Day 1 of Orientation Week

Ok, I know this post is now going back a couple days, but I couldn't find the cord to get the photos off my camera, but I just did, and now I can finally post this with some pictures!

Friday, August 23rd

After an awesome sleep, I woke up at 7:00 or so, ready to go.  I didn't feel jet-lagged at all.  Everyone else was fast asleep, so I did my best to pull my clothes out of my locker at the bottom of the beds, but of course that stupid tarp Ikea bag where I had put my clothes was louder than one of those eco-friendly Sun Chips bags.  Nobody said anything, but when you share a room with like 9 people, you still feel like a jerk if you make ANY sound whatsoever.

 We sat around talking in the morning before breakfast, which is actually pretty nice.  The hostel staff brings a cart of stuff to the kitchen, including a meat slicer.  They slice up fresh meat and cheese, give you bread and jam, and even cut cucumbers and tomatoes for the "weight conscious" people.  The breakfast I grabbed consisted of a really nice slice of French/Italian bread (can't ever tell the difference) with cheese piled on top and a little peperoni with a side of tomatoes and cucumbers.  It was goooooood, especially when I was so hungry.

During breakfast, some people were talking about going to the store to find food because eating at restaurants all the time can get expensive, so after several hours of waiting for everyone to be ready/decide they really wanted to go or not/go to the bathroom, etc., we were off.  We really had a VERY vague idea of where we were supposed to go, and only one person had a map.  Oh well, that's cool!  I think it must have been like 10:00 or so when we finally got out.

Seven of us started walking to the metro station and it was a good adventure in itself just to figure out how to tell which direction the subway trains were going.  After much deliberation, we got in a car, thought we missed our stop when we really didn't, got out, and started walking.  We found a mall with a supermarket and went shopping, which is not the place where we were told to go, hahahah.  We never did find the original destination.

After shopping, I had a somewhat heavy bag of apples, eggs, grapes, and bananas, so I decided to go back to the hostel to drop it off.  Another girl came with me while the rest of the party kinda broke off and did other stuff.  After leaving our stuff in the fridge, this girl and I decided to go for a long, aimless walk.  We asked somebody how to get to Buda Castle, so we set off walking.  We were told it was a fairly quick walk from where we were...Boy, we made some really wrong turns, but we saw a ton of awesome stuff, none of which I know the names for.  Here's some pictures though:

Not sure what building this is, but it looks awesome!

Hungarian National Museum with an awesome statute in front.

Again, cool but I'm unsure as to what it is.

St. Steven's Basilica

Buda Castle on the hill.

Me on the Elizabeth Bridge.

View from the top of the hill on the Pest side of the city--this was NOT from Buda Castle though.

Beautiful tree-lined hilltop street.

View of Buda Castle at dusk from the CETP Welcome Dinner.

All and all, we walked for nearly 6 hours, and we must have covered well over 10 miles.  If I had had GPS, I could have mapped out exactly where we went, and I wish I had, because it was pretty darn impressive.

We returned back to the hostel, and I had to take a shower.  I was pretty gross.  After that, it was time for the CETP welcome dinner.  We got back on our feet and walked to the restaurant, which was, coincidentally, nearly exactly the same route that my friend and I had JUST WALKED.  Needless to say, I was exhausted, but it was still awesome.  I don't think I could ever get tired of walking through this city.

The meal was very good, and we ate outside in absolutely beautiful summer dusk weather in full view of Buda Castle up on the hill, all light up and shining yellow and orange when the sun went down.  It was then that I realized that my friend and I never actually made it to Buda Castle like we thought we had--instead, we walked right past it and ended up on a totally different hill with a totally different thing on top!!!  I can't even describe it.  At any rate, after the meal, we walked back to the hostel and got together with the dude from Seattle who had like every movie ever made on his computer.  We watched Star Trek (2009) until about 12:30am.  I couldn't sleep at all and woke up today, the day I'm writing this, at 5:30, and just decided to give up.   So, here goes the first actual day of orientation.