Events 11/23-12/9: More Skimming

Wednesday was a weird day. Holocaust Lit was fine. Afterwards, my group met to work on the presentation. We decided to go with a very minimalist powerpoint.

Thursday, I had the presentation. Most groups chose to go with a very detailed powerpoint, which made us feel out of place. Our presentation was also shorter, although I think we were the only group to actually stay in the time limit, if that counts for anything. I think I did my part well. The Lions won their game, another comeback.

The rest of the weekend was relatively uneventful.
On Monday, I finally got into a presentation group for Central European History, and headed to Memento Park, a Communist monument, and the subject of the presentation. It was interesting, seeing both how the communists had been "revered" for years, but also the decay.
Memento Park

My favorite statue. (It's huge, like 30 ft tall)

That evening, our group met to plan, and then gave our presentation. The prompt was complicated and weird, so we mostly winged it. We decided to go first, which was a great decision, because pretty much everything we said was also said by another group, but us going first hid it, as it was all new at that time. But we got a great score on it (later) from the professor, so I guess it went well. It reinforced two things for me: 1. I can give speeches, without fear, and 2. I suck at giving speeches. My part had awkward pauses, stumbling through words, confusion about what I was going to say next, and I don't think many people were impressed. I'm not afraid of it anymore, but public speaking does not come naturally to me.

The rest of the week was a bunch of last classes, other than Late Antiquity. They went smoothly, and I worked for the end of the year, albeit with plenty of procrastination.

Friday, we got a tour of Hungarian Parliament, which was cool. Not many pictures allowed, unfortunately, but it was beautiful, and it was cool learning the history. They were setting up for Christmas, apparently Santa was coming to Parliament in a few days.

Another boring weekend, even the Lions were boring, winning by a decent amount for once. The next week, I had my last service-learning. It was bittersweet. They love me there, and everyone talked about how nice it was to have me (although it was also said to me that if I want to become a teacher, I would need to put in a lot of work!). I also wrote a small paper, and then took the final exam, in Holocaust Literature. I think it went well! My studying paid off.

I had my last Late Antiquity course today, and now it is time for bed, so I can get up and go to Serbia!

Events 11/19-11/23: Germany

Look at all the awesome photos!

So, for this trip, I did something a little different. I blogged while I was on it! I didn't post, wanting to edit it later, which I'm doing now, with notes added using [], as well as pictures. It's a bit inconsistent, but overall, I think it worked well. The next paragraph is all afterwards as well, setting the scene.

I went with my friend Tristan, who I've played board games with many times, with a group of friends from church. He's in the US army now, so I haven't seen him in a while. It was great getting to see him. We both wanted to travel Germany, which is great, since I'm not allowed to travel along, per Calvin rules. Getting my tickets had been a huge pain, with lots of problems, mail-only tickets getting mailed to the US instead of Budapest. It was crazy, but finally, I got it worked out.

7:42 am

Train just left. Wi-Fi doesn't appear to be working, which is annoying. I'd like to let prof Kim know I left and Tristan that I'm on my way. Should've done it before I left. Oh well.

Anyways, thing #1 happened: I got in my seat, and a little later a guy came by claiming it was his seat. We compared tickets, and they were almost identical... except his ticket was for the 21st. Oh no. Poor guy.

The seat beside me was unreserved, so a young Hungarian woman is sitting next to me. (You can get tickets for trains in Europe without buying a seat reservation, which is a little extra)

7:55 am: Figured out the wifi situation. The portal page (the one you get redirected to) was wrong, and I was able to figure out the right one from the last time I was on this company's train. On this trip, the wifi internet (to the outside world) is only once we get into Austria, which will be about half way through the trip. So I'll be able to message prof Kim, although Tristan is likely already on his way to pick me up. Time for a nap. Blast, forgot my travel pillow.

10:19 am:

Took a nap. Am in Austria now. The wifi is being stupid. Can't even get to the portal page anymore, just get "too many redirects". Someone didn't configure it right, I guess.

