best things so far

i realize i've been complaining on here since i've been in spain, so here are some things i've liked. 

both in nyiregyhaza and songjiang i had taxi drivers who saved my sanity on regular bases. following suit, i very luckily scored an excellent taxi driver to take me from the airport to a hotel when i arrived in BCN. he gave me his card because he was also trying to rent me an apartment. little did i know, i'd spend the entire day with this guy, Paulo, a few days later when he took me to get xander. this particular taxi driver is handy because he speaks spanish, catalan, and english annnnnnd he's not spanish (he's brazilian), which means, according to him, he's much more patient than his spanish counterparts. at any rate, we're in each other's phones now and i know i'll call on him if i'm in a bind. 

the metro system here is impressive. it's logical, clean, and convenient. there are stairs and escalators at every exit and the escalators all go up (logical!). there are also elevators for old people, moms with strollers, and handicapped people. nice!

the insides are modern and clean. more amazing to me is how crowded they are NOT! :) this girl hated the metros in china because of the wall to wall, door to door, seat to seat, ceiling to floor, handrail to handrail people! here the trains come and go so quickly and frequently that i've never had to elbow my way anywhere or fear for my safety yet. 

there are ticket machines at every stop. they are available in a variety of languages. they're user-friendly and modern. i bought a 10 day pass with no incident on my first day.

the people here so far (minus one teacher) have been so nice, helpful, and easy on the eyes. perhaps i was used to ignoring men in general, as hungarian men never tickeled my fancy, nor did chinese men. these spanish men, however, are so beautiful! wow. i mean, there are some average, and below average spaniards, i'm sure, but i'm noticing many many more pretty guys than not. there are also a lot of tourists here, so who's to say who's who, but on the whole i'm impressed with the beauty. the women, also pretty, are not the extremes i found in hungary and china. there's just an overall beauty to everyone, it seems. maybe it's in the eye of the beholder, but i like what i see in barcelona.

the people i've encountered either speak english well or are patient enough to tolerate a conversation in spanglish until the point is clear. (i've asked a non-english-speaking lady on the street where she got dog poop collection bags and she was able to tell me where to get them without either of us being annoyed or frustrated.) 

i was able to order a domino's pizza on the phone in english yesterday, so that's already head and shoulders above china and hungary (in this respect).

there is a chinese shop just around the corner from my apartment. i've gone in there a couple of times and spoken chinese with the proprietors. they have a mishmash of cheap stuff, so far i've gotten a pillow, scissors, and dog food/water bowls. one guy who works there chased me down the street to give me back 40 euros that fell out of my wallet when i was paying. this isn't what i'd consider typical chinese, but i was so grateful and appreciative. i'll go there more, i'm sure. 

 

spanish tv isn't like hungarian or chinese tv to me. there are a TON of shows in english (even without subtitles). there are more commercials than i've ever seen on tv in any country ... like there were 18 ads between segments of the big bang theory the other day. 18 commercials in a row on tnt!! omg, i'm glad i watch tv on the computer. i do keep the tv on in the background of using the computer (like now) so i am exposed to some spanish every day. maybe i'll learn it subconsciously.

the weather is fantastic. i've walked around, to school, shopping, with xander, and used public transportation all without dying of heatstroke (what, texas?!). the windows and sliding doors in the apartment have been open since i got here. there's a nice chill at night, cool breezes during the day, and it hasn't rained yet. weather: win.

the last thing, not yet pictured, is my apartment. i'll do a post about the place soon, mmk? 

Things I'll Miss About Hungary

i'm leaving hungary very soon. while there are a few things i certainly won't miss about hungary, there are many many things i will. for example....

*statues

*parks

*statue parks

*kávézók (cafes)

*flowers!!

*80s and 90s music being played more often than current music

*folk music :D

*thermal baths

*csúnya szavak (bad words)

*magyar nyelv tanulás (studying hungarian)

*izé (the word hungarians say when they can't think of what they want to say)

*nénik meg bácsik (old ladies and old men)

*parasztok!!! (country people/rednecks)

*hungarian accents (i vant to leeave in oosha.)

*old school/traditional mentality

*vanity/immodesty

*kid-centered families

*people being proud of their sneakiness

*namedays!

*women's day

*teacher's day

*patriotism

*farsang! (dress up in costumes to scare away winter in february)

*people asking me if i'm cold all the time

*overdressed children/star children (children so bundled they can't move, they look like stars)

*overt staring

*churches!!

*so many umbrellas

*everyone always having tissues and using them as loudly as possible

*fagyi!!! ohh, the ice cream.

*cute little villages

*outrageous clothes

*super high heels (even in SNOW!) she's fine as long as she has pantyhose

*emo kids

*festivals every other week

*funny looks for singing along to my iPod

*megasztar (hungarian american idol)

*puszi (cheek kisses)

*ballagás (hungarian graduation ceremony)

*szalagavató (hungarian prom)

*JEGESKÁVÉ!!!! (iced coffee with ice cream and whipped cream and chocolate sauce)

*szamorodni wine :) and tokaj and eger (wine and wine regions)

*fanny packs, lol

*nicknames for most nouns, not just people(uborka = ubi = cucumber, paradicsom = pari = tomato, iskola = suli = school, zsepi = zsebkendő = tissue, meki = McDonalds, stb.)

