This was my view while I was waiting for the bus today.
A beautiful sight, I know.
Of course, all the standard jokes about Michigan weather apply, all of which contain a grain of truth: here, weatherwise, nothing can be taken for granted.
ORIENTATION & TRANSPORTATION
Budapest is two cities on each side of the Danube (the Duna in Hungarian), each with their own distinct characteristics. Buda is located on the river's western bank. It's marked by hills all over the landscape, most notably Gellért Hill and Castle Hill, both of which loom right next to and over the river. You'll be living in Buda's south end, among other apartment complexes, small restaurants, and corner stores. Most of this side of the city has a suburban feel to it. The buildings are low, the traffic is calm, and the streets are laid out in a grid pattern. Pest is Buda's complement in nearly every way. It's located on a remarkably flat plain, and it's where you'll find all the popular clubs, bars, tourist attractions, and parks, plus most of the city's universities. The streets radiate out from around the point directly across the river from Gellért Hill, and like Calvin's campus, it can take a little longer than normal to get accustomed to. Keep a street map of the city handy. City maps can often be found among wickets of advertising pamphlets, at tourinform locations, and among the loads of orientation materials you'll receive from any of the 3 universities you could be taking classes at.
The scope and availability of Budapest's public transit system is unmatched by anything found in North America. You will be using it to get to any destination within the city, so you should familiarize yourself with it as much as possible beforehand. Buses, subways, and trams (you know them as streetcars) are the three main ways of getting around, although your transit pass also covers a cog railway in Buda and parts of the HÉV commuter rail lines.
Every major intersection has a subterranean mall of sorts full of hole-in-the-wall flower shops, bakeries, bookstores, and more. To cross the street, get to the subway, or buy a transit pass, you'll have to descend into these underworlds full of briskly-walking commuters and people offering you advertising leaflets. Almost every one of these places will have a ticket window where you'll need to buy your student transit pass every 30 days. Always keep your pass on you when riding the transit system, and be prepared to show it if someone you don't know sidles up to you and says "Jo napót kivanok" and other things you won't understand. Since they use a sort of "honour system" where people are expected to buy a pass but aren't required to show it when boarding, the company employs inspectors who either board random trams or wait at the top of subway escalators, asking every rider to show their tickets.
Most of Budapest's trams are painted in a trademark orange and white scheme, and some of the newer equipment is decorated yellow and black. Every tram line always uses the same type of trains from day to day. So for example, the three lines that run next to the dorm (18, 41, 47) can be distinguished from a distance by whether they consist of two newer cars, two older cars, or three older cars, respectively. Standard rules of courtesy apply while riding, as they would back home: offer your seat to the elderly, try not to block the doors, stand up to signal your intention of getting off when your stop draws near, and try not to stare at the many, many couples enamoured with each other, which you will most certainly come across. Normally you would be able to take the 47 tram directly from the dorm to Károli Gaspár. But, because of the construction of a new subway line and the closing of the Liberty Bridge (the steel green one between the Gellért Hotel and Corvinus) for repairs, you'll probably need to take alternate routes.
Three subway lines serve the city, all of them intersecting at Deák F. tér in Pest, while a fourth is under construction. The Metro 1, yellow line, runs along the famed Andrassy Avenue past Hero's Square and the city park. The Metro 2, red line, is the only one that runs beneath the Danube to Buda, at Moszkva tér. It makes its way south past the Hungarian Parliament and then turns directly east at Astoria. The Metro 3, blue line, was the location of many scenes from the popular Hungarian film Kontroll. It mostly follows the river from north to south and has a stop at Kálvin tér, which is also the tram stop you'll get off at to get to Károli Gaspár.
There are so many buses in the city that most city maps don't show them all. During the day, you will usually be able to take a tram to close enough to wherever you need to go, so your usage of the buses will likely only be on occasion. The bus is fairly similar to riding the tram. Just be sure to keep an eye on your surroundings if it's a bus you've never ridden before, and if everyone gets off the bus at a stop, chances are it's the end of the line and you should get off too. If you regularly make a tram/bus transfer, take note of where the bus and tram stops overlap. Transferring at one stop may require you to backtrack and then cross a street, while transferring at another stop earlier or later may require no walking at all.
At night, however, getting around is a different story. Regular tram and subway service stops at midnight, and from then until around 4 or 5 in the morning, only the city's night buses are running. Each bus route is a three-digit number starting with "9", and though they still cover much of the city, they come a lot less often (some only once every half-hour), they make fewer stops, and their routes can be unpredictable if you're unfamiliar with them. If you're planning on being out late, knowing which bus will get you home or close to it is a very good thing. The 973 is the night bus that runs past the dorm, but the closest stop it makes is at the Plus. If you're nowhere near where the 973 runs, look up other night bus routes (they're posted wherever they stop) for one that stops at Móricz Zsigmond körtér, which is fairly close to the dorm and is where many night bus lines stop, the 973 included. And keep your pass handy — ticket inspectors are just as likely to show up late at night as they are during the day.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Again, no manual can prepare you