2:34 pm:

Rest of the train ride was uneventful. I mostly rested, although I only got 20 more minutes of sleep. I've still got a tickle in my throat, and a nasty cough from Poland. I found Tristan pretty quickly, we dropped my stuff off at his car. We wanted to the old town here I'm Salzburg, and got sausage hot dogs for lunch. We then went to the birthplace of Mozart, which is a museum. I'll let you know how it was when I'm done.

3:06 pm:

The museum was great. Was quite detailed about all things Mozart. Lots of things from his life, letters, portraits. Little bit confusing layout, but excellent experience. Only a few places allowed pictures unfortunately.

8:52 pm:

After the museum, we checked out the fortress. 12 euro for the basic entrance, which came with an audio tour, and since we're going to tour two castles tomorrow, we skipped it. As we were walking back to the center of old town (where all the interesting stuff is), we saw a large chess set, probably 1/7 life sized. The game is below:

1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 Bf5 4. Bh3 Bxh3 5. Nxh3 e6 6. f4 Bb4 7. a3 Bxc3 8. bxc3 Nd7 9. Rb1 Nb6 10. O-O O-O 11. f5 Qd7 12. e4 dxe4 13. Nf4 exf5 14. d5 Rab8 15. Rb4 Nxd5 16. c4 Nxb4 17. Qxd7 Nxd7 18. axb4 Nd5 19. c5 Rbd8 20. Be3 Rd7 21. b5 c6 22. bxc6 bxc6 23. h4 Rfd8 24. Kf2 Rd1 25. Ke2 Rxf1 26. Kxf1 Nf6 27. h5 Rd8+ 28. Ke2 Re8+ 29. Kf2 a5 30. Bd2 Rh1 31. Bc3 Ra2 32. Ne2 a4 33. Nd4 Nxd4 34. Bxd4 Rxc2+ 35. Ke3 a3 36. g4 fxg4 37. Kxe4 g6 38. h7 a2 39. Ke5 Rc1 40. Bb2 a1=Q 41. Bxa1 Rxa1 42. Kd3 Ra6 43. Kc2 g6 44. Kb7 g7 45. resigns

It was a ton of fun. I got some great pictures.

After that we went to the cathedral, which was quite beautiful. We were even able to go to the catacombs, for free, although they weren't very expensive. Finally, we looked around for a good restaurant. It took a while, but we found one. I got a dish with a couple sausages, a pretzel, and mustard. It was delicious. Tristan got a 1/4 duck, some cabbage, and potatoes. I had that in Prague, I think, and it was delicious. We split an apple strudel for dessert. We then headed to the road, and are currently 20 minutes from our Airbnb.

11/20/16

9:48am

Rest of trip back went fine. We got back, figured out our plans for the next day, including that our first castle tour was an hour later than we thought. We relaxed a little and went sleep.

In the morning, we got up, and discovered the place we were planning on going for breakfast, was closed. The owners are on vacation for another month. So we headed to town, picked up our tickets, and headed up to Neuchwanstein Castle (on a bus). Next to the castle appears to be the only place to find breakfast before 11, when our tour is. Right now we're next to the castle. It's gorgeous, and being on the side [of a mountain], there's since great views.

11:42am

The breakfast place was under renovation. I guess we're here in the off season. 95% of the people here are Asian. It's crazy. The tour of Neuchwanstein was relatively short. Tristan says that the previous times he was here, the tour was more informative. I am stopped at the café for a little food (munching on a pretzel) before we head to Hohenschwangau Castle for our other tour at 12:30.

12:19pm

Booked it down from Neuchwanstein and up to Hohenschwangau. The carts going down weren't ready, so we walked, and it's faster to walk up to Hohenschwangau, so we did. I'm quite out of breath right now. (Tour is at 12:30)

2:19pm

Hohenschwangau was a better tour. The tour guide was most more knowledgeable, great tour. After the tour, we checked out the chapel, walked to the nearby lake, and then headed out. We're now on the road, 3 hours from our Airbnb, although we'll probably find food before them.

11/21/16

9:33am

We grabbed some food from pizza king. I got "peperoni" which was pizza with peppers on it. Needless to say, I ate some of Tristan's Hawaiian pizza as well.