*sandwiches everyday, everyone, everywhere

*keys, keys, keys

*compliments on my language skills (i'm sure i'll miss hearing them when i'm in china stumbling through chinese)

****most of all: i will miss my beloved hungarian friends. so many people have made me feel loved and welcomed and special and important and valued and relevant. i've been invited to people's homes, to their celebrations, and into their lives. i've been hugged and kissed and given flowers on more occasions than i can count. i've cried on friends' shoulders, laughed with them, swum and danced, drunk and eaten, cooked bacon fat on an open flame, ridden buses to far away cities with colleagues, gotten naked with them at the baths, learned and taught, shared and absorbed culture, language, and the human spirit. i'll miss hungary a lot, and quite especially my

favorite city, Nyíregyháza.

balaton

after the transylvanian adventure, i was in need of a REAL vacation. so a couple friends and i (minus one friend who couldn't make it) headed to *the* lake in hungary. balaton.

we live very very very far away from there (in hungarian terms) and it's even farther when you don't have a car because you have to take trains and buses to get there... and of course, a mandatory stop in budapest.

but we got there. and oh, how we loved it!!

(for more pictures with captions CLICK HERE.)

the pedestrian street

omg, adorable.

we took a little boat ride on the lake since it was still a bit too cold for swimming. here i am with klara and xander. rowin' away!

and here's kimmy! (kim) she saved us with her mad rowing skills.

we took turns taking pictures because it was just so picturesque!

ok, this is practically a post card.

church on the mountain with the lake and sailboat in the foreground... it's so balaton.

sailors sailin'

we took a ferry to the peninsula (tihany) where we had a lovely afternoon of sight-seeing, eating, drinking, relaxing, train riding, walking, and picture-taking.

the city center is pretty freakin' cute. there are people (german tourists!) everywhere and no grumpy hungarians in sight.... just happy, relaxed, rested people :)

kim and xander bonded so much. he misses her almost as much as i do...

i mean, really...

klara and swans!

me and xander! and paprika!

it was just the relaxing vacation i was needing! pictures really can't do it justice. that was possibly my favorite weekend in hungary. whenever you come here, you simply MUST get to balaton!

transylvania -5

last day. get me the heck home.

it was a lovely day and it would have been nice to have been outside of a smoke-filled car that was loudly jamming to folk music. but alas, that's where i was.

we saw gypsies selling bags of pears on the side of the road. i wanted one.

then we stopped at a touristy restauranty town to "have a bite to eat." i had been away from civilization for 4 days and was happy to be sitting in a restaurant and being served.

so we parked with lots of other tourists, i grabbed my purse, and was joyously heading toward the restaurant.

then akos whipped out a a picnic blanket and put it on the hood of the car.

i nearly wept.

then it didn't work out so well, what with the carving the chicken on the hood of the car, so we packed up and moved on to a better spot.

don't get me wrong, it was a nice place to have a picnic. it was pretty, had a view of the mountains and valleys, and was a beautiful day. it was just the last straw for this girl. we sat down, unpacked, ate the same picnic food we ate 3 days earlier, everyone but me peed, and we relaxed a bit.

then we saw a shepherd and some animals.

back on the road, soon to the border. my silly non-EU passport caused a bit of a holdup, but nothing unbearable.

road, smoke, folk music. that's all i remember.

i like this sign with a tractor, bike, and horse and buggy.

that kind of sums it all up.

it was a long, interesting, and hard trip. it was not at all vacation to me (hiking, mud, outhouses, more hiking, churches do not a vacation make) but i'm glad i got to see that part of hungary.

it was enough for a lifetime. mark my words.

scotland - new lanark

there is a world heritage site near edinbrugh, so when traffic was too bad to go to any noteworthy lochs, we hit up New Lanark instead.

it was a bit wintery still, but green was starting to spring up in places....

(found this online) there is a working waterwheel there

there were some rad cobblestone buildings

there was a trail all around the place and to stay on it you had to follow this little fella

look how cute their "rubbish bins" arejust saw this stuck on some ford. the harrison ford mobile, lol
hehehe, i cracked up at a lot of signs
the whole place was very old school and traditional looking

outside of the site, in Lanark, there is a cool church (adorned with a clock as almost every church i saw in scotland was) near a famous gas lamp post. it was used by provosts (the scottish equivalent of a mayor) back in the day and it still pretty cool looking nowadays.

we stopped at "Inn on the Loch" for a lovely lunch on the way home

it overlooks a cute little loch (lake... idk why they use other words for things there)

with TONS of swans! yay! they are vicious, mind you. so hands off! then we saw some buoys. i say "boo-eez" while brits say "boyz"... though there already is a word called boys. whatev.

see how pretty?

there is some farmer with a good sense of humor who dyes his sheep red (or blue, i heard) for pretty much no reason at all except to entertain the people on the highways. people like me.