getting to know the country

Some friends and I went to a village the other day called Szendentre, just about an hour or so outside of Budapest. It's a beautiful little place and sits along the Daunbe, or the Duna as it is called Hungarian, north of the capital city. The photo was taken in a black and white setting, but really the light here starts to dim so early, usually around 4:00, and it makes the whole world seem stuck in this camera setting.
This is a picture of the Buda Castle that one of my friends took. The neo-gothic style is the premier motif in Budapest and the castle is an amazing example of it. The spires and sharp lines add to the once-powerful-empire-like feeling it emanates. I wish Minneapolis had a castle like this.

southern plains of Hungary

Me + Horizon = POSSIBILITIES!!!

energy, awareness, and academics.

Guacamole+quesadillas+steamed cabbage+apple pie+beef = Thanksgiving 2006

Last year I happened to be living in Athens, Greece during Thanksgiving and this year I have been lucky enough to yet again experience Thanksgiving in a place outside of the U.S. That always makes for a good time and an interesting meal. I think last year I had something along the lines of fried cheese, turkey, spinach and olives. This year I had a mix of Mexican, Russian, Hungarian and Romanian foods as my meal. There were some Turkish friends present so we ditched the idea of eating turkey. HAHA. We went for beef instead. It was good :) Although all the foods on the table were pretty different from a typical traditional Thanksgiving meal, the energy around it was the same. All my friends and I were together in a warm cozy apartment on a cold November evening laughing and drinking and eating together, sharing stories of our recent times together and hoping for more good times ahead. There is always a moment on those nights where if you just stop what you are doing for a minute and observe, you can feel the energy. I love that. How did I get to be so lucky?

At this school, the quality of intellectuals and academics whom they can attract to give lectures and talks on various issues is always above average and I like to try and make it to 3 or 4 each week. This week I went to a PhD defense on global distributive justice, a lecture entitled "When Socio-Cultures Clash" explaining radical Islamic youth reacting to the assimilation of their parents into mainstream British society, a talk on the French Declaration of Human Rights (of 1789), and a film on how gays are treated in Hollywood. Maybe in a different time of my life attending these functions may have seemed like one more thing to add to my day, but here in this time now, I cannot get enough of them. I am constantly and consistently stimulated on a range of topics and issues. I hope I can keep this up for the rest of my life, that this is not a trend or phase I am going through. I don't think it is though, I have always been interested and intrigued in learning--when I was 7 I was kicked out of our local library because I tried to spend the night there reading armloads of picture books.

Hope you had a warm and Happy Thanksgiving.

Woe is (not) me.

By the time Friday came around this week, I found myself falling to my knees, clasping my hands together and breaking out in a southern-style gospel hymn rejoicing in thanks and praise. No, seriously, believe it, it happened. I think the best way to describe the feeling on Friday was like I had just spent the 7 previous days pushing a gigantic boulder up an incline. And by incline I mean Mt. Everest. Exhaustion, defeat, and not even near to being done. Lately I have noticed that I am lacking a balance that runs across multiple areas--school, play, and love--in my life and it's very irritating. This is how life is sometimes you might say, and I whole-heartedly agree. Schoolwork has been snowballing, volunteering engagements piling up, due dates looming and all with time running thin. My classmates feel the same pressure. We are all giving in to the wallowing alittle too often, becoming intoxicated with our complaints. "OHHHH HOW WILL IT EVER GET DONE?", laments my anxious and often times anal brain. Luckily my mind usually takes the reigns and steps in, dressed in a superman cape, and slaps my brain across the......face (if that makes sense)..typically followed with a very kind and patient "relax and get a grip Kate. It will work out." How did my mind get so mature?? When did that happen? Last time I looked I was in 5th grade learning about earth science. So many times I find that when I ask a profound question of life with a sincere longing to have a complete and genuine answer, before I know it I end up actually living "into" the answers, just as my dear friend Rainer Maria Rilke told me I would. I acquire wisdom without realizing, sort of an osmosis maybe? I wish this kind of thing happened in my academic life as the more orthodox learning methods aren't really doing it for me anymore.