We got to our Airbnb around 6, made plans for the next day, and then relaxed. We played a few games of magic the gathering while I watched the Lions. They won in a nailbiter, but a little less than usual. Tristan beat me 3-2 in magic. We got a good night sleep.

In the morning, we ate a combination of some food Tristan brought and some food our first provided, it was okay. We would have gotten food yesterday, but in Germany, all the grocery stores are closed on Sunday. We're on the road, now. 10 minutes from the start of our hike.

11:05am

We started hiking, and then realized, we don't know whether the bus runs. We're still figuring out what to do about that. There's no stop until we reach the end, but it's too far to turn around and walk, probably. Just stopped for a snack, keep our energy up.

11:14am

Side note: It is *ridiculously* beautiful out here.

2:38pm

So, hiking has been interesting.

We saw lots more beautiful stuff. Gorgeous gorges, pretty streams, and fantastic waterfalls. The roaring river has been excellent as well.

We decided to press on, with the idea that the bus will take us close to the car, and we'll hike to it. Unfortunately, we soon ran into a closed part of the trail, and while taking the detour, discovered the detour was quite long, probably too long. It took us near a town, where after some looking around, we discovered we had just missed a bus, and the next one wouldn't go where we needed. So, we decided to hire the roads back, which Google Maps told us will take a little over an hour and a half. So we'll get back to the car around 4. Tristan is being excellent and carrying my backpack for me.

5:48pm

It was a long walk, there were a couple scenic views, but it was mostly boring, and we were tired. We finally made it back, and drove to about three restaurants, which were all closed, before we just went to the first open place we found, Doner Kebap. Tristan got a doner, and I got a salami pizza. Much better than "peperoni". While we were driving around looking for a place to eat, we went to ALDI, and got some breakfast food. Tomorrow morning, we plan to head out around 6am to drive the four and a half hours to Trier. So we'll figure out our plans for tomorrow, and then go to bed quite early. Which won't be hard, considering we're both super tired.

11/22/16

8:25am

We relaxed a bit, went to bed, woke up, ate breakfast, headed out. Everything according to plan. We're now two and a half hours from Trier.

10:41am

So, we were driving, and Tristan realized we were right near the big base next to his base. I needed to use the restroom anyways, so we went there. He was giving me a quick tour, when he got a call, and discovered he needed to go back to his base for something, so that's what we're doing now. His base is only half an hour from the big base, so hopefully this won't throw us off track too much.

11/23/16

6:56am

Whoof, way too long since the last one. So, Tristan ended up being needed back at base, and after I waited for a couple hours, he told me he would need to drive me straight to the train station. After we got there, I waited in McDonald's for a while. There were no power outlets, and the wifi only lasted 3 hours, so I started a search. Eventually, after about an hour and a half of walking and searching, I found a place a mile away from the station. It was relatively expensive, but I still got dinner there, and just chilled for about 5 hours. A large part of that was talking to Jessica, which was cool. I then came back, boarded my train, which is coming into the final station now, so I need to transfer to my last train.

2:30pm

And I'm back. Transfer was easy, I got some water to aid my throat, got some more sleep on the train. I'm still exhausted, nervous about the presentation tomorrow. Got back, an am now on a bus to Holocaust Lit. Thanks for reading!

(Back to now)
So, all in all, a great trip, albeit cut short. I think this way of the blog worked great, and will use it for my last trip of the semester, to Serbia.

Events 11/14-11/18

Another ho-hum week.

Couple of highlights:
Hungarian National Gallery
For Art History, us students had to go to the National Gallery and do a report on some things there. I went with another student, and it was beautiful. Amazing paintings, I think I like certain time periods. I especially loved the landscapes. I took lots of photos (fewer than I had thought, tho).

Other misc photos
Here's a 3:30 sunset. It's crazy.

Friday was a busy day. I finally got more warmer clothes, a hat, some gloves, a pair of sweatpants (to wear under other pants), and some long sleeve shirts. For lunch (in between these purchases), I ate an interesting bagel sandwich from Budapest bagel. There was a bunch of stuff on it, including bacon and pomegranate seeds. It was funky, but delicious. After all the shopping, I went to the Christmas market, and met up with people there. We toured around the Christmas market, got some food, and then went to the symphony. The symphony was amazing. It was great fun, and the music was breathtaking.

