the US and raised here. A lot of people on the trip left Europe saddened by the fact that they had to go back to the US, but honestly, I was very excited! Don't get me wrong, I loved every minute of my time in Hungary, but America will always be my home. While there is so much to be valued abroad, it made me appreciate what the US has to offer, and how HUGE the US is. If there are so many different cultures in little, baby sized countries, then what does that say for a country the size of the US? If anything my time abroad made me want to experience the US more and explore what my motherland has to offer!

Overall, I am very pleased to have been able to go abroad for a semester. Thanks in large part to the support of my family (particularly in getting me home, due to mt. aoeiheouihaeoiaeoihahjkjjkje blowing up every other day and the British Airline strikes), and for supporting my desire to live life to the fullest! I am very lucky to live the life I live and I can't wait for what's next. Thanks all of you for reading this blog and being there for me! I love you all!!

Signing Off,
Kailey

Szia!

Hello World!
So I am sitting here, round two because I accidentally deleted my first blog post :( Wha wahhhhh. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about the highlights of my weekend. Thursday Peter Pazmany, the school I attend, hosted a "faculty party" which basically means that they have a party in the courtyard of the school where they serve free wine and cheap booze and have music, folk dancing, and bands. It was awesome! Unfortunately for me I had class from 4:30-8 so I was unable to join the festivities until later. When I did join however it seemed as if everyone at school was beyond tipsy, which was funny because who would have though that would be happening in the back yard of a Catholic school...actually a lot of people would probably think that's exactly what's happening. Anyway, from my class window I took a video of some Hungarian folk dance so I hope you enjoy the Happy Hungarians:

(Sorry, the video refuses to upload, so here's a picture instead).

Yesterday, May 1st we celebrating May Day! Yay! I was told that in Hungary May day is kind of like Labor day...or maybe I wasn't told that and I just made it up...oh well. Anyway, one of my Hungarian friends Szuanna had a group of our friends over to her house in Telki (which is in the countryside) for some Paprikas Krumpli. It was sooooo awesome. We went on the metro to the Buda side where we took a bus about 40 min to the country and walked a little to Szuanna's house. It was so nice to be out of the city, and her town is so beautiful. Szuanna cooked us dinner (which was over an open fire on in a cauldron with a huge wooden spoon, very Harry Potter), we drank wine, played ping pong, badminton, hiked up to this hill to watch the sunset, ate, and listened to the Italians play the guitar and sing. The food was delicious, the company wonderful and the weather fantastic. It was such a good Hungarian day!
Anyway, I have only 18 more days here in Hungary! So weird! I love and miss you all!

Xoxoxox Kailey

Budapest!

My roommates and I walked around the other day and I took pictures of some cool street art I thought was interesting:
















Well actually this is picture of Budapest I took from a Gellert Hill at night. It is so beautiful1!

Only one month left?

Woah! I can't believe it! I've been here since January and my oh my how the time has flown. I haven't been the best at blogging, but I guess you can see that as a good thing right? If I blogged all the time that would mean I had a lot of free time...or it could just mean that I'm better at blogging...one of the two hahaha. Anyway, here's what's been going on lately. Let's see.

March 15-- This is Hungary's "Revolution Day". Since Hungary has never won a battle, I found this holiday particularly funny because I've never seen a country celebrate a defeat so hard. But regardless of the outcome, people flood the streets, don their red, white and green and go to celebrations. This April, Hungary had/is having a series of elections that will bring a big change to Parliament. This being said, there were a lot of political parties rallying for the vote. I live essentially in downtown Budapest, on a main street. On the 15th, they shut the street down and a Political party held a rally in the middle of the road. I wasn't able to really understand most of what was happening, but it was really neat to be able to look out my window and see the masses and hear them singing.




Mary came to visit for the week of my birthday (that's right, a whole week for my birthday!) and following that Kyrstin and her friend Rachel came to visit. It's so much fun to have friends here because I get to do the touristy things like go to the bathes, walk around Buda, go to Szentendre, and go to Market Hall!






Overall March was a great Month! I cannot wait for it to be warm, at least it's not snowing anymore! I am excited to be back in America soon and see everyone! I miss you all!

Love,
Kailey

Belgium!

Hello! Again, sorry it's taken me so long to post a blog. A couple of weeks ago I made it over to Belgium to see Laina! It was so great, two of my roommates and I hopped on a plane headed to Brussels where Laina met us and led us back to her little college town of Leuven. By little I mean, the town is little but it hosts something like 30,000 college students. I loved this town, every street was bars, restaurants, shops, etc. all within walking distance of everything. Everyone had bikes (I hardly saw anyone driving) and bars were open until at least 8 am (although we did not stay out that late, thank God). Turns out everything that is stereotypical Belgian is not like other places where it's really a touristy thing, there is literally beer, chocolate and frites everywhere. It was awesome, I love it so much! All of my favorite things to eat! When we got into Leuven, Laina took us to this really cute restaurant that was awesome for two reasons, number one it was cheap, and number two it was delicious. The restaurant had Dutch menus which is just about the most hilarious language ever, (I don't mean to be offensive, but it sounds like drunk English hahahaha). We then went around the bar circuit by Laina's house and miraculously stayed out until 6 am (which was apparently an early night) hahaha. We slept in the next day and woke up and headed out to Brugge. This is the most adorable little town, tons of shops and chocolate and views, I loved it! We went back to Leuven (all off this travel was via train), and decided to take a nap, which turned into going to bed early because we had tired ourselves out the night before. The next day, after like 3000 hours of sleep, we woke up and headed out to Brussels. This is also an adorable town! We walked around, ate more frites (soooo good with Samurai sauce) bought chocolate at Laina and Rick Steve's favorite shop and explored. Belgium has some sort of weird obsession with peeing children because there is the famous statue of a little peeing boy calledManneken Pis as well as a little peeing girl, so weird. We went to a bar that boasts having something like 2004 beers, and was 3 levels high. It was really cool, and fun to see all the different types of beer you can get ( I ordered one called "Lucifer" and it was pretty good). We went home, ate some pizza and went out again on the "pub crawl" if you will. We meant to call it an early night again, but I think we were just too caught up in inventing our own dance moves that we accidentally stayed out just as late as before. We crashed, woke up later than we meant, ate some delicious breakfast, got to walk around Leuven, including an adorable farmers market and then headed to the airport. I love Leuven and Belgium in general. It was definitely one of my favorite trips everrrr. Here are some photographic highlights form the trip:

P.S. The waffles are just as great as they say.