Budapest!

Well here I am sitting on a seven hour bus ride from Budapest, Hungary. I am exhausted and ready to get home to Prague, however I am discovering a sense of sadness within myself. This is my very last trip outside of Prague before I go home to America. I am now what my dad calls a “short-timer.” I have only 19 days left in the Czech Republic. I stared at 115 and now I am down to less then 20. It seems so unreal that this semester of traveling and discovery could be almost over. However, in the spirit of this semester I am not going to let a single one of these next 19 days go to waste.
We had a fun filled weekend in Hungary filled with thoughts of Thanksgiving, the coming holiday season, and Middle Eastern Food. When we arrived in Hungary it was Thanksgiving Day. I was dreaming of home. I was longing for Turkey, my family, stuffing, good friends, and of course pumpkin pie. I was worried that my first Thanksgiving away from my family would be more of a pout fest then an indulgence in thankfulness. However, when it came to dinner time CET surprised us with a legit Turkey dinner at a Hungarian restaurant complete with real mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. (Getting Hung(a)ry???) And throughout the course of the evening spent with new and good friends I realized that in some ways this mixed group of students has become something of a family for me here. We are all so very different from one another. We come from different states, cultures, religions, and colleges, yet despite differences our CET group has managed to create a sort of cohesive unit. That is not to say that sometime we don’t have our miscommunications, however I can honestly say that there are few other places that I would have felt more comfortable to spend Thanksgiving then with my new little and silly CET family.
The rest of the weekend was spent eating at a Hungarian Hummus Bar, going to Jewdafest, touring the House of Terror Museum, and shopping at Budapest’s indoor food market. I so greatly enjoyed traveling to Budapest for a second time. When you travel with a group of students you really get to see the walking tourist’s perspective of a city. I was able to see and notice things with my young friends in Budapest that I was not able to see while traveling with my dad here two years ago. One confession that I have to make is that I ate at the same Middle Eastern restaurant four times during my three days in Budapest. I gotta say there is just something special about finding a place you like to eat and really getting to know the people who work there.
But now I am heading back to our apartment in Prague. Sam comes back to Prague from Vienna tomorrow so it will be really really nice to have a companion from Carleton by my side this week in Prague. I intend on making him embrace my remaining days in the Czech Republic with me. Bring on 19 more days of fried cheese, sausages, pivo, walks around the city, trips to Tesco, and time spent with good friends