Wednesday, June 4, 2008

and then i was back

monday

it was time to leave my experiences in budapest. i was off to the airport at 640 in the morning. my landlord's dad met me at the apt to collect my room key.

i was taken to the airport and got there with plenty of time. i had a united flight, he said terminal 2B would be correct. the B and A terminals are probably 100 m apart, but having 2 large check-ins (above 50 lbs each), and no ez carts being available, i had to take a few of my luggages a little bit, and then move the rest. realizing terminal B did not do united, i was not happy at all. so i finally slowly and methodically moved all my luggage to terminal A, finally finding a cart to make my life easier there.

then i waited in line and the computer to get my boarding pass. there, though, you have to have a confirmation number- its not like america, put in a credit card and they recognize you. i had nothing, so this line was a waste. i was very angry by this point, so i pushed to get in the right line, and i ended up cutting in front of a Hungarian couple who were not very pleased about it, and were arguing with me while i was saying bad things about United. finally the conversation ceased and i faced front, just not looking back.

at least duty free was nice!

the plane to frankfurt wasn't bad. unfortunately the plane was delayed like 20 minutes, and i didn't have much time to make my connection in the first place, so i had to run like HELL through frankfurt. it is a very painful airport. so i was finally in the place which would take me to my terminal, and i had to ride the escalator. of course, after getting in it, it went down instead of up. then it went back up to the level we were just on, and a dumb man just asked the terminal assistant we had just passed whether or not we were on the right level. siigh....

finally i got to my gate. i had to go through security again, while everyone was telling me to hurry up- i was the last one. i made it on the plane, all sweaty. the flight attendants congratulated me, and gave me napkins and water. they changed my seat since a couple wanted to sit together and i got to sit in united plus (or something like that) and had extra legroom!

before i know it, and an interesting pasta dish later (my butter to spread on my bread had been liquified, strangely enough) i was back in the states. hooray! it was different being able to understand everyone's conversations....

so, i've been back in the states for a week now. i was relatively sick with pink eye, but now i'm back home and much better.

i've been thinking about the things that i've missed about hungary.
  • an abundance of minerals water (which i finally got accustomed to near the end)
  • cabbage (esp. cabbage strudels, cabbage is so common there!)
  • crazy math people i've met
  • non-fattening (yet tasty) deserts
  • fresh and delicious crossaints at the store
  • meat and potato dishes
  • cheapness of food
  • traveling throughout europe
  • pear juice
  • the opera
  • meg valamit? maybe

but of course there are things i won't miss as well.

  • toliet paper that is as tough as normal hand towels
  • waking up at 7 AM to go to 8 AM class
  • the occasional really nasty and old piles of fruit that turn me off
  • the weird non-refrigerated milk (i just had a normal glass of milk. yay!)
  • not having free streaming tv through sites such as hulu (i've spent a lot of time last week catching up on the last season of House!)
  • losing the internet intermittently and having to reset the router
  • region 2 dvds
as you can tell, i had a wonderful time, and i hope you enjoyed reading about it. i have no plans for any further posts, unless something new or something forgotten comes up. although my time in budapest was amazing, its great to be back as well.

vislat!