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  Budapest, Hungary
Monday, September 19, 2005

Hello again, this is a continuation of the last entry...however since I'm updating you on my last 5 weeks, I thought i would separate it into two blog entries.

Okay so I was back at site by Tuesday morning (August 30th) and considering I was leaving for Hungary the following Saturday morning and there was still a lot of planning and preparation to do to get everyone and everything ready there was little time for rest. So you ask why was I going to Hungary? One of my organizations, Bike Attack, was sending youth, which are actually young adults ages 15-25 to an International Youth Exchange in a small village in the south of Hungary called Dravafok. This exchange included participants from Hungary, Romania, Greece and Spain and involved cross-cultural awareness and activities, re-textiling workshops and learning how to make various types of ethnic instruments. These types of exchanges are becoming more prevalent across Europe to bring opportunities to youth who have had limited travel/knowledge of other European cultures. Most of the sponsoring organizations are very interested in the European Union integration, which Hungary is a new member and Romania has a projected integration date of January 2007. I went with this group of 7 youth from Resita since they are some of the youth I will be working with a lot during my time here in Romania. This opportunity gave me the chance to get know these volunteers better and to serve as a group leader. One of the perks of going on this exchange included staying in Budapest, Hungary (the capital) for one night on the way there and back! Now the capital is actually in the north of the country, so we had to take a train Sunday morning to arrive in Dravafok. But first we arrive in Budapest late Saturday afternoon, by train, and find our way to the Yellow Submarine youth hostel which was luckily located in the heart of the city where all things touristy are found. That evening we met up with the Spanish group and went walking about the city and found the Parliament building (the largest in Europe), located on the beautiful Danube River which provides a spectacular photographic setting! The Buda Castle, The Citadel, and beautiful museums and churches all sit on hills along this river across from the Parliament which provides a great lookout point for the city. This is really an amazing city, quite modernized compared to what I've been around the past 8 months, and had a good transportation system, good restaurants and even shopping malls!!!! Holy cow was this cool. I just had to exchange a little money while I was there and break down and buy a few things on my "I really need, but how the hell will find it" list. Well I did this on the way back so I wouldn't have to carry any extra bags with me to Dravafok! Let me just say all the landscape, people, sites, everything was just beautiful. You should really put it on your travel agenda if you ever plan a trip to Europe, but of course you have to go to Romania first or you will have to deal with a guilt trip from me! Just remember that my traveling in Romania is quiet different than what you would have to face, since I am living on a PC budget, I don't travel in style. However, even traveling in style is really not expensive for the average American traveling thru Europe, it just is for me!

Okay, so back to Dravafok, it was said that we would be staying in a renovated castle while we were there, which was true, however it's not at all like the Peles castle I saw in Sinia, Romania which I have attached pictures of. This is a huge house, shaped like a castle, but with no bells and whistles except for the ecological friendly kind. You see, this is now a bio-farm or should I say "ecological farm", so there were no chandeliers or beautiful paintings on the walls or ceilings, just pictures of the surrounding countryside. I was spending 10 days here learning all kinds of new skills, and trying not to think about the fact that I had no access to internet, radio, news, or TV and a limited amount of credits on my cell phone. Of course this kind of predicament has been getting easier for me with time and experience! However, the fact that I had/have been intensely paying attention to the devastation surrounding Hurricane Katrina that it was killing me not knowing what developments were happening while I was away. I try not to stay in my own "bubble" being here (well, Romania) where I am so disconnected at times from what's happening at home and around the rest of the world. I don't want to come back in two years and not have any idea what has been going on, I simply care too much about everyone and everything back home to live in ignorance of the world around me. So, again I say back to Dravafok: the workshops were really cool and meeting new people from abroad was a lot of fun. Every night we had new people showing up from Budapest who brought their instruments along with them and we would jam out. The only truly difficult part of this exchange was that it felt like we were in mosquito hell the whole time. The farm does not get sprayed with pesticide since it is an ecological site and therefore we just had to put up with it and I was glad I brought repellant!! Thursday of that week we all went on a day-long hiking excursion down to the Drava River which is on the Croatian border. Well, we had to track thru swamp, forest and unkept cornfields just to get there. It was insane. I felt like I was at the International Mosquito Convention actually did a few times! Anyway, so after a tiresome journey we finally arrive at the river where we had been told to bring our swimming suits b/c we would be able to swim. Well, hah! Not even. The spot we were taken too didn't have any type of bank where we could even get into the water, there was a boating dock that was being built on one end and I walked over to it and stuck my fingers in the water for a few seconds just to see how warm/cold it was and a snake lunged out at me from the water!! I had to jump back really quick and don't know how I managed to not get bit! This was not a small itty-bitty snake either probably slightly smaller than a rattle snake. Yes, Amber can run quick when she has too!! Lucky for me it actually stayed in the water, but I wasn't spending much time looking back. The walk back that afternoon/evening to Dravafok was excruiciating b/c we didn¡¦t really get to take a very good brake when we arrived at the river since the conditions were so unpleasant. Our feet were blistered and our muscles were aching by the time we got back at dusk and we all had a ton of new red bumps all over our bodies. While I was at the exchange I found a creative side that I never knew I had, I made a flute, a pair of slippers, a really cute (designer-looking) purse, a sling-back backpack, a mans belt (made out of recycled bicycle tire and bike parts!), and bracelets. I learned how to dry fruits correctly, make jam, became educated on different types of apples that you can¡¦t buy at the market but are 10x better, learned a ton of new games, how to build an outdoor oven, and spent time learning a little Greek, Hungarian, more Spanish, and then a few cuss words in Romanian (so ashamed of that last one). We learned about each others cultures and stayed up till all hours of the night jamming out to really awesome ancient Hungarian music played by our new friends w/ their non-conventional instruments. I spent a lot of time reading too trying to catch up on my International Newsweek magazines that PC sends us each week. We left last Tuesday morning for Budapest and spent the afternoon there doing more sightseeing and me at last getting to make a mad-dash rush thru the mall to find a few needed items. God I could have spent all day there if I had time¡Kbut oh well. Another trip to Budapest will not be far off!

