Reverse Thanksgiving

Mike and I returned from the land of green this week, relatively unscathed except a few pounds heavier thanks to fish and chips, Butlers chocolates and stouts! We stayed with my host family, the Devins, in Dublin. It was great to see them in their new house. My host sisters, who are now almost 8 and 10 decorated our room with hand-turkeys and were very excited to eat American foods like deviled eggs and pumpkin pie again. Just like two years ago when I lived there, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner with the Devins and the Martins. The Martins are related to my family, and my friend Courtney lived with them. Courtney was also there this year with her friend Angela. Luckily, they brought all the ingredients for Thanksgiving with them from the states, so we managed a complete feast for the 14 of us. My host mom was joking with us that we were reversing the process of Thanksgiving, seeing as how the pilgrims came from roughly the same region where we were for the holiday. Quite a good point, so we had to call it a reverse Thanksgiving.
The dinner was just a blast. Ann Martin played John Denver and country tunes to make us feel at home. After we stuffed ourselves silly, we played a very competitive round of kids cranium - Michael and my team won both times. Here's a picture of the kid's table: it's Ruth, Eimer Martin, Finnoula, and Caoilinn (I know I misspelled one of those).That night was also Angela's birthday, so we headed downtown to Temple Bar, the best bar district, where I got to show Mike my favorite bars and introduce him to traditional Irish music, dancing, and unfortunately ridiculous Irish prices.
In addition to turkey day, we went all over Dublin and saw the main sights. Mike was especially thrilled with the Guinness factory, which is what most our pictures feature. I would have loved to take him to the countryside, but our trip was just too short. I did get him to the coast of the Irish sea, to a pretty suburb with a castle called Malahide.
Staying with a family was really nice, as was being in an English speaking country. It's been tough for me to get in the habit of Hungarian again. Mike got to sample some of Marie-Therese Devin's awesome cooking when she cooked Guinness stew for us, accompanied by her homemade bread - yum. The Devins and Martins said we now have to make it a tradition to spend every other Thanksgiving in Dublin.

Now I have exactly a week left in Budapest. I've finished teaching for Berlitz and wrapped up all my Hungarian articles. Now I get to hang out and tour the city. Today I went to a book signing for Salman Rushdie. I was hoping he'd talk, but he just signed books. It was still interesting to see him and his security guards though. I would have picked up a copy of his controversial book, The Satanic Verses, but they were only in Hungarian, naturally. This weekend we're switching apartments for the week, and one of Mike's friends is visiting - it should be busy.

Check out our Ireland pics with Mike's captions here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2151520&l=d50a9&id=19201156

Becoming April O'Neil

I am now the future business reporter for the Loveland Reporter-Herald. I decided to take the job and am at peace with the decision (most of the time). My editor is allowing me to start on December 17 rather than the 10th, so I can still go to Dallas and Austin upon my return, which I am very excited about. Plus, I don't have to work on Christmas or New Year's Day, although I have to work both of the eves - but that's the life of a daily newspaper reporter. I better get used to it.

On Thursday I depart for Dublin. I can't wait to see the Devins and eat a big Thanksgiving dinner. My friend Courtney and I are in charge of cooking dinner for about 20 people - yikes. Mike keeps talking about how much he wants to see a highland cow (which live in Scotland) and kiss the Blarney stone (which is too far out of the Dublin for our quick trip). But, I'm sure he'll be happy to be in town with the Guinness and Jameson factories and English speakers.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

(And for anyone who was not born in the 1980s, April O'Neil was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' journalist sidekick in the cartoon. She was a red-head who donned an orange jumpsuit. When I was little and played with the boys, I was always given the part of April, because apparently female ninja turtles are unheard of. I wrote about this influence in my application to journalism school in college, and it got me in! Upon hearing of my new job, one of my best friends immediately started calling me April. )

Budapest Blues

There is a funny blog that Michael and I read called Pestiside, which details humorous happenings in Budapest. Last week, there was a headline that said "seven reasons to kill yourself," and then posted the weather report for the upcoming week. Although, it is a drastic headline, it's pretty much right. The sun has barely peaked out at all, and we've been subjected to a steady, cold drizzle for the past five days. It did snow on Sunday, which was lovely. As my friend Liz put it, we are just experiencing the "city blues." The weather is bringing me down, and the people, mainly on public transportation, are bothering her. I don't think there is a higher concentration of depressing looking people than on Eastern Europe metros. I watch their faces as I ride up and down escalators, and they are pessimistically glum. Liz just is more irritated that no one moves for each other to get in and out of the trains. Plus, it is very sad, because the amount of homeless people in the city has become very apparent over the last month. The city doesn't stop them from sleeping in the metro stations, so there are make-shift beds lining the walls and beggars everywhere. This makes the place reek of urine. Unlike Liz though, I have been lucky enough not to witness people peeing on a daily basis - I'll count myself lucky! Many of the homeless people have puppies and dogs. I can't decide which is sadder - the fact that the dogs are also homeless or that homeless men adopt dogs so they get more money, because people feel more sympathy for animals than they do for other humans.

