Roadtrip Romania

Hellow Hellow,

The highlight of the week was a road trip to and through Romania, the local neighbour. Even though Romania entered the EU some years ago, I think many of us still have a certain prejudice when it comes to Romania, no? Anyway, I had my thoughts and so did the other 11 that came on this trip. As soon as we crossed the border many of these initial expectations were confirmed, to say the least. Romania is not particularly developed, it’s underdeveloped even. There are enormous differences between Hungary and Romania, let alone compared to Western Europe, and it is practically on our doorstep! In some parts it’s as if time has stood still since the middle ages, colourfully mixed with the odd communist and 21st century influence. However sad really, for some reason, mostly through historical events, Romania has not been able to develop economically. Nowadays, there’s a strange mix because the cities are actual cities with all of today’s modernity’s whereas 10 km’s down the road people live in truly poor conditions. We only managed to travel through Transylvania, aka the land of Dracula (we didn't make it to the Dracula castle but we did visit Vlad Tepes' birthplace, not to be missed) as travelling requires lots of patience in Romania. Transylvania lies in the west , borders Hungary and is enclosed by the Carpathian Mountains on the east and south and is considered the most developed/westernized region of Romania, which makes me wonder what, if anything, is beyond those mountains... It is clear from the many 'EU-flag signs' that any improvements in the country's infrastructure, urban planning and tourist attractions are funded, at least partially, by the mighty Brussels.

There are no highways in Romania, you're lucky to be on a descent sealed road that winds its way through small villages and a gorgeous landscape. From Budapest it's a 4 hr drive to the border and we then travelled to Cluj-Napoca, Sighişoara, Sibiu, Timişoara and back to Budapest; a round trip of about 1300 km which involved approx 25 hrs of driving... People come up to your car at gas stations trying to sell iPhone boxes that contain Blackberry look-a-likes (?!). Heavy, heavy blackened industrial sites pollute the pretty views from time to time and have a depressing feel to them, huge exhausts literally stand in people's backyards. That cannot be good for mind, body or soul! Another mind-boggling sight is when you first overtake a horse & wagon transporting entire families, hay, random car doors or absolutely nothing. As the journey progresses you get used to it though which tells you something about the frequency of these occurrences. They've even got license plates! Also, I've seen a few tractors but a lot of the agricultural work is still done by hand, with the help of a horse & plough, amazing sight! Sheep and cattle can roam around freely and you see many shepherds walking their flocks to green, grassy grazing fields. They prefer Euro’s to pay for anything in Romania but you use Lei. The notes are pretty but made of plastic and the smallest coin is 5 Ban (which we renamed mini-lei) which is worth about € 0,0135. All in all we had loads of fun with 3 cars & 12 people exploring Romania. There was definitely the occasional heavy discussion, as you would have with 12 strong minded people, but as it was Halloween as well there were plenty of parties, painted faces and pumpkins to sort out any arguments!

Many crazy stories are told about tourists being pulled over by corrupt and/or fake police demanding money, cars being broken into while sightseeing, children begging, stealing and robbing etc etc. I’m not easily frightened or scared off by any such stories because people are people and things can happen everywhere. We took some common sense precautions and all went fine, no dramas. There was some drama at the border though... I had decided that I won’t need my passport as Romania is part of the EU these days and it can only get stolen. A driver’s license will suffice, right? Not right! The other road trippers were giving me a hard time for it but I didn’t have any troubles getting into Romania which led me to believe it was all good. However on the way back, in no-man’s land between Romania and Hungary the troubles started... Turns out that although Romania is EU, it doesn’t fall under the Schengen Treaty, which is the one required for free transport between the EU states. Right then and there I got some EU facts and lessons are learned, bring your passport! To be fair, I didn’t actually think they were not going to let me into Hungary but they did let me stand there for a bit, making a point I suppose. Mind you, they had sufficient grounds to ship me off to The Netherlands which would have been a bit of a pain.

