Time [Ben Folds]

[28 August 2009]

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Hungarian of the Day: “How far is...?”

[mee-yen mes-seh van...?]Milyen messze van...?

Since today was Friday we needed to take my things to the dorm so that I would not have to take it all by myself the next day. The dorm is FAR away from the hotel and the center of Budapest. It took us about 15 minutes to get

there in a taxi which probably means it’s going to take me about 30+ minutes tomorrow to get there on my own using the public transit.

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This morning we packed. Mom is leaving tomorrow to head back to the states and I’m starting my life in Budapest out on my own. So I figured out how to stuff everything that had exploded out of my suitcases back into my suitcases - which wasn’t the huge production it was before we left the states. It was nice to not have to worry about what weight the bags were. We dragged the bags down to the lobby - my life packed away in a suitcase, a duffel bag, and my fencing bag - and had the bellhop call us a taxi. Just a sidenote about taxis should you ever come to the city - one, they’re really not necessary so long as you’re willing to brave the public transit system. Two, the official taxis in the city

(the ones the government recognizes and sets the standard fees for) all have yellow license plates and phone numbers that are all one digit (ie. 777-7777). These are the only taxis that you should take - if you take a non official one they can charge your obscene prices and I’ve heard they’re not that nice or friendly. For example, our taxi was a Mercedes and out taxi driver was very pleasant and told us a few things about some of the buildings we passed.

When we finally got into the dorm I had to fill out a few small pieces of paperwork basically stating I won’t trash my room. I decided to rent a small refrigerator for my room too because the only other option is to use the public fridge on the floor which I’ve heard gets full pretty quick. Plus who really wants to walk to the public fridge at one in the morning when you want a cold glass of water?

Here I should mention that the dorm was only available to move into today if you made special plans to do so, because official move in was tomorrow. WIth mom leaving so early tomorrow it made more sense to just do this so that tomorrow could be as stress free as possible. Then the guy at the desk told us we needed to wait because the room was still being cleaned and such. Not a big deal, right? We waited for close to four hours. At about one I asked how much longer and was told a half an hour. I took a walk to the McDonalds that’s close (5 minute walk) by so that mom and I could eat - we were planning on a quick move in and lunch back in the city so we were starving. After a little while longer, at about two mom asked when we’d be able to move in and the guy finally begrudgingly handed over my key. During this time I met my first new friend - Laura from Baltimore, Maryland. She too would get her room key soon so we made plans for all of us to transit back to the city.

So I went up to my room and surveyed my domain of the next year. It’s nice, but it’s small. The bed is the smaller cousin of a twin-sized bed in the US, the blanket barely covers it and the pillow is a disaster (thank God I brought my own with me). I’ve got a nice sized desk though and a small table and a bed-side table. For storage I have a small closet and three shelves. And no drawers. They don’t seem to like drawers over here - there aren’t even any in the bathroom. Oh, the bathroom - if I talked about the luxuriousness of the bathroom in the hotel this bathroom is the opposite - the shower is about 2 feet by 2 feet. Showering is going to be interesting at least (I’m gonna miss my bathtub in NC).

So after unpacking some we met up with Laura and her mom and headed back into the city. But first we had to try and find them bus passes (I had bought mom and I a day pass) to which there is no place in the dorm to do so. So we walked back to the metro station. It took about 20 minutes, and was a very pleasant walk. It was nice to talk to someone that I’m going to be spending a lot of time with over the next two years.

We parted ways once we got to the city and mom and I headed back to the hotel (which is right at the metro stop - awesome). We went back in to regroup and figure out what we wanted to do with our day now that it was about 4pm and everything that we wanted to do was closed. It sucked that we planned our day around a quick move-in and had plans for her last full day and then were not able to do any of it. So instead of doing big things we just decided to wander around to just take in the city again. We had dinner, walked around to see some of the sights we hadn’t seen in the night light (they light things up so pretty here at night). We were just trying to enjoy our last day together in the city. I’m really sad that she’s heading home tomorrow, but I am also excited to start onto school. Especially with the technology today I doubt I’ll go a day without talking to at least one of my parents, so I’m not too worried. Tomorrow is going to be interesting.