The next day, I would leave for Germany.

Events 11/10-11/13: Poland

Photos

Thursday, we went to Poland. The drive was long. We stopped in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia for a short tour and lunch. It took so long for me and a few other students to find lunch, that we were supposed to be leaving about the time we got our food. I got some delicious pork for lunch. I wish I had been able to savor it, but I had to wolf it down. We did watch Schindler's List on the bus. The bus seems to take forever to get anywhere, so by the time we got to Krakow, it was dark. Krakow was cold. Much colder than Hungary ever gets. It was even snowing at times. I miss snow.

From the bus:

We went to dinner near the hostel, and then went in for the night.

The next day, we went to Birkenau and Auschwitz.

Auschwitz is technically not one camp, but a complex of camps, Birkenau being the largest one. The "Auschwitz" we went to is actually the best preserved camp, which is not Birkenau. It was very museum-like, with exhibitions inside the barracks. There was even an entire Hungarian exhibit, documenting Hungary's role in the Holocaust. Hungary likes to think itself innocent in WWII, in part likely due to the Soviet narrative of "liberation" from the Germans. However, they allied with the Axis during WWII at first, before wanting to pull out, and then when threatened, peacefully surrendered to Germany to avoid being invaded. Germany then put the Nazi sympathetic party in power, so the country was still run by Hungarians. So while not actively advocating for the Holocaust, the Hungarians didn't exactly fight it, either.

Birkenau was mostly destroyed, there were some barracks still up; we got to see stable that was "converted" into a barracks for women; the Nazis barely changed it. The conditions were so terrible, it is difficult to comprehend.

It's hard to call it awesome or good, but it was a very important experience, and I am glad I went.

We went back, to dinner, and then I went to bed.

Saturday morning, we went on a tour of Krakow. The medieval market was actually at a lower level than the ground is now, so there's a series of catacombs underground, and the few old buildings left have entrances with stairs up to ground level.

We toured around the city, even got to see some of the places where the shot Schindler's list; the Jewish quarter in Krakow was emptied during WWII, and never really recovered. So Steven Spielberg chose this location to shoot because it was still dilapidated and falling apart; most of the other Jewish quarters around Europe had been fixed up. This is a staircase that shows up in some scenes.

We went a couple tours in total, and ate at a place we had already eaten, right next to the hostel, I believe.

The next morning, we got up early, drove south to Slovakia, and stopped to tour a castle. It was an excellent tour. The castle was gorgeous; no pictures were allowed inside, however. We ate lunch nearby. Finally, we completed the trip back to Budapest, Sunday evening. I was pretty tired, so I don't think I did much (the Lions had a bye), and finally went to sleep.

Events 10/31-11/9: Skimming

A few misc pictures

So, in the interest of catching up, and getting everything blogged, I'm going to just skim the week and a half.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (other than Wednesday night Art History) I didn't have class or Service-Learning, but I did have a lot of homework to catch up on. Thursday was normal with regards to classes, meaning Econ and Late Antiquity, and I discovered I had an Econ group presentation on the day of Thanksgiving. Joy.

Friday, my friend Tristan and I powered through our vacation plans. Tristan is a friend of mine from the US, who is serving in the US army, stationed in Germany right now. We had previously made plans to go on vacation together the weekend before thanksgiving, but our plans so far had amounted to four places we wanted to go. By the end of our 5 hour session, we were making airbnb reservations. (Hence the pictures of me)

Friday was relatively uninteresting, although I did go to a birthday party of another student. She's actually in Hungary through a different program. She lives in the same dorm as us, but is only auditing one of the professor's courses, and so is a bit detached from the rest of us. (She does go on all the excursions). I was the only other Calvin student who came, but she had lots of friends from the church she is going to (Danube) and is on the worship team at. We got dessert at a relatively fancy place. It was good. (small plate, fork, and napkin, not giant glass)

Not much happened over the weekend that I remember. Doing homework and preparing for the trip to Poland, I suppose. The Lions won another nailbiter.