Anyway, I made it back to Budapest and life is back to normal, gym, uni and dinnerparties. One of my close friends here is from the UK but he’s actually half Hungarian and he had promised to make us goulash soup. Many weeks have passed since that promise but last night we had traditional Hungarian Beef Goulash soup!! We had a laptop in the kitchen so he could talk to his mum on Skype for the exact family recipe, cooking times and what to do when, cooking just entered the digital era! Tonight we another promise will be fulfilled, true French crêpes by a Frenchman! Another close friend Clem, short for Clement, has been raving about how crêpes are sooo French and how he makes delicious savoury and sweet ones. He’s in our kitchen right now preparing the mix and 10 of us are meant to get a taste of heaven tonight... Haha, we’ll see! Let’s face it, a crêpe is just a pancake right?!

Tomorrow I’m off to Bratislava for the weekend so more stories to come!

Beyond Budapest

At the university’s orientation day, some weeks ago, the faculty’s dean himself made a very good point. He informed us that there’s is more to Hungary than just Budapest and he encouraged us to explore the country and surrounding regions during our exchange semester. Well, I for sure only have to be told such a thing once so I've since explored different areas of Hungary, Vienna and Krakow. Eastern Europe sure offers an interesting mix of cities, experiences, landscapes and attractions. So here goes:

First, Vienna. I was the lucky girl to get on the train to Vienna with 4 guys, 2 spanish, a french and a brit. We've been good friends since day one and we had an amazing weekend together! Vienna is quite pretty, with lots of monumental buildings and a rich history. Although the size and sight of the Danube flowing through the city is rather disappointing, Vienna does have a romantic feel to it. We spent a whole afternoon at the Sisi & Franz Jozef castle, walking through 30-odd lavishly decorated rooms and playing in the castle gardens. It's great to be a royal kid sometimes! By chance, it happened to also be Night of the Museums during our weekend and although we didn't bother too much with entering any of them it did meant that all the pretty buildings were lit up so we got a drink at one of the street stalls and walked around the city at nighttime. We found some interesting party places as well and before you know the weekend comes to an end. It wasn't a very cash-flow friendly one though, especially since Hungarian Forints are my current standard!

My next destination however was: Krakow, Poland! I tell you, Zloty's are the best when spending money! It was a trip organised by ESN and we travelled to Poland by bus. On the way to Krakow we stopped at the Wieliczka salt mine for a tour and dinner 300 mtrs under the ground. We went down on never-ending winding stairs but luckily there was an elevator to take us back up. Next morning we went to visit Auschwitz. I sure hope there's not too many places on earth that take your breath away like Auschwitz and Auschwith-Birkenau do. When walking on the rocky pathways, past the barracks, hearing explanations and stories about the things around you, you cannot but feel a shiver down your spine. The data, the documents, the standing cells, mountains of human hair, glasses, suitcases with names, artificial limbs, children's toys, photo's... Auschwitz-Birkenau, especially, is of such an immense size, truly beyond your imagination or anything captured in Schindler's list. As far as I'm concerned, the sheer existence of these places is possibly the greatest human failure. After this super heavy morning activity we went on a tour through beautiful Krakow, followed by a tramparty (yes, 90 of us got on a specially kitted out partytram and railed through Krakow for 2 hrs!! I doubt that is even possible or allowed in Amsterdam!). And the weekend was not over yet... on the last day we went to Zakopane, Poland's ski-resort town, where we buzzed up and down the mountains for a few hours with chairlifts and trams. The 8-hr busride back to Budapest provided the perfect opportunity for a nice, long snooze which suited me perfectly fine!

Before my washing had a chance to dry I had a visitor! Vera, my old roomie arrived last week Monday complete with Lonely Planet, a fully charged camera and enough energy to spend a week with me. A few days in Budapest and on the weekend we went into rural Hungary. Although here in Budapest we are well into fall already and most leaves have turned either orange, red, brown or they're on the ground, Vera brought along great weather and we had an amazing week full of adventures that included the colourful Buda Hills, finding our way in the pitchblack underground castle labyrinth, a random&crazy party with a Hungarian family, an attempt to ride horses, sampling and buying 7 ltrs of wine at the wine cellars of The Valley of the Beautiful Women, Baboeshka laughter and a ride on the slowest train you can possibly think of. But there's an end to all great things; Vera has left and I'm back at uni where a stack of work awaits me!

