A Trip Out of Budapest

Hello again,
It's afraid it's been rather longer than I meant it to be since my last blog post. I've finally started to accrue significant homework assignments in all of my classes, and that work has kept me from writing up the more exciting happenings here in Budapest. But now I'm done with classes for the week, so I finally have some free time! I've started to make more friends in the program, going out to get lunch or dinner after classes a few times. One night we went to St. Stephen's Basilica, which was absolutely stunning. I still haven't gotten used to all of the beautiful old architecture they have around here--it blows me away every time.

By far the biggest news of the week is that I went on an awesome weekend trip to the countryside with 12 other BSM students! We all gathered at 7:45 to catch a train out of Budapest under the supervision of our guide, Emese. The train took us to Kaposvár, a smaller city in the Zselic region of Hungary (towards the southwest). The city was incredibly beautiful, with lots of nice pedestrian areas and small shops. We were only there for an hour or so, but we got to go through a small culture festival happening in the city center, which was particularly pleasant. We got on a bus a bit before noon to go to the village of Bőszénfa (which translates to "full of coal and trees"), which is nestled in the middle of some amazing hills and forests. They were having a lescó festival (lescó is a traditional Hungarian stew made with tomatoes and peppers), so there were lots of vendors competing to cook the best dishes and we were able to sample freely. Visitors then donated money to their favorite chefs, with the proceeds going towards a village fund to build a new school. Many of the dishes were meat-based, but I went around with the two other vegetarians and found a few options that we could eat, which were all delicious.

We ate and enjoyed the music and festive atmosphere for an hour or so before getting back on a bus to visit a nearby deer farm run by Kaposvár University. We went on a tour of some of their land, which covers about 5 square miles in total and is home to many different species of deer, as well as donkeys, horses, cows, goats, pigs, and a couple of emus. It's the start of deer breeding season right now, so the deer were calling to each other as we went by and it was very fun. After the deer farm, we visited Zselici Csillagspark, which is a wonderful dark-sky observatory (csillag = star) on top of a hill in the middle of the forest. It was still light out when we visited, so we weren't able to see the stars, but there was a tall tower from which we could see almost all the way to Lake Balaton in the north. The hills and forests around here actually remind me a lot of the countryside in southern Wisconsin, which made me really happy.

We left the observatory around 17:00 and returned to Bőszénfa for dinner, where the festival was still happening. Most of the BSM students there got lángos together, which was great fun. Some live music featuring many Hungarian bops added to the party, and at the end of the evening there were fireworks! It was a great festival, and I had a good time talking to the other BSM students as well as a couple of locals who started chatting with us. We spoke to the mayor briefly, and then departed for our guesthouse in a neighboring village. We stayed up until 12:30 or so talking with one another, then got some sleep before making ourselves breakfast on Sunday morning. We returned to the observatory to hike around in the hills for an hour or two, and then departed for Krishna Valley, a Hare Krishna settlement a little bit to the north. We stayed there for about three hours, walking around the valley, admiring the cows and gardens, and eating a delicious vegetarian lunch. I also got to have some milk fresh from a cow. :)

Our weekend trip ended with a short visit to the shores of Lake Balaton, the largest freshwater lake in Central Europe. It was super pretty! We had less than an hour there though, so we just walked along the shore a little ways and admired the view before hopping back on a train to Budapest. I returned to my home around 20:00 Sunday night, leaving me with just enough time to get my homework done before classes resumed Monday morning. Overall, it's been an exciting week! I'll post pictures from my trip in the morning.