Weekend Retreat

It has now been like 2.5 weeks since my last blog post, so I figured I could post another one before October ends. :) 

Here have been some highlights from the past few weeks:

At the Chimney Cake Festival

• I took a Lindy Hop Swing Dancing class with Julia, a girl in my program, early October. It was soooo much fun and because the class was in Hungarian (except for the few times our instructor translated for us), Julia and I really had to learn how to follow.  This class made me realize though how much I love dance.
• That same weekend that Julia and I took the swing dancing class there was a Chimney Cake Festival at the city park. Friday evening Olivia and I caught the end of concert happening while eating a chimney cake and then I went back a few times throughout the weekend to people watch, listen to music, and have some more chimney cakes and other yummy foods. For those that don't know what a chimney cake is, I suggest googling it, but basically it is a delicious cake usually with cinnamon, walnuts, or cocoa powder on it. They are seen in Prague too, but are actually Hungarian. 
• On Saturday October 15th, I had to go to class because it was a 'working day' in Hungary. Because November 1st, a national holiday, takes places on a Tuesday this year, the government also gives off the Monday, but then requires people to make-up this work day on a Saturday.
• Later that evening, I went to a Pancake party at Eszter's place (Eszter is a woman in ICFB). Olivia and I made banana egg and oat pancakes and ate many Hungarian pancakes (basically crepes). 
• I am still teaching English Lessons to a group of 5-10 women refugees twice a week and absolutely loving it. It has become a highlight of my week.
• I have also continued to observe many Hungarian classrooms and have taught a mock lesson on parallel lines cut by a transversal in my CBG (Concept Building through Games and Manipulatives) class that focused on the discovery method often used within Hungarian math classes. It was great reminder of how difficult teaching math is. 



Our Shower Curtain

• My apartment has many heating issues and I still thinking our heating isn't working right. Our poor landlord has been to our apartment like four times in the past week due to this heating issue. Thankfully he is a lot faster at getting back to us on this heating issue compared to how long it had taken him to get our shower curtain up - we finally got the shower curtain we requested our second week here during the second week of October.
• See below about details from the retreat that I went on this weekend. After the retreat, I went to an 8:00 PM student Mass at the same church that has an English Mass on Saturday evenings. The Mass was all in Hungarian, so I didn't understand a word, but it was a very powerful Mass, especially after a wonderful Christ-filled weekend. The Mass was packed with students, even 15 minutes before it started. I was lucky enough to find a seat, but the church was full of students standing for the entire Mass. The student band playing was also great and I was able to recognize a few of the songs. 

In regards to the rest of October, nothing special is planned from now to Friday afternoon. Friday afternoon I leave for Croatia and will return on Monday. This will give me some time on Tuesday to prepare for next week when I have a lot due for classes. Hopefully I will be able to also put together a blog post about my trip on Tuesday.

Retreat

I spent this past weekend up in the mountains north of Budapest with the International Christian Fellowship of Budapest, the fellowship group I go to Friday evenings. This weekend was very refreshing and exactly what I needed. I did not have access to WiFi from 12:30 on Friday to 6:00 PM on Sunday and for like once in my life it was incredibly easy to step away from the phone and not think about it all weekend. The 60+ notifications I had from email, IMessage, FB, and snapchat took some time to go through, but the weekend was worth it. 

Our accommodations were in the shaded area in the middle

Olivia and I helped prepare some of the meals on Friday before we departed for the location. We arrived around 8:00 PM, and in the evening we did introductions and participated in the World Student Day of Prayer by praying for students in the many countries that those on the retreat came from and specific students that had requested prayers through the organization that puts this day together. Friday evening there was also a fun discovery: One of the American women on the trip is currently teaching in Georgia, the country, and came to Budapest just for the weekend retreat. She had met some of the leaders of ICFB last spring when she couchsurfed at one of their places or at one of their friend's places. As we were doing introductions early in the evening someone asked where she was from and she said Minnesota. I immediately got like super excited and asked her some more questions about where she was from. Turns out she is from Rochester, MN and her parents go to the same church as my aunt and uncle, so she knows who my uncle is. It was a crazy small world moment!

Muddy/Wet Trail

Saturday morning we went on a long hike in the mountains. It was absolutely gorgeous and many spots on the hike reminded me of Northern MN. Some of my favorite parts of the hike were when there were little bursts of light flooding through the dark trees. It was a great reminder that God's light and love shines down on us even during struggling times. My least favorite part of the hike was all the mud . . . I had not thought about the amount of rain we had gotten lately and wore my fall boots. So my fall boots got very very muddy, but luckily I was able to successful clean them Sunday night after returning home.