The election dominated Monday-Wednesday. I didn't sleep Tuesday night, and ended up staying up to watch the results come in. I finally went to bed when Trump had a 90% chance of winning. It was crazy. I went to sleep a couple hours before I would normally have gone to service learning (I obviously didn't go). But I didn't have long to dwell on it, for early Thursday morning, we left for Poland.

Events 10/29-10/31: Prague

Photos

So, Saturday morning, we headed to Prague. The train ride was uneventful. Our Airbnb was a bit out of the city, due to all the holidays around this time (other countries had a long weekend, so we got public transportation passes and took the metro. We had to walk a bit from a metro stop to get "there". When we got to where Google Maps told us to go, which included going down a small dirt path, we couldn't figure out the address. We stopped a guy going down the path to ask for help, and he explained the address we put in had no street number, just a street. He was extremely nice, and called the number for the host that we had. They conversed for a while, and the person on the other end eventually came to get us. She came, explaining that she was a friend of the owner, and the Airbnb was only supposed to be available for a couple months while she was gone. She still offered to let us stay at her parents' house, but we declined and started looking for another place to stay. Everything was booked. One of the other students remembered a place his girlfriend had stayed at and recommended; a "botel" (a motel on a boat permanently attached to a dock). Someone called them up, and they had a room free. So we made plans to stick seven of us in a four-person motel room.

Before we did that, however, we went looking for dinner. It took a while, but we found a great place. I split a half duck (with a bunch of stuff on the side) with someone (as did some other students). The waiter came over and actually showed us how to eat it, which was everything together, not one thing at a time. I'm glad he did. It was delicious.

After dinner, we walked around the city, seeing all kinds of cool stuff. There were lots of cool stuff, but most of it was closed, so I just got lots of pictures of the outsides of things. The Charles Bridge was cool, but I don't think my pictures worked (too low light). We headed back to the botel. I went to bed, but everyone else went on a 45 minute (since the bars close at 11 here) whirlwind tour of the Prague bars.

Sunday morning, we got up, and headed to Prague Castle. There was a huge line for security to get in. We decided to wait for the line to die down, so we went to the Schwarzenberský palác, an art museum. It was quite beautiful.

After the museum, we went up to a medieval monastery, and got lunch nearby. After lunch, we wandered around Petrin Hill, which is full of parks and some medieval stuff, before heading back to the castle complex, which we then entered. The complex is massive, with an entire cathedral inside, lots of cool stuff. It's on a hill, too, so we got a lot of great views.

After that, we headed back, got some dinner, and I went back to the botel to sleep. Everyone else stayed out to enjoy the night life.

Monday morning, we got up super early, and boarded the train back to Budapest.

Quick update: Getting behind

Sorry I've gotten behind. I hope to catch up some tomorrow, but it may be difficult. Lots of traveling going on.

What have I been up to?

After Vienna, I went to Prague with some other Calvin students. It was a great experience, with a near-disaster. I'll get to it tomorrow morning.

I had a relatively boring week, mostly just homework and stuff, but kept me busy, and the week after that was extermely busy, because we had a shortened week; we left for Poland Thursday morning! We stayed in Krakow, and it was another great trip, although I got a sore throat that persists to today. This week is very busy, having been gone, and now another trip this coming weekend.

But first, Friday night, I'm going to the symphony, which will be quite interesting. The next morning, I leave for the trip. I'm meeting my friend Tristan, who is in the US army, and stationed in Germany. He has a car, which will make travel much easier. We're going to meet in Salzburg in Austria, spend a little time there, and then travel and experience some places in southern and western Germany. I'll take a 14 hour train back, going from Koblenz, Germany, back to Budapest. The train leaves at midnight, and has a transfer at 6am. It'll be kind of crazy. I'm excited for the trip, as it will be quite an experience. I'll be excited to blog about it. Hopefully more quickly than I have been.

Events 10/28: Vienna again

Photos: https://goo.gl/photos/KCfRW7iGVeqSKyJz7

So, Friday morning, we got up, and went to Vienna, for real this time. It was about a 3-hour bus ride, not too long. We got to our first stop, Schönbrunn palace, a little late, however.