It is in these times though that you have to remember to be the most patient and kind with yourself as you often learn the most, and just give in to letting things go their natural course. I think it is important to allow yourself to be vulnerable in order to achieve your full potential of experiencing life. I don't think you should necessarily run from feeling overwhelmed or defeated, it's inevitable and more importantly, normal. I cherish these times, when they have passed and I look back on them that is, after my spaz-out session has ended, and understand the positive ways in which they have shaped me into me. I also usually notice that when I feel this way, it is best countered by focusing my attention on others, being positive to others, and today when I stepped out of my little world and noticed others around me, I saw that a dear friend was struggling to keep a smile on her face. After a short diversion into the corner cafe and a couple cappuccinos, I found out that her grandpa had just passed away. I have troubles???? WHAT TROUBLES?? By the end of our time together, I know she so much appreciated talking with me, and I know I so much appreciated her sharing with me, as it slapped me back into perspective. This is where I play the "naïve and so young" card with an embarrassed and blushing grimace.

Oh Budapest, how I am learning so much from you.

God bless Orthodontists :)

I hope wherever you are, this finds you with as big a smile as mine.

Love to you.

Rollercoaster of a day

Oh what a double-edged sword. A good friend told me that one of the things she admires about me is how I let things in, people in, feelings in and allow them to really affect me. Usually it is in a very good, very encompassing and reflective way, but then there are those days when I feel like I need to put on a suit of armor, build the Berlin Wall around me, and cower in the corner inorder to even function and get through the day. Everything affects me on those days. Normal you ask?? I don't know, hopefully :) Yes, I question my sanity every other day it seems like. It felt like there was one road-block after another and I was affected by everything today from the freezing rain pouring down on Budapest to getting lost after lunch to finding out one of my all-time favorite news anchors passed away. I felt probably every available emotion in the span of twelve hours. It was more like I spent a day at the amusement park stuck on a rollercoaster than anything.

Although after reading the above paragraph, you might have begun to google psych wards for me, please don't despair. While it did seem like the world took on the role of an annoying older sibling, taunting me and daring me to burst into tears, it was also as if there were other factors working FOR me. From the moment I woke up to throughout my afternoon to the latter part of the evening, there were people consistently interjecting, smiling, complimenting, almost as if I had my own personal cheerleading squad following me around all day. I could not ditch them no matter how much I tried. And boy did I try. It was only when I actually coralled in my emotions and started to behave like an adult, that I took a minute and realized how silly I was being. I had been too wrapped up in my little pity-party to keep anything in perspective and actually see all the smiling faces and warm eyes. After understanding this it was almost impossible for me to stay upset in any way.

I got an email response the other day in regards to making choices that often times don't offer tangible results. In sum it said that I a young person becoming. Life is fluid. The doors that open today may not be there tomorrow. Sometimes it is best to choose with your heart and sometimes with your head, often times with both in combination. Sometimes I wish I had the answers.

Doors closing?

Wojtek is devastated. My roomate's plan for the next year just got cut out from underneath him at the very last minute. The funding got cut from Poland and so his program got cut as well. Bummer. As soon as he told me the bad news, I started wracking my brain for ideas and options for him to research and made the mistake of blurting out all this optimism. The response I got was along the lines of "if you say anymore, I will shove your optimism back down your throat." I need to start thinking before I speak...that probably wasn't the right time to try and problem solve. Wojtek put up this wall between us, dividing us in two, with me being the optimistic-everything-in-life-is-sweet-and-easy and him being the hard-working-fight-for-everything-he's-got-things-don't-work-out-in-Eastern-Europe-like-in-America. But is it really this way? I like to think that if you keep your head up and your mind open, things WILL infact work out, maybe not exactly the way you planned or hoped for, but nonetheless, they will work out. This is what I have experienced in my life. But has being an American taught me this perspective? He disagrees, preferring to believe that life is hard and if things don't work out then you should blame the system because it is usually at fault and shalacked in corruption. Maybe in some cases, it is the "system's" fault, the transitioning country's error, but does that then mean that optimism should go out the window? Do different cultures have differing levels of optimism? This may seem really obvious, you could easily say yes, especially in the cases of the former Soviet bloc countries optimism doesn't exactly stand front and center, but does that lack of optimism mirror what the true present situation is? I wonder what I would be like if I had lived my whole life in Wojtek's situation. I like to think I wouldn't be as affected as he is, but I am not so sure. Maybe my optimism has been taught to me. I want him to be able to see the options available, the possibilites to take advantage of, but his eyes are locked in tunnel vision right now and he is angry. I wish I could help, but I can't because I cannot step into his shoes. I just refuse to think that his options are so muted and want him to feel the same. We are friends divided.