On a lighter note - kind of - I received a job offer to be a business reporter for the Loveland newspaper where I used to intern. Instead of making me really excited, I just feel stressed. It makes leaving Budapest seem real, means I have to cancel my trip to Dallas in December which I already paid for since they need me to start 2 days after I get home, and of course it means much less freedom in my schedule. Yes, I am scared of a big-girl job. As Mike pointed out last night, I could just save money and slack off at the tour center, since tour guides get paid the same amount as starting reporters with college educations. Boo!! I have until Monday to make my final decision. Mostly, I don't want to leave Mike, but I don't think I want to be here with him as long as he wants to stay here - which seems to increase by the day.

Tomorrow, I will go ice skating at this beautiful outdoor rink and actually spend some time with Mike. He's been working insane hours for a proposal that got scrapped last minute. Now, he wants a week of his life back!

I just finished watching "Angels in America" which is an amazing play and TV series on HBO. There is quote in it that I thought was so beautiful, and it's been running through my mind:

"Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there's a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind and dreaming ahead."

I can spell Ljubljana

After a fun Halloween spent at a crowded ex-pat party in Budapest, Mike and I went to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, during another four-day weekend. Initially, we were going to go to Italy too, because Ljubljana is only a couple hours away from the border, but we didn't want to spend the entire weekend on the train. So, while I still haven't gotten to Italy, this city was part of it before WWII, so I think it should count!
We left on Nov. 1 which is All Saints or All Souls Day in Budapest. Most Hungarians head to the cemetery to pay tribute to their relatives, clean their graves and leave candles. I admire the Hungarian devotion to their families. But, I also am amused that in the US we celebrate Halloween and avoid cemeteries while most of the world is flocking to their family's resting places at the same time. In fact, some Hungarians are irritated that Halloween is beginning to be celebrated here, because it interferes with their holy holiday.
The whole weekend trip was great, aside from travel woes. Since we decided to skip town on a holiday, of course the train station was packed. In true Hungarian fashion, they only had two ticket lines open for all international train tickets, and all of their tickets are written by hand. My largest annoyance with train travel is that there is no consistency. Prices are not posted anywhere and nothing is electronic, so it's anyones guess exactly what I'll pay. The line was huge, and we didn't think we'd get on the train in time. Finally, we waited 45 minutes and had five minutes to spare to find our train. So, we raced (literally) around the station, trying to find it. We rushed to the information office one minute before the train was schedule to depart, only to find out that it was leaving from a different station across the city -- I think this would have been really important information for the ticket agent to tell us?? Oh how I miss customer service . . Instead of leaving at noon, we had to leave at 5:30, so we didn't get to Slovenia until 2 a.m. instead of 9 p.m. Then, on our return trip back to Budapest, we got on a train going a different route than how we got to Slovenia. To get there, we cut through Croatia and into Slovenia. To get home we went straight through Slovenia, which costs 15 Euros extra a ticket. Of course, we were not informed of this until the ticket agent was checking our ticket outside of Ljubljana on Saturday morning at 7 a.m. We had blown most our Euros and only had 20 left. I am so thankful that the ticket agent gave us a break and just had us buy one ticket and let us go. I have no idea what we would have done if he dumped us in the middle of the Slovenian mountains! Luckily, no other agents checked our tickets until Hungary, and we were fine there.

In Ljubljana, we stayed at the best hostel I've ever been to, called Hostel Celica. It was renovated from an old military prison in 1991 by the student association in town. Twenty of the cells are still there, and individual artists redecorated each cell with a unique theme. We didn't stay in the cell block, because it was booked, but we got to see a few of them. I loved this hostel, because it was such a beautiful showcase of transformation. What was once a prison associated with war and suffering is now a peaceful, artistic meeting place of people from all over the world. One feature that was indicative of this change was an art gallery and a prayer room, which represented all the major world religions.
The city itself is a vibrant college town, with a castle perched on a hill and a river splicing it into two sections. Everyone there was happy and smiling, so it was a much needed break from Budapest. Plus, I loved being in a place where I could walk everywhere, there were less than 300,000 people and was filled with fun bars and art galleries galore. We toured the castle (this picture is of us on the top of the castle - you can see the Alps in the background), walked around the city and of course we found a micro-brewery for Mike. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had to get back because Mike was supposed to go on a business trip to Macedonia, but it was canceled on his way to the airport! So, I'm happy he's been home all week.