This picture is actually from after we went inside. Before, we were rushing to make our tour at 10:00. It was an audio tour, with a little PDA type device you held up to your ear. I don't know how we could have been late, but apparently it was important we got there by 10.

The palace was beautiful, but they didn't allow pictures, unfortunately. It was interesting learning about Franz Joseph I, the last emperor of the Habsburg empire, since we had just read a book about the time period, that talked about him a decent amount. There were things about his wife, as well. Apparently, while we know Franz Joseph loved her profusely, we have little idea of whether she loved him, and the evidence suggests she did not. She lived an independent lifestyle, traveling all over on her own, rarely spending time in the palace with her husband. Unfortunately, this eventually led to her death, when she was killed by an Italian revolutionary while traveling.

---

After the tour, we split up and went to the palace gardens, which were beautiful.

Lots of walking, tho. My group even went up a hill to see a building under construction, with a cool pond nearby. Don't know what the building was about.

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After exploring the gardens, we went to a bunch of places I went last weekend. We walked to Belvedere Palace and the Hofburg Palace with the tour guide, then stopped for lunch. Lunch was at an interesting buffet-type place. There was a central area, which kind of had sections. There was a buffet, but I got schnitzel, which was a limited amount, but I was also allowed one plate of sides, so I loaded up. It was delicious. After that, we split up. I went with some people who were going where I had been last weekend, going to St. Steven's cathedral and St. Peter's church, and ended back at Maria Theresa Square. While waiting with some people, I found you could go inside the bushes there.

We left after that. The bus ride back was fine, and I went to bed, again with a trip in the morning: Prague.

Service-Learning

So, all of the Calvin students on this semester have to do some service-learning as part of our experience here. The main idea is to do something other than studying that helps the Budapest community, and helps us Calvin students learn about Hungary from a more Hungary native point of view. There's a variety of options, but nearly everyone got assigned to helping teach English.

I, in a sense, was a bit lucky. I go to a bilingual school, UMSZKI, where the students are almost all native Hungarian speakers, and know varying levels of English (by class) and can be anywhere from 10 to 19. I go for three classes on Wednesday mornings, and my job is just to get the students talking in English. I have a lot of flexibilty as to what I can do, although just on Wednesday, I had great success with math. It makes it easier that math is kind of a common language, although they do do their notation a little differently. I should be preparing a bit more, I'm apparently supposed to do some presentations later. At the very least, I'll make one on the US itself, the election system, and Grand Rapids. Maybe Midwest food, too.

It's usually very nerve-wracking. I get put in front of 15-20 students and just have to come up with stuff to talk about for 45 minutes, and it can't be very complex. The teachers have to help give me stuff to talk about at times. I came into this semester, thinking that maybe I could be a teacher. This semester has shown me that even if I can do it, I don't think it's really in my nature. Tutoring sounds great; I might see if I can sign up for it this Spring/Summer through Calvin.

My point of contact and guide is Kati, the vice-president of the school (she also teaches). She's an amazing guide, and keeps me from getting overwhelmed. Honestly, I'm doing it more for her than myself. She's always excited to meet me and show me to more students. It's been dicey at times, but all in all, I think it's been a good experience.

Food in Budapest

So, I've gotten questions about the food I'm eating. First, I'll just say that I drink tons of water. I refill my water bottle multiple times a day.

So, Hungarian-area-specific food. I've eaten Langos, which I believe I've talked about earlier. Almost like an elephant ear, but instead of sugar, I got it with garlic, cheese, and sour cream, which is apparently the most Hungarian way to eat it.

I haven't really eaten much other "Hungarian-specific" foods, unfortunately. Western culture has really permeated Budapest.

Every Wednesday, for lunch, I go to a kebab place at Kalvin Ter for lunch. I get a durum, no spicy, which is basically a tortilla wrap, but with kebab meat (and lots of veggies) inside. It's delicious, and goes great with a Fanta. gyros are also sold there. The gyro is interesting, because it's Greek, but the Turks kind of took it as their own with the kebab, and brought it to Hungary when they conquered it, but the gyros remained when the Turks left. So kebabs and gyros are very much part of Hungarian culture, it's just from other places.