Here I am back in Resita at last and would like to say that I will have very limited travel again anytime soon. I really need to spend time here now getting adjusted to site, however I¡¦m already being asked by both my PC colleagues and by officials in my county to conduct various classes that would require travel and I also need to schedule a dental appointment in Bucharest¡Ka 12 hour train ride away. Some of my PC colleagues in Cluj Napoca, and in another city (can't remember the name at the moment) are asking me to put on some business and HR classes for their community, some local county school officials are wanting me to do seminars on community volunteering, I met with the mayor the other day and he is interested in having me conduct some HR seminars for the city employees of Resita. I'm trying to schedule time with the UN Refugee program now for me to make another visit soon with the refugee's which means I need to break out my Russian lang. manuals again and practice. I also had promised my host family back in Zarnesti that I would come visit in Sept. or Oct. and I don't want to go back on that! So, have you noticed that all that I have mentioned now does not actually involve any of the ongoing projects/activities with my organization? Yikes! This Thursday is European Car-Free Day "Ziua Europeana fara masini" and our organization is putting on the event in our city which includes sectioning off an area in the city that cars will not be allowed to drive in. It's quite a popular section too, but we have the mayors support. We are having an afternoon long event to educate people in our community about driving alternatives, environmental hazards of driving and provide entertainment/activities too. Lots to organize.

I'm also in the process of trying to find an apartment for the 2 years I will be here, I'm living with a host family right now, but that is only temporary. I really am looking forward to having a place of my own and can begin cooking for myself again. I do a lot of that now too, b/c I'm on such different schedules with my host family, but its quick meals, nothing to write home about! Last night I started looking for jogging paths in my community so I can get back into a good habit, and along with my fellow site-mate (Clint, another new PCV) we are finding the good bars in the city. Yesterday morning I went to the outdoor clothing bazaar (mainly all second-hand stuff which is laid out on tables and on large pieces of cloth on the ground. I found a nice pair of Espirit jeans for the equivalent of $3 U.S. and two shirts and one sweater that were all beautiful and like new for the combined total of $2 U.S.! and then a really cool black skirt for .20 cents! I have a feeling this is how I will be doing most of my clothes shopping here since new clothes are out of my budget. I was very happy to receive a box from home this past week from my family that contained some of my old clothes and a few new J.Jill items too! My family rocks. The most wonderful thing has been smelling the clothes and the towels they sent that smell like home. It's the closest thing I have now to touching and/or holding my family and I almost don't¡¦ want to use or wear any of it b/c I want the feeling of them being next to me to last as long as possible, and for the smell to not go away. The other day I was feeling particularly homesick and a little frustrated with my job when I decide to go home and fix some lunch, when I got to my gazda my host dad, Fani, started to pull out his old vinyl records and we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon going thru them and listening to all kinds of world music from the 60's, 70's, and 80's¡Kincluding a little Kenny Rogers! I love Kenny, he is one of my all time favorites so this was an especially wonderful treat that brightened my day and reminded me of the times when I was a teenager and I would come home from school after a bad day, my dad would somehow instinctively know and would have something cool to tell me or show me or had bought me a little something that day. He would always know how to raise my spirits again! The magic of fathers will always mystify and amaze me!

On that note I pause the journal of my experiences and will go jogging now as classical Georg Friedrich Handel, the Water Music series starts playing on the record player in the living room of my gazda family and a smile again permeates my face. The sound is simply beautiful.

I will again try to update this blog with pictures but have had troubles with this. I have so many pics and it will take me awhile to get caught up. When I move to my apartment I will send you my new address as I want to set up a PO Box and don't really want to advertise to the worldwideweb my actual address.

Love to all, peace to you¡Kmy thoughts, encouragement, and best wishes are always reaching out to you, my friends and family!

Amber

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