Conclusion: I’m on a crazy rollercoaster ride through all that Eastern Europe has to offer. Unfortunately, it is getting a lot colder and it feels like winter is not far off. I have in the meantime come across some very friendly and helpful Hungarians that have, smilingly, informed me that temperatures can drop to as little as -15 degrees in winter, a frightening thought! But I’m clearly having a great time, I even starred in the upcoming Dutch movie 'De President' last week with Najib Amhali and Achmed Akkabi (ok, as an extra, but I made sure I was within reach of the camera)! It was great to have a look behind the scenes, chat to the Dutch actors and have professional hair&make-up done. Only a shame I had to axchange my own pretty black dress for a baggy dress with a design quite suitable for a curtain in the 50's... But aye, the things we do for our 5 seconds of fame, right? It will be in cinema's this time next year so you might want to reserve seats!

This semester passes by at a speedy pace, I'm already in the 6th week of classes! Midterms are coming up next week and papers will have to handed in soon so don't be mistaken in thinking it's all fun&games here! It's definitely time to get down to business though so I have a very long, intense date with my laptop this weekend!

Adventures all around

Helloooooooooooo,

Classes have started, I've disovered the quickest way to uni, I get my daily bottle of water at a tiny shop at the busstop where the guy recognises me by now and knows exactly what I want, I get my veggies, fruits and meats at the markethalls next to the university... all in all: I've settled in quite well and Budapest already feels very much like home!!

We had a freshcamp 2 weeks ago just before classes started. 5 buses filled with 250 exchange students went to Lake Balaton. They say the lake is beautiful but we wouldn´t really know as it unfortunately rained non stop during our boattrip. We played ´funny games´ which is the collective codename for all the most ridiculous activities a person can think of. Silly? Yes, but it has to be done. In the evening we were rewarded with a winetasting followed by an amazing dinner in one of the area´s underground wine cellars. Imagine 250 people in an underground tunnel eating superb food, drinking unlimited amounts of wine and listening to folkmusic; what a night! Next day, a visit to the Heviz Thermal Lake to relax and unleash some of the toxins. Not too sure about the healing part of these thermal lakes though...

I have chosen a variety of courses to spice it up a bit and I make sure to attend my classes each week. Although the teaching methods, level of English and ways of examination seem to vary substantially among them and in comparison to Tilburg University, they all seem interesting enough so I´m happy. At Corvinus the classgroups are all very small (and so are the classrooms!) so there's no sneaking in late, reading the newspaper (no point anyway since it's in Hungarian), eating breakfast or discusing the upcoming party or weekend. They really make an effort to get the students actively involved and there are a lot of home assignments, class presentations and papers to make sure that you do. To me it is not exactly 'university-style' but it suppose it works.

I've also followed up on the sightseeing in and beyond Budapest. I've had my first visitor; my mother came to visit me and we went to the opera, an absolute must-do when you're in Budapest. I didn´t understand much of ´A Sevillai Borbely´ as it´s all in Italian but the operahouse alone is worth the visit! The Danube splits Budapest into Buda on the one side and Pest on the other. Most of the action happens on the Pest side where you find tourist central, the business district, lots of restaurants, markets, bustling nightlife, my house and my university. Buda on the other hand is built on hills (Buda Hills) and has a much more old & historic feel to it. It is also where you can stroll around the ancient castle and from where you can take in breathtaking views overlooking Budapest.

During the week there are lots of parties organised and planned for the exchange students which of course is lots of fun (the moustache party last week was particularly interesting...!) but while I'm residing in Eastern Europe I like to spent my weekends exploring the region. So I went train-tripping to Kecskemet, Szeged & Pecs last weekend together with girls from Barcelona, few places in Germany, few places in Belgium and somewhere in Finland. They're all really beautiful cities and very different from Budapest in size, but also in mentality, atmosphere and architecture. Especially Pecs, which is European Cultural Capital 2010, doesn't seem to boost many communist remains. It is a very well preserved city with an interesting mix of culture, art & history. We visited a mosque-turned-church, the Vaserely museum, the national theatre, a richly decorated cathedral and a band playing musical tunes from all over the world. The trains in Hungary are a great way to get somewhere, cheap as chips (students get 50% off what is already very cheap!) and comfortable enough to have a little snooze if you want. Make sure to set your alarm if you do though, they don't announce anything when arriving at a station!