Light shining through the dark forest

Later on Saturday, we talked about expectations. It was a very interesting topic and something I had not talked about before. In small groups we discussed our expectations in life, in ourselves, and in God. We also talked about how these expectations in life and in ourselves connect with our relationship with Christ. I highly encourage those reading this to think about the expectations they have in life, in themselves, and in God. It resulted in very insightful and interesting conversations. Saturday evening I also greatly enjoyed the various conversations that happened about different cultures. There was a whole conversation that happened about women working in the kitchen and what is expected of women in various cultures. This conversation was held between six of us from four/five different countries: America, Nepal, Mongolia, Georgia (even though she is from America, she knows a lot about their culture) and Hungary. Quite interesting.

Jumping for joy over this view!

Sunday we ate breakfast, had a short church service-type session, ate lunch, visited a women down the road who sells wooden spoons for a very cheap price, and cleaned up all before heading out around 3:30. One thing that I noticed about this retreat that may be culturally different compared to those in the US was the type of food served. Saturday we had a pasta sauce with a large variety of vegetables in it and Sunday was rice with a mushroom sauce. I could never imagine these types of dishes being served on a retreat in the US because there were way too many vegetables in them that a good percentage of people may not like, like mushrooms.  Retreats that I have been on tend to have foods that one would expect most people in the US to like. Just an interesting thought that had crossed my mind.

Overall though it was a very refreshing weekend and I'm so glad that Olivia and I went. I hope to have pictures on Facebook before I leave for Croatia on Friday.

    

It's October!

It is now October and in 8 days I will have hit my half way mark in Budapest. Crazy! 

Here are some RBTs from these past two weeks:

Rose:

Olivia and I at the ballet

• Olivia and I went and saw a ballet for about $5 on September 24. The show was incredible. There were four pieces and the first piece was for sure my favorite. They had this wall that they incorporated into the first piece so well. They moved the wall forward and back, brought it down for certain part so it acted more a stage, folded it to make it into a corner, and went through multiple doors within the wall. It was a beautiful piece.
• Haley and I found a really good bagel place one Monday morning. They serve bagels with omelets and avocado and a bunch of other yummy stuff. I just got a bagel that had cream cheese and tomatoes on it, but I definitely want to go back and get one with avocado. I also had an apple mint tea that had a really good unique flavor. It reminded me of fall back in MN.
• I have done two escape rooms these past couple of weeks:
• The first one we got 50% off at because it was World Tourism Day. It was a psycho-killer room and had a bunch of scary unnecessary noises throughout. We escaped with five minutes to spare, but got really lucky because we had guessed on a couple of combinations. I think we could have also escaped a few minutes earlier had I not dropped a piece we needed down some random small hole. We weren't able to get the piece back and it caused us to not get another number we needed.
• The most recent one occurred yesterday, and we escaped with about eight minutes to spare. The theme was "mind-boggling", but unfortunately there weren't as many puzzles as we all would have liked, just a lot of keys and combinations, nothing too fancy.
• My Hungarian culture class went and saw a gallery of Robert Capa, a famous Hungarian war photographer. It was a really cool gallery. The photographer had many interesting realistic photographs and unfortunately died after stepping on a land mine while capturing the First Indonesia War.
• I sang in the English choir at mass on October 1. I was shocked to find out that the hymn books we used were made at St. John's Liturgical Press at SJU. It was a very exciting moment.
• A group of us went and saw Les Mis last Sunday. The performance was really great, despite not being able to understand a word. There were English subtitles though, so the ones that don't know the show my heart, myself included, knew what was going. Our seats only costs like $5, but they were definitely not very good seats as I could only see about 3/4 of the stage due to our location in the balcony.
• I taught my first English lesson to a group of women refugees from Syria and Lebanon. All the women were so eager to learn and I am really looking forward to another lesson next week!
• BSME had an event where we were taught a bunch of Hungarian strategy board games (like chess-style board games). It was really fun and required a lot of thinking.
• Olivia and I enjoyed a wonderful evening yesterday. After the escape room, we got some soup and headed to ICFB. Then we caught the end of a performance of Margaret Island at the chimney cake festival while enjoying chimney cakes. We thought we were going to miss the music, but got there in time to listen to at least four of their songs. While I have no idea what they were singing about, they sounded really good and it was a perfect end to the evening.
• I got a lovely care package from my parents this week with some good American food like mac and cheese, Chex Mix, and angel food cake mix.
• The rest of this weekend includes a trip to the National Gallery, more exploration at the chimney cake festival, and maybe a swing dance lesson (and homework :) ).

Bud:

• The second to last weekend of October the fellowship group that Olivia and I are in is holding a retreat in some woodsy part on the outskirts of Budapest. I am really looking forward to this weekend full of fellowship, music, and prayer.

Thorn:

• Small Thorn: Haley and I planned to meet up for pizza last Saturday and ended up waiting at different parts of the entrance. So we both waited at this place for 20 minutes before figuring out we were both there. We laugh about it now, but at the time it wasn't that funny. We were both thankful though that we have phone plans so we could call each other and figure out where we were.
• I got sick Thursday afternoon and haven't fully recovered yet, but am getting there.