For groceries, I go to a nearby Spar, a small grocery store that's just everywhere. It's about half a kilometer away, although I usually take the tram.

With most meals, I eat a banana. They're delicious, healthy, and filling. A great combination.

For breakfast I've been eating Musli. It's kind of like granola, mixed with cereal flakes, and one other thing that depends on the variety. I've been eating nut-Musli recently.

My main snack, although I've been eating less lately in favor of more Musli, are these slightly sweet crackers:

I haven't eaten many chips, but when I have, I've gotten knock-off sour cream and onion pringles (or the real thing a few times). I also (rarely) enjoy some Haribo (NOT sugar-free) gummi bears. They're so good, I have to be careful with them.

Earlier in the semester, for lunch, I would eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Peanut butter has been hard to find, but I did find it at a spar-express at a nearby gas station. But recently, I've been either going out for lunch or eating more Musli.

Dinner, I usually put some frozen veggies in the microwave, and either have some fish fingers with BBQ sauce, or fries with BBQ sauce. (and a banana, of course) I think I've lost quite a bit of weight, although most of that was likely the week I was sick. But I don't think I'm putting it back on, at least. With all the walking I have to do, I get a decent amount of exercise. On the trips I get tons of walking. I think I walked about 15 miles in Vienna. Phew!

Events 10/23-10/27

Pictures from this week: https://goo.gl/photos/E6CEqvTL6axv3uvi9

Sunday morning, I got up, and almost didn't go to church, I was so tired. But with 15 minutes before I would've had to leave, I decided to go, and got up and went to Danube international (where most of the Calvin students go to). I'm glad I went, it was great.

That afternoon, I checked my emails and the news, and then went to the revolution day Prime Minister Speech. In 1956, Hungary launched a failed revolution against the Soviets, and Sunday was 60th anniversary.

It was in Hungarian, so I couldn't tell what was going on, but it looked like some sort of drama type thing. There were a lot of protesters. Hungary has quite a bit of unrest right now. I was tired, so after I left, I took a nap, not entirely planned. I then talked to my family (while watching the Lions). It was great to talk to my family; I miss them. Jessica and I might take the same class next semester. I need to take a Art History The Lions won another nailbiter.


I went to sleep, slept in got up, and tried to figure out my schedule some more. I had to register Wednesday morning, and I needed to figure things out in final. I went shopping, made dinner, did some modding, and went to sleep. No Art History for some reason. (It had been scheduled).


Tuesday, I slept in again. I talked to Jessica a little bit about some stuff, like whether she could take the class with me in the spring (we still don't know). I finished my homework for class, and then went to Central European History, where we talked about the time from the Hungarian elevation in the Austrian Empire, creating Austria-Hungary, to the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in WWI. After that, it was more homework.


Wednesday, I got up, and went to Service-Learning for the first time in a long while. I met with three classes, even helped them with the math homework. I found out on Thursday that I apparently really helped them! Which is great, because I usually feel like I'm not doing much. After that, I grabbed lunch quick, then went on a tour in the "House of Terror" for Karoli. It was used by the Nazi installed government during WWII, and Soviet terrorist organizations for a decade after. It was a prison; with lots of torture.

The tour was awful. It lasted about two and a half hours. We could only take pictures in one specific part (which I took pictures of) There were noises in every part, so I could barely hear the tour guide. It was hot. I barely even remember anything I learned.

Afterwards, some of us went to a nearby chimney cake shop. Chimney cakes are, soft, almost cinnamon roll like things. I can't describe it well, so here is a Wikipedia link. Here they made it like a cone, and filled it with stuff. I got: a cinnamon chimney cake with lemon ice cream, white kit cat and kiwi toppings, and "colorful candy" (those tiny candy balls you can get on an ice cream cone). I should have gotten a better picture of the cake itself. (but it looked like an ice cream cone)

I went back to Renaissance Art, but was distracted, still having homework to complete, and a midterm the next morning. After class, I got my homework done, and went to sleep.


Thursday morning, I got up, studied a bit for my midterm, and then went. The midterm was structured with 6 questions, and we got to chose 4 to answer, with some detail. We got the questions last week. I knew how to explain four of them. I feel like I did a lot better than I expected; most of the rest of the class having English as a second language probably helps.

