Home = HUNGARY

After spending twenty-three hours in airports and airplanes, I am relieved (and excited) to be home at last. Home, eh? This is an interesting supposition... While I'll always have a love for Buffalo (roots), and I hope to return to the land of mountains and sun in Denver (heart), I am proud to call Kaposvár my home for the next year!

While in DC, I had the opportunity to meet with my exchange partner, Rita, and pick her brain about Hungary all week. I feel like I learned so much about the country... yet, still I know nothing. She was an incredible resource and she shared plenty, but much like anything... until I'm there and living it, my mind has a difficult time finding it tangible.

It's been a journey already and the adventure is just beginning... I arrived at Dulles International Airport early Friday morning and was delayed several times with baggage, etc. No problem. Finally, I took the 8.5-hour flight to Franfurt, Germany from DC. No problem. Then, on my connecting flight, we arrived at Budapest and hovered, though it was too cloudy and apparently a control panel went down... so the 1.5-hour flight turned into a 3-hour flight... only to end up returning to Frankfurt. No problem. We had to change planes and, once again, depart for Budapest. No problem... I made it.

When I arrived in Hungary, I was greeted by Rita's husband Feri, their son Dárius, and friend Zsuzsa. I am very grateful that they waited for my travel miscues to pan out and helped me back to Kaposvár... and Zsuzsa speaks English quite well, so that's pretty awesome...

On the way back, we stopped for lunch in Budapest. Wow! I can already tell I'll be spending a lot of time in that city. I'll post more later... when I get a chance to really experience it, but I know I dig it and look forward to getting back there soon...

However, a greater surprise was Lake Balaton! I have already heard so much about Pest and what a killer city it is... but Balaton blew me away! We went to Siófok on the southern bank of the lake and had a little walk around. It's ridiculous to think that this lake (the largest freshwater lake in Europe) is only forty minutes from my flat... and I'm going to take advantage of it for sure! Again, I'll have to post more when I have the time to spend a bit of time there, but for now... a few photos of Siófok and Lake Balaton...