Flight/First Night in Budapest 1/1/06
It is 11:03 p.m. Central European Time, which means that it is 5:03 p.m. at home. The date/time on this entry won’t reflect that, because the Internet is down at my hotel tonight. While it wouldn’t ordinarily be a big problem, it is my first night here, and I wanted to let my family know that I had made it here safely. After a very frustrating and ultimately futile attempt to reach the nearest Internet café, I ended up calling home from my hotel room, which charges 200% for telephone calls. So I don’t know how much that will end up costing me; I suppose I will find out soon enough.
So after starting my first entry off on sort of a bummer note, I’ll fill you in on all the good news. I reached Budapest safely after 12 hours of travel. The folks at London Gatwick Airport were very helpful, and it’s a very good thing that they were, otherwise I might not have made it onto my flight to Budapest. The flights were tiring and rather draining but uneventful (which is good, of course). Watching the sky grow lighter as we flew east into the dawn was beautiful.
When I finally made it to Budapest, I met up with part of the MSU group at my hotel and made plans to meet up for dinner after a much-needed shower and change of clothes. We took the metro downtown for dinner and then explored Budapest by night. Dinner was very good and very affordable (although I haven’t quite figured out the exchange rate yet…), and it gave us a chance to get to know each other a little bit. I think we have a good group, assuming that we can get over our Madison egos and listen to one another once and a while. I wasn’t really in the mood for making friends after the long night and day spent getting here, but I did my best. I have been in enough similar situations by now to know that these first days are vital. If you isolate yourself or make enemies in the first week, you’ll be miserable. And I did end up having a good time and liking the group quite a bit, so it was worth it.
Except for the obvious problems of being overtired and jet-lagged, I am loving it here. Having never been to Europe, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I rather thought that it would be like going to Quebec City or to other places that I have been to in the U.S. or Canada, but I was wrong. Europe is a whole different animal. More on this next time, as I am off to get a desperately needed good-night’s sleep.
So after starting my first entry off on sort of a bummer note, I’ll fill you in on all the good news. I reached Budapest safely after 12 hours of travel. The folks at London Gatwick Airport were very helpful, and it’s a very good thing that they were, otherwise I might not have made it onto my flight to Budapest. The flights were tiring and rather draining but uneventful (which is good, of course). Watching the sky grow lighter as we flew east into the dawn was beautiful.
When I finally made it to Budapest, I met up with part of the MSU group at my hotel and made plans to meet up for dinner after a much-needed shower and change of clothes. We took the metro downtown for dinner and then explored Budapest by night. Dinner was very good and very affordable (although I haven’t quite figured out the exchange rate yet…), and it gave us a chance to get to know each other a little bit. I think we have a good group, assuming that we can get over our Madison egos and listen to one another once and a while. I wasn’t really in the mood for making friends after the long night and day spent getting here, but I did my best. I have been in enough similar situations by now to know that these first days are vital. If you isolate yourself or make enemies in the first week, you’ll be miserable. And I did end up having a good time and liking the group quite a bit, so it was worth it.
Except for the obvious problems of being overtired and jet-lagged, I am loving it here. Having never been to Europe, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I rather thought that it would be like going to Quebec City or to other places that I have been to in the U.S. or Canada, but I was wrong. Europe is a whole different animal. More on this next time, as I am off to get a desperately needed good-night’s sleep.
posted by Erin Kay at 10:13 PM
1 Comments:
Erin,
Good that you have some wisdom already to know how to maneuver a study abroad group! This will help you. I had to do a trial-run 6 weeker to figure that out. Also... I am excited for you to be there. This is just the first one I read and I am commenting already, so you may get some more by the time I get through them.
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