Arrived!

After more than a YEAR of planning, I am finally in Budapest. I arrived Friday August 18th at noon local time, and my Rotary host counselor was at the airport to meet me and take me to the home of my host family. Emi and Kalman are wonderful, and having hosted 9 students prior to my arrival, they are experts in ˝sign language,˝ translation, charades, etc. We went out to the market this morning and will go explore Budapest this afternoon.

There are many things about Hungary that make me feel right at home, either because they remind me of the US or Bolivia. Having all modern conveniences of course reminds me of the US; figuring out how to use them reminds me of my struggles in Bolivia. Having a market right around the corner from my house reminds me of Bolivia; the prices, however, are closer to those in the US. Seeing T-Mobile signs everywhere remind me of the US; not having a CLUE what they say reminds me of my early days in Bolivia. Bridges to cross the street remind me of Bolivia; seeing people actually use the bridges and not run across the highway in front of speeding cars reminds me of the US.

My biggest problem so far? They use a different keyboard, which includes some new characters (léttérs wíth accents, főr éxámplé). To fit those characters in some letters are displaced, most notably the y, which is where the z should be, and vice versa. So if mz tzping becomes a bit sillz, this darn kezboard is to blame. I cant seem to find the apostrophe either... so I maz forego punctuation as a whole for the time being.

Thanks to everyone for all your encouraging emails. Keep them coming! I will try and post on this blog at a minimum once a week, and will be uploading some pictures shortly as well.