A modest request

It would be kind of nice if you guys actually used Skype so that I could talk to you. (I'm not talking to you, D, you have made your opinion very clear, and anyway I talk more to you than anyone else. you're not exactly hard to reach) And when I say talk I don't necessary mean with a headset, it is actually possible to chat to. Since none of you is ever online I feel very isolated. This goes when I'm in Sweden to. (obviously I am not referring to Alex or Jocke either) So please, if you are sitting at home, having nothing better to do, just log on to Skype and maybe I'm there to and we can talk a bit!

Visegrád

Yesterday we made a trip to Videgrád, a small town a couple of hours north of Budapest. This is the historical site of the original royal castle, and later a royal palace. It took us 3 hours to get there. Mainly because Meike told us to get off the bus 2 stops too early. So we ended up spending some time sunbathing in this nice little village:


We watched the boats on the river and the weather was nice, so it wasn't too bad. After some 50 minutes we caught the next bus and finally arrived in Viségrad and immediately started the climb up to the castle. The town is really nice, but unfortunately this is the only picture I have:


The first part of the path had these stone reliefs along it:


The path is very steep, and was quite hot, so it wasn't all to inspiring to have the last day of Jesus' life paraded in front of you. Eventually we came to the top of what turned out to be a rather small hill (even though it felt like climbing a mountain), and there stood a single wooden cross:


And then another stone:


And finally a small shrine, presumably dedicated to the resurrection of Christ:


After another 40 minutes of walking up the mountain we finally arrived, drenched in sweat, at the castle and a fantastic view. This picture does not even nearly describe how beautiful this place is!


In the castle, that lay mostly in ruins, there is an exhibition about the medieval Hungary. I can upload the pictures to my MediaFire account if you want. Walking down the mountain did not produce as much sweat, but a fair amount of adrenalin. Imagine walking down a steep path covered in acorns! On the way down we passed a mostly reconstructed tower:


From the left you can see Scott, Jeremy, Mareike and Lena. Meike is standing behind me. Unfortunately we did not have time to eat at the restaurants by the river, because we had to catch the last ferry to Budapest.


Finally we arrived in Buda, opposite the Parliament at 7 pm, very tired and very hungry.


On the whole a very successful trip, I'd say. The price for the whole trip, including the boat trip and entrance fee at the castle (and double bustickets, due to the misnavigation): 90 kr... We will go back some other day though, because we did not to get to see the palace.

Action Movies - Or how to get yourself a Darwin Award

Shoot Em Up must have set a new record for Steel Babies who should have died in the first scene. I think Con Air set a record for having people who should be dead and possibly burned to cinders survive a plane crash without even getting a concussion. Perhaps that is the goal of every action movie?

Nubbesallad och Kanelbullar

Today I made some Swedish food for the roomies. I made Nubbesallad with Knäckebröd, and I also (upon request from Mareike) baked some Kanelbullar. I earned quite some cred when I did the fancy version of the buns, you know when you sort of braid them and then swirl them around (Sara, you know what I mean, right?).

The Germans liked the sallad, but not too surprisingly the Spanish girl, Alejandra, didn't like the matjesill... Oh, and the other German is called Kerstin. There is also a Kirstin, but not in our apartment. I should have introduced myselft as Kat.

Obviously they loved the buns.

The Horror

We just got our parabola antenna installed. Most channels are in Hungarian, the one that are not are mostly in German. But we do have a few in English, like CNN, VH1 and BBC. But now to the point; when we zapped through the children's channels we found one called "bebe TV"... It's the worst thing I have ever seen. Their programs are made up of poorly animated animals and shapes in bright colours, doing completely pointless things - and they don't speak! They just move around the screen with some horrible chimy music in the background *shivers*

Great news!

(No, it is not the Dacia Sandero) Hungarians might be more sensible than I have thought, because today I found out that in Magyar (pronounced Måhdjåhr) the third person personal pronoun is gender neutral! He/She is called... I can't write it properly but it is an o with a double ´ above it, and is pronounced "ö". Ö, however, is pronounced "öh" (a short vowel). In Hungarian all vowels have only one correct pronunciation. Long vowels are written with an apostrophe above it. a á, e é, i í, o ó and so on. Sadly, they do not have the vowel y. Whenever there is a y in a word it is a part of a consonant.

The consonants are completely counter-intuitive. "C" is pronounced "ts", "S" is pronounced "sh" and both "SZ" and "ZS" are pronounced "s"

Spanish evening

This morning I had to get up at 7:40 in order to have time to go to the university and get my temporary student ID. Then I went to buy the Budapest-Bérlet (the Hungarian equivalent of SL) for a mere 3700 HUF (let's see, 3700/25=148kr) for one month! And with this golden piece of paper (no, it's actually green - but there is some gold on it) I can travel anywhere I want in Budapest by Metro, Tram or Bus.

Then I went to change money for my first rental fee which I will be paying in euro. Next one I'll make a bank transfer. Then I went home, just in time to meet our landlord and Alejandra, the Spanish girl. So now all my flatmates are here. Then I went to buy a refill for my Hungarian sim card, and then it was time for an Erasmus event. We were supposed to visit 8 different places in Budapest, but it took forever and then the weather got worse, so in the end I only saw two of them. The third (and last for the day) was by the Citadell, on the top af a "hill" that I had already seen. So I went home. Then it started, well... almost raining - so they cancelled the barbeque that was supposed to be in a famous park on Margret sziget (sziget means island). But I'm not really all that devastated, because Alejandra's mother is cooking Spanish food for us. Tomorrow I will go to IKEA (yeah, I know) and maybe visit one of the spots that I missed today...

Hungary

I felt mainly two things when I got off the plane in Budapest; I am hungry, and I am warm. Leaving a chilly 15 degree Sweden at 11 am it was quite a pleasant experience to walk into a sunlit 25 degree Hungary. But since I got up at 4:40 I was also very hungry! After putting my bags in my room (the apartment is amazing!) I went to the university to register. Only I forgot to bring a map of the campus, and since all the signs were in hungarian (or Magyar, as they call it)I completely failed at finding the registration office. I'll have another go tomorrow. Now on to more interesting stuff; Magyar is a language that defies all logic. My street adress is Lonyay utca 13. It is pronounced "Loniai utsza"... In every language I've ever studied or know a bit of a C before an A is pronounced K, but not in magyar. (We'll see if I make an attempt at learning some) ...I was going to go on about something else but suddenly all 20 hours since I got up hit me. I'm off to bed. See ya.