I went back, took a 2-hour nap, got up and went to Late Antiquity, where we talked about various religious beliefs in Late Antiquity: The state Roman religion, the cults Mithras, Isis, and the Emperor, Manichaeism, and Judaism. (We've talked about Christianity in Late Antiquity, earlier)

Then I went shopping, made dinner, did laundry, checked email, basically got stuff done on my immediate to-do list. Obviously also did some blogging. I'm going to bed soon, because tomorrow, we actually go to Vienna with Professor Kim. I'm also currently planning to go to Prague, Saturday-Monday. Next week is fall-break, so I don't have anything going on until Thursday.

Events 10/21-10/22: Vienna!

Pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/X1PtYfXCvFJ3n1he6

So, Friday morning started off crazy.

First of all, Professor Kim screwed up. Apparently, the excursion was set up for next friday... he gave everyone the wrong date. We were all there at 6am, including Professor Kim and his family when he figured this out. It was a huge mess. Since my group (which was about half of all the Calvin students) had already made reservations, he told us he would pay for our tickets there (we had our own tickets back). Four students had already made plans (and bought plane tickets) to go to Athens, Greece next weekend, so he has to figure out when he can get them to Vienna. Everyone (other than those four) will be going to Vienna next weekend, which was fine with my group; we just ignored the places we'll visit next friday. So my group went to the train station, and ended up having to get round trip tickets, since the station didn't have one-way tickets left for that day. (We later confirmed that Prof Kim would pay for them) So we embarked on a train to Austria.

And that was crazy thing of the morning number 1.

#2: Someone jumped in front of our train. We were traveling along, early in the ride, and the train suddenly came to a very quick halt, not at a station. An hour went by. Trains passed us on the other track. Eventually some of us walked to the restaurant on the train. We found out there, that someone has jumped in front of the train. I guess they needed to figure out who and clean it up? We were shocked. It was just so bizarre. Eventually we got going again. The rest of the ride was uneventful. It was a relatively empty train, so we were able to spread out; some of us took two seats. Finally, around noon (after a four and half hour train ride in total), we arrived in Vienna.

First, we went to Belvedere Palace.

It was beautiful. We didn't go to the museum, but we walked all the way through the grounds.

Next we kind of wandered around, looking for lunch, and ended up going to Gorilla Kitchen. I had a delicious pulled pork sandwich

We then went to Spar to grab breakfast food, and then to our airbnb. It was pretty nice. Guys set up for sleeping on the floor, girls were sleeping on the bed and couches.

After that, went to the Heldenplatz, in front of the Austrian version of the White House, where Hitler announced the annexation of Austria to loud cheers.

From there, we visited the famous central cafe. It was super fancy and expensive, so we just peeked in. Next, we walked to the opera.

 We got standing room tickets for just a few euros. We couldn't see anything, so we only stayed for part of the first act. Then we went to St. Steven's Cathedral.

We got to see part of a light show on the face of the art museum. The sound was much better synced in reality than the video makes it seem.

For dinner, we went to an Italian place, where I got wiener schnitzel and fries. It was delicious.

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Saturday morning, we made egg sandwiches for breakfast. They were good.

We then walked to Parliament

and City Hall.

Vienna is so beautiful!

We went back to St. Steven's to see it during the day. For lunch, we all got some wurst (I got bratwurst) in a baguette. It was delicious. I should have taken a picture.

We went to some gardens

where we saw two guys playing accordion... with horse masks.

We went to St. Peter's church.

Most of the rest of the group then went to the art museum, but me and another guy didn't go. I needed to sit for a while. We hadn't used any public transportation, and all the walking was really bothering my legs. (Just soreness, my knees are doing fine now)

Finally, we headed back to the train station, in a rather meandering way to catch a few pictures of some minor sites (you can see them in the pictures). The train ride back was mostly uneventful, although much more busy. I got back, went through emails, got my photos uploaded, and blogged. Michigan won by a bunch, as was expected. And now I'm about to go to bed!

Next time on Events: Hungarian Parliament, meeting with Aaron Stevens, and hopefully blogging that answers all the questions I've been getting.