During the week I go running on Margitsziget, have lunch & coffees at cute Etterem's and get down to uni business. Sometimes I take a moment and look at the great variety of people on the trams, busses and metro, the gypsies sleeping in the parks, at stations and on sidewalks (some have built themselves little roofless fortresses complete with couches, plants & a small table!!!). Did you know: those living on the street actually need a little piece of official ID paper stating that they are in fact Hungarian and homeless. Their homeless status must then officially be verified by another person for it to be valid...

That's it for now, stay tuned!

I'm loving Budapest

Jó napot (= good afternoon according to google)

I'm loving Budapest! I've been here for little over a week now and I feel very much at home already. I've got public transport down to a tee and amid the early cold, rainy weather, the gypsies and the odd streetbum smelling of alcohol there's a really nice big-city-cosmopolitan vibe. Although Budapestians seem unable to smile or take on any kind of facial expression (which to us comes accross so rude and uninterested!) I am really enjoying the place. In all honesty, the Hungarian language is extremely difficult! It's not just that you don't know any of the words or their meaning, they're simply impossible to pronounce! I'm heavily relying on the willingness of those people in the cue behind me that understand half a word of English to help me with anything from ordering drinks to getting credit for my phone.

Last week, a friend and I spent a few days exploring Budapest by hop-on-hop-off bus&boat, tram, metro, the late night taxi to get home, but mostly by foot (I've actually had thoughts about my bike at home and how handy it really is!). We've been real tourists and went to see a Hungarian State Folk Theatre performance, visited the world famous thermal baths and a park full of old communist statues, attempted to see a movie but failed miserably, explored the sziget island by duo-bike, tried Langos, drank Hungarian wine and took in the view of the city in the pooring rain. I now know that I will definitely go back to the thermal baths, don't really like the Langos but will (and have) drink more Hungarian wine and must take another look at that view.

When Kel went home on Saturday it was time for me to start sorting out an apartment. By then I'd met other exchange students and heard stories about their flathunting experiences, not necessarily very positive ones. Just as I'm about to start the search I get a text from a German girl saying she's found the most amazing flat and I must come check it out. Huge living room, spacious kitchen with dishwasher, 3 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms (!), double beds, extra beds, enough tables and chairs to host dinnerparties... In short: I live there now together with a Belgium and German girl. The only thing: next to walking 500 miles I now climb 500 stairs as well as we're on the top floor and there is no elevator!

The girls I live with are cool (Lilly, Leentje & Lauren ) and I've met some really nice people with whom we've had a few dinnerparties at our place. Also, ESN here organises lots of activities for exchange students coming to Budapest so we've explored the nightlife and played silly get-to-know-each-other games. On Monday, we had the introduction at the university (lots of talking, some useful information and drinks & party afterwards). There are 340 exchange students at Corvinus this semester, most of them studying business I think. Today is the first chill-out-in-my-apartment-day, followed by a pub crawl tonight, thermal baths tomorrow, a visit to the castle from which you have the great view of Budapest on Friday and then the Freshcamp to Lake Balaton on the weekend...!!! I have signed up for courses, really nice ones as well, and classes start on Monday (probably a good thing too!). The best part is that I have Fridays off every week and Mondays off every other week as well, which means nice long weekends with plenty of time to explore Budapest, Hungary and the surroundings! After all, it's important to get my priorities in order!

Departure Day

It's a great rainy day to start a new adventure!! I've had a 'last' of everything and now in a few hours I'm off to Budapest to study at Corvinus University during the fall semester. I'm actually leaving with a friend of mine to have a short holiday week first and next week is the introduction week in which I'll probably hear all necessary little bits of info. And of course lots of welcome & get-to-know-each-other parties, games and trips!!

I haven't arranged a place to live yet because I prefer to be there, be able to explore possibilities, meet some potential housemates and then go flathunting together.

Besides lectures and no doubt some serious studying hours I'm hearing lots of great things about Budapest, so I'm excited to find out for myself. I'd like to see lots of Hungary as well as explore some of the surrounding countries and cities. All in all I'm in for a busy and exciting time!

Stay tuned to find out more...