Blogging Like the Huff Post...Copy and Paste Style

As part of the Flinn portion of this excursion, every member of my traveling group has to blog a day. I view myself as more of a pacifist, but why not kill two birds with one stone? So, please enjoy my blog, copied and pasted so efficiently for your viewing pleasure:

The days here are very long. And not just, "Wow, what a long day" sort of long….more like "Three-lectures-in-one-day-and-then-how-about-a-four-hour-hike-followed-by-a-two-hour-tour-of-the-city" long. So after 12 of these days, it was more than a little bit relieving to have a free morning in Budapest. And where better to spend two free hours than at the Budapest Zoo with my esteemed colleague Eric Chang?

Right next to the zoo are the Szecheny Baths, where doctors actually send women to who are having difficulties getting pregnant; whatever minerals are in the water have been hailed for their ability to restore fertility for many the happy Hungarian mother. This particular jewel of information wouldn't have applied to Eric and I at the zoo, except for the fact that the water pumped into the baths is the exact same water given to all of the animals at the Budapest Zoo. I have never seen so many baby animals in my life. 

After petting camels, goats, and even a sloth, Eric and I headed back to the hotel in order to pack out with the group and leave for Romania. The six hour drive included a loaf of ice cream, a flat tire, a dog determined to eat our soccer ball, and more than a bag or two of our favorite Hungarian snack, Duci Puffs. With six hours being the same length of my typical annual drive to San Diego with my family at this time of year, I also had plenty of time to realize how far I am from home. 

So do I think that we are succeeding in one of the main goals of this trip, to teach us how to become independent travelers? At first glance, it probably wouldn't look like it. We will never again get to travel in a group of 20 plus. We will never have these people to rely on to always have a map and follow aimlessly wherever they may lead. We will never have a bus driver to drive forwards, backwards, and upside-down in order to deliver us from city to city in one piece. 

But the herd that this trip set us up with can't be condemned too fast. These are the kids that we learned how to do bathtub-laundry with; they are the ones that helped devise a system for figuring out which stray dogs should be avoided and which are okay to pet (mostly the only factor in this evaluation is cuteness, but if anyone asks, no of course we didn't find any that met the standards because obviously petting stray dogs if just way to dangerous and risky); these kids invented the "gelato crawl," treating every dinner-on-you-own (doyo) opportunity like a five course gelato meal. 

So at this point, we still look like goofy tourists when we travel altogether, looking far from independent. But in less than two weeks, this trip ends and the herd will be dispersed, some of us venturing out on our own immediately, some preparing still for future travels. We won't have the comfort of our giant group. But we will also remember how NOT to get rabies, how to always smell clean and shiny, and how to never go hungry. Sounds like a successful set of skills so far to me!

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Of course, Flinn didn't get all my pictures; I saved those just for you =D

And then we kissed a giraffe.

I would like to bring home ten gophers in my suitcase, please. 

Maybe we were not actually supposed to be in this exhibit....

And last but never least....

A NEW PUPPY PICTURE!!!!!

=D=D=D=D

For the honor and glory. 

Call me Trip and "Why can't I just go pee?--An ode to Hungarian Restrooms"

I have 20/2400 vision. No, I didn't make a typo there, and no, that is not a European conversion. 20/2400. I can see both find with both eyes open, but on its own, my right eye would probably work better if it was made out of wood. I don't typically walk around in a permanent wink (sometimes though) so it really isn't a problem, except for the fact that I have the depth perception of a doorknob. In Hungary, there are a lot of curbs. There are also slopey streets. And random ramps. And stairs. Stairs. Stairs everywhere. What does this translate to for me? I trip a lot. Down flights of stairs while carrying luggage. Over curbs that I didn't realize were there. Into other people because I didn't realize that the flat ground was going to up and decide to become a ramp. I have a lot of bruises.

Anyway.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I went on a trip to San Francisco to study human geographical concepts between the different neighborhoods in the city. For example, we would go into different McDonald's and examine the way the culture of a particular area helped define the layout of the restaurant, the menu, etc.

Well, here in Hungary, it has been requested by my dear friend Katherine to place Hungarian restrooms under the same scrutiny as San Franciscan McDonald's. Here is where I am at with my study:

          1) Light switches? Good luck finding them. They're probably outside of the bathroom somewhere. This always makes the inaugural use of a toilet in a new hotel because each new room comes with its own "Have-Fun-Peeing/Showering/Brushing your teeth-in-the-dark-if-you-don't-find-me" switch scavenger hunt.

          2) Almost every toilet has a hight flow/low flow flush system. They are separated by proportionally sized buttons that may or may not always work. This system of saving water has probably caused me to waste more water than ever before in my life because I can NEVER make it flush on the first time. Ever.

         3) The next time you go to a public bathroom in the States, try to close the stall door from the top. This is what I always do at home. But in Hungary, bathroom stalls are usually complete boxes, with a bar going across the top of the door. The next time you go into a bathroom in Hungary, don't close the stall door from the top. Unless that is, you want to scream so loud when you smash your fingers between the door and the top bar that most of the people in the porcelain museum hear you from the basement bathroom....

          4) Sometimes, the toilet paper is covered in little colored designs. The different colors are different scents. Pink= rose, yellow=lemon, green= pine. I know, because I am doing a study on bathrooms and I smelled them all. The issue I have with this TP though is that the colors bleed when you stop investigating it and actually use it. Does anyone remember those kid's "paint-with-water" coloring books where the colors were already on the paper and you just smeared them all together with a wet paint brush? Here, that concept isn't child's play, it's toilet paper.

Now, all investigations aside, how about some pictures of the past couple days?

Here is the gorgeous Lake Balaton, hot vacation spot for pretty much all Hungarians and also 23 Arizonans who aren't used to seeing this much water in once place ever. 

Most of the time, when my family and I go to the beach, we just try to dig the deepest hole possible with no real point or purpose. In Hungary though, you must build castles.

The view out my window on our way to Obanya, where we stayed in the hostel. No one died, except for me from happiness when I got to help direct the cooking of French toast bake for 25 people. Not going to lie  though, when I saw this view from my bus window, I may have shed a couple of tears of unadulterated joy over God's creations. 

And it just kept getting better. I also got to help lead the group on this little (4 hours later) nature excursion, you know, because of all my experience with Hungarian wilderness....

Working the wild woman look with the Al Jazeera cap for the day. 

Meet Katherine. I don't know is she has a wild woman look...pretty much just always looks great =D

Now in Pécs. They recently installed this public art display with hundreds of tiles that citizens could purchase and paint. I wanted to take pictures of every single one. I settled for this one of a sheep.

I made this. Just one of the many skills I have picked up since arriving here. ;D

Sunday morning mass in Pécs. St. Istvans. I think everything is St. Istvans here. Anywho, the music was incredible...how could it not be with an organ the size of my house?

Oh, and on another note. Here is my dog, now two weeks old. Picture courtesy of the fam who visited the little guy for me. This creature is all I talk about. How do we all feel about the Hungarian name, Lyosh???

And now, I go to the Budapest Zoo =D

For the honor and glory.