Getting Oriented

It's been a busy but good few days in Budapest! Both of my roommates (Mykhaylo and Ruchit) have moved in now, and we went on a couple of walks around the neighborhood together, trying to stock up on basic foods, cleaning products, and the like. After some searching, we found the nearest supermarket, which allowed us to buy all of the things we hadn't been able to locate in the smaller shops all around our apartment. We also located the school building where classes start tomorrow, as well as the Keleti train station, which is a big hub for Budapest's public transportation system as well as the departure point for many of the international trains. It's a beautiful building! I've been walking about four hours a day for the past three days or so, which has helped me get a lot more familiar with my immediate surroundings in Budapest. I've gone on a couple of nice walks through City Park, which has multiple castles as well as lots of nice grassy spaces and trees.

On Saturday at 13:30 we had a couple of practical orientation sessions, which were reasonably helpful and informative. The biggest benefit was that I got to meet some more of my classmates for the semester! I spent most of the socializing time we had catching up with my friend Travis and meeting his roommates, who all seem very nice. In the evening we went on a walking tour of Budapest that highlighted some of the beautiful structures on the Danube as well as some of the "ruin bars" that form the center of the party scene here. I'm not much for clubbing, but I did go to dinner at a nice place in that district and we had a good time.

Today (Sunday), I went on a long walk with Ruchit up to the Citadella, which is a pretty fortification on top of a big hill on the Buda side of the city. The whole hill is a park with lots of trails winding up and down, and the view at the top is spectacular! You can see the entire spread of the city beneath you. We also had opportunities to travel on the trolleys, buses, and subway lines, and the whole public transportation system is wonderful! The subways in particular are the best I've ever ridden on, and the stations are beautiful. Prices in general are very reasonable, which means that I'm able to eat out with friends frequently and use the public transportation system as much as I want. :)

I'm running out of time to make this post before I have to get ready for the start of classes tomorrow, so the rest of the post will be in bullet-point form. In the last few days these things happened:

-A person asked Travis and me whether or not it was true that U.S. students had to pay to attend state schools.

-I learned that the crows here actually have a lot of white on their bodies, with only the wings, head, and tail being totally black.

-I ran across a number of buskers as well as a capoeira group while wandering through City Park.

-I realized that smoking is MUCH more prevalent in European cities than it is in American ones. However, so are bakeries! So I guess it evens out.