Airports and Italians

I loooooooooooove airports. I love them, I love them, I love them. I love watching the planes take off, I love daydreaming about my next adventure, I love meeting random people while you wait. I think my favorite thing about airports though, are the reactions to the return home. Witnessing the reuniting of loved ones after time spent apart is great :) Faces are decked with emotion and it is always a surprise which emotion will reveal itself, as reuniting can be an overwhelming thing. For some reason I always cry when I return home, like a sobbing drained hobo collapsing into the arms of my mom and dad, then again, that might have something to do with the fact that usually my luggage has just been lost in a different hemisphere and I have been in transit for the past 46 hours with nothing to eat but microwaved hot-pockets. The reuniting experience is a powerful one though. It begs the most natural gut response when you see loved ones again, nothing is rehearsed or strained. You are simply reacting. If you ever need a pick-me-up, go sit at the arrival gate of your local airport and watch the events unfold.

I flew to Rome the other day and met a handsome Argentine while waiting for my plane. We spoke broken Spanish and English together and then he swept me off to his villa and we rode Arabian horses together into the sunset...OR NOT. But we did have a nice little chat in his beautiful language, which brings me to my point--languages can either be a beautiful window or a frustrating barrier. This week I experienced both. The window can be fun and a little boost to your ego when you see how your four years of simple high school middle-America Spanish can get you by, but then there is the REAL test of skill--actually putting that language into context and going to the respective country. And that I did (in this case I went to Italy). While in Rome I spent time with a good friend who happens to speak three languages, clearly trumping my one. All her friends speak 3 languages as well..none of which are English, and yes, I can hear your sighs of pity for me, if you were wondering, thanks. Point of the story--we didn't speak English for 5 consecutive days. That's 5 days in a row without "Like, so I was like, tired, and then he was like hungry and then like.." I would like to think that I don't actually sound like that, but it's harder than you think to speak without slang and the improper usage of words. This is where the barrier comes into play--they were all carousing and joking and singing together in a bond created by their common language. I have never felt so foreign in my life. I felt like I had a big fat stamp on my head labled "IGNORANT". My high school Spanish and Italian just didn't cut it. My computer generated "PROFICIENCY" degree awarded to me during senior year meant nothing to these people--for all they knew, I was speaking Yiddish. However, as the night wore on I have to admit I had the time of my life and although I didn't get my point across most of the time in words, I am pretty good with charades and can say I represented America well. And most importantly, these "strangers" soon became my friends despite our lack of common nouns and verbs. Patience and kindness can go a long way when you are far away from home.

Last point. Italians-gotta love 'em. So bold and confident with hand gestures being thrown everywhere. It's as if someone told them that this is their very last day they will ever be Italians and they're getting it all out, as much as they can, giving it their all, showing the world why it's great to be Italian. I like that. They know who they are. That's why I don't mind when I get a look that could kill from the clerk as I slide a 20 euro bill (for a 1 euro item) across the counter, followed by a string of Italian phrases about why I can't bring smaller bills and how now she has to go back and get change...it all sounds like "Ave Maria" to me, that is, if I don't listen to what she is actually saying.

I signed up for language courses the other day. Be prepared to see my best.