More Language School, More Wandering

At breakfast this morning Eva gave me paprika szalami which, assuming I understood her properly, was made by Erika's father-in-law. (Erika is the younger of Eva's daughters). Less exciting were the pickled beets, although I ate those too. I'm really not a fan of pickled beets though, but according to Eva they're full of vitamins, so I will probably be seeing them again. She was making a gigantic salad with them this morning while I ate breakfast.

Anyway. Language school today was from nine until four, and was our first day where we had what will be the normal schedule, without random trips elsewhere. We had one teacher in the morning, and another in the afternoon. The morning teacher came in and began by speaking only Hungarian, making us introduce each other and asking questions about our age, nationalities, and other basics. It was somewhat nervewracking at first, but once I realized I could both understand her questions and answer them in something resembling proper Hungarian, it was almost exhilarating. Our teachers make us practice both writing and saying words and sentences a lot, both individually, in pairs, or as a group.

We had a half hour break during the morning. Jen (one of the girls in my language school group) and I walked around several blocks, including going by the silver willow statue which commemorates the Hungarian Jews who were victims of the Holocaust. The language school is directly across from the main synagogue, and is in what used to be the Jewish ghetto. I promise I'll get pictures once the weather clears up. We still had about ten minutes of break left when Jen and I ran into Sneha and Helen (apartment mates of Jen's. I spent a fair amount of time talking to Sneha on the tour of the city with the Hungarian students. She shared my enthusiasm for the architecture), who offered us tastes of their hot chocolate that they'd just bought from a shop they were raving about. It was really really good hot chocolate, so Jen and I went over to get some for ourselves. It turned out to be quite pricey, but it was fun to try once. I got hazelnut hot chocolate, which had peanuts and some sort of wafer thing mixed into the drink as well as strong hazelnut flavoring.

During our hourlong break for Lunch, John (From my language group. Not the Jon I walked around Budapest with earlier. ) showed Jen, Helen and I a gyros place he and his apartment mate Homer (also in our language group. Helen's not in our language group but she joined us as we were heading out) had discovered since they live very near the school. It was good, and quite cheap too.

After class finished Nora, Bryan and I took the metro to the international school so Bryan could photocopy his passport and while we were at it set up accounts on the school computers. I also figured out where the Scottish Anglican church is so I can go there Sunday. Then we hopped back on the metro and headed to Hero's Square. It was dark by this time, and the statues were beautifully lit. Although I'm not sure why Saint Isztvan's halo appears to be of iron while the other saint's halo is shiny and gold looking. After this we went to Nora's apartment to see if Bethany wanted to come join us in eating somewhere, but she had already eaten with Amy and Erica, and opted to stay at Nora and Amy's apartment, where she could use the internet.

The three of us headed out again and decided to go to the Buda side of the Danube and eat there, possibly at the pancake restaurant. After some indecision, we chose another restaurant where we, feeling unadventerous, ordered two pizzas. The restaurant owner was very friendly, and, in addition to the pizzas, insisted we try some pálinka, some goulash, and some dumplings and beef (without charge). The pizzas were quite good, particularly since they were nowhere near as greasy as a typical American pizza. We had fun trying to order the toppings in Hungarian. All in all, the meal was fairly cheap considering the amount of food we got.

We were planning on going to the top of castle hill and walking around for a bit, but first decided to swing by my apartment for various reasons. However, once we'd all flopped down in my room, there was very little motive to move, so we just talked instead. There'll be other days to wander around the Buda hills. I'm so glad I'm here for several months.

And now I need to go do my homework since we have class tomorrow. At least it is only until two in the afternoon, so we should have about two and a half hours of light to wander in.