bored in budapest

It is my second night in Budapest and I just bought an internet card from the front desk so I decided to take a break from my Greek homework and check my email and write a quick blog, even though I don't have a lot to say about the city so far.

I flew out of Larnaca at 4 am sunday on Malev airlines. The trip was fine, with the exception of the vomiting girl next to me and the obnoxiously loud Cypriot (surprise) kids in front and behind me. Also, I normally don't complain about airplane food (why is it that no matter what they give you on a plane always seems to taste good at that moment…boredom maybe?) but this one was a unique situation. Maybe it was that it was 5 am, but 2 hotdogs a tomato, some nasty white sauce, and a stale chocolate chip muffin with a side of jam just didn't appeal to me at the time. Oh well.

So I got in yesterday morning (6 am) and luckily was able to check in to my room early. My room, (and the entire hotel actually) is really nice. (Thank you to my fellow American taxpayers.) I've already used the pool and gym twice. My room has a kitchen in it so today I walked down the street to a small grocery store and bought some groceries so I can save my per diem money for when Barb's here in a few days. (I could only buy things with pictures on the package since Hungarian bares absolutely no resemblance to any language I've even seen!) Yesterday I walked to a fruit market and bought some fresh fruit. Seemed easy enough, until the guy asked me (I think) what I wanted. I guess the blank look on my face made it obvious that I didn't speak Hungarian. I asked the guy if he spoke English. He shook his head no and asked me "Sprechen sie Deutsch?" I shook my head no, and decided I would just point to the fruit that I wanted. I pointed at the raspberries, he asked me something that of course I didn't understand, but I thought he was just confirming that it was raspberries that I wanted so I nodded. Next thing I know he's scooping enough berries to feed the entire country of cyprus into a plastic bag. Apparently he asked if I wanted a kilo! Fortunately I love raspberries. Unfortunately, he put the bananas on top of that bag, which I didn't realize until I got back to the hotel. Luckily, I like raspberry jam.

It is nice to be in a real city again. I don't look like a foreigner (foreignator ) here like I do in cyprus because it is a real European city where people look diverse and being taller than 5' and blonde isn't weird. People are driving on the right side of the road and the left side of the car (it actually looks really weird to me now!), I can flush toilet paper, and I even went to a (gasp) mall today!
Oh, and about the training, the actual reason why I'm here…After only one day, I won't comment on how incredibly boring it was. I'll give it another day or two before I say that…oops