My mom made a request for a picture of my roommates and I. This is the closest thing I have to it as two out of three of my roommates are in this picture. Yep. Just me and my friends sitting in front of the Danube.
I also have a few comments on Budapest:
1. Our internet connection is very slow, especially when everyone decides to use it at the same time.
2. I love this city, but still feel like a tourist.
3. I am getting excited for potential weekend trips we've been talking about. I'm going on a day trip to Eger, Hungary tomorrow.
4. I can and did buy things from a market in Hungarian, specifically peaches, onions, and banana chips. (Huzzah!)
5. Peaches in Hungarian is oszibarack and reminds everyone of Barack Obama.
6. My allergies are bugging me a LOT (and I'm not the only one).
7. It's hard not to snack when you have European chocolate, delicious bread, and nutella at your fingertips.

Seven is a good number to stop at. It's our room number. To request the key, we say "Kerem a hetes kulcsot."
Ok, that's enough for tonight

Another Update: A lot has happened, so I'll try to give a brief summary since I have to study my Hungarian words. On Sunday, we attended an English-speaking Church of Scotland. They fed us a meal afterwards! Nice people. We had a little interaction with Hungarians. We then went to the supermarket, Auchan. On Sunday evening, I went an adventure with friends Liz, Liz, and Stephanie. We ended up wandering up Castle Hill and to the Fisherman's Bastion. As we were leaving, a choir started singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" in a language different than Hungarian and English. They then sang "How Great Thou Art." That was a pretty awesome experience.
On Monday, the group went to register at BME, our host university. Later, I ended up going with friends to a pretty sweet restaurant called Szimple. The food was good and cheap. It only took us 90 minutes to find. Yeah, we seem to be pretty good at not finding where we want to go. Hey, at least we're seeing/walking around more of Budapest.
This morning, Stephanie, Sarah, and I found a excellent coffeehouse (Central) with no problems! It involved riding Train 18, transferring to Tram 4 and then transferring again to the blue metro line. We were pretty impressed with ourselves. At two today, we started our Hungarian classes. I'm pretty excited, but we'll have a quiz everyday which I'm not as excited about. I have a lot of work to do...
After class, I went with Liz to Auchan. Unfortunately, we got on the wrong train by accident. The mistake cost us probably at least an hour of our time, but we did find a pretty awesome park. :) We did some walking, more train riding, and more walking...
Although I haven't been eating too much food, I've been eating SO much chocolate. We've all been enjoying our Boci and Kinder chocolates a little too much.
Tonight, we aren't really doing anything. I'm excited for that since I wanted to catch up on my blog as well as study some specific words we learned today.
It was interesting to learn some additions they have to their alphabet. I've been having fun reading Hungarian words around town.
Another thing I did today was try to get some allergy medicine! I went to the patika (pharmacy), but they didn't speak Hungarian. Therefore, I'm not sure if all they gave me will work.
I'm getting along with everyone which is excellent! We're already talking about a day trip for Saturday to Eger which is in the Northeastern part of Hungary. I am super excited.
Ok, I'm done for now. Time to start studying!!!

I'll leave you with four pictures - one from the last four days (and people pictures to come!!).

Fun and exciting

Ok. It is currently 12:27 a.m., and I'm apparently not adapted to the time change yet. Actually seven of us are sitting in the "living area" of the apartment using the wireless we've got connected.
Here's more of an update now that I'm back on my own computer.
We left from Grand Rapids at 7 p.m. on Thursday but arrived around 4:45 to meet the whole group. It was pretty frightening, but I survived. After we arrived in Detroit, we had about an hour before our 8 hour flight to Amsterdam where we waited two more hours for our flight to Budapest. We finally arrived around 2:00 p.m. (Hungarian time) on Friday. p.s. I decided that the Calvin students I'm with are really nice which makes this whole going-without-knowing-anyone thing a bit easier. Ok, for rooming, we all just picked out beds which I was pretty nervous about (since I didn't know anyone really well), but I ended with Leah, Elizabeth, and Stephanie who are all pretty awesome. For dinner on Friday, almost all of us walked over to a restaurant a block down the street. Since they were serving 16 of us who spoke little to no Hungarian, it took us at least 2 hours to get fed. Bummer.
We were all pretty tired after less than four hours of sleep on the plane so we went to sleep and woke up 11 hours later.
Today, we used public transportation, got groceries, and met with some Hungarian students from one of the universities. In the evening, we decided to go into Pest (we're living in the Buda side). We finally got to see more of the city!! Very exciting. I took pictures (as did everyone else) and will be sure to put some up once they're on my computer.
Anyway, I'm having a good time so far!! It still doesn't feel like I'll be spending a semester here, and it's weird to not know any of my roommates or friends at the beginning. In time, though, it will become more familiar and comfortable to me. Honestly, it kind of feels like summer camp. Weird. Once I get into a routine, it will feel more like a semester.
I can't believe I'm living in a big city!
FYI - Don't worry... I don't plan to write about every single day in the future, but for the first couple, I thought it'd be alright. :)
I think I'm finished for tonight. Hope all is well with everyone!!

i am here!!

I made it to Budapest yesterday!
I am using a public computer so I should not be on for too long. I havent figured out the Hungarian keyboard completely either. I also have to still figure out if I can get wireless.
I will say more about the trip later...
here are a few things:
1. The trip was really long
2. I´ve met new friends
3. I am currently drinking carbonated water
Again, more to come.

If anyone happens to be interested in sending me mail while I'm in Hungary, one could do so with the following address:

Claire McWilliams
Bethlen Gábor Kollegium
1116 Budapest
Temesvár utca 18
HUNGARY

Yep. :)

Adventures, please!

TWO weeks until Hungary!
FYI -- Pictures will be posted to my Picassa web album.
http://picasaweb.google.com/clrmcwll
To tide you over, I've put up pictures from my first trip to Eastern Europe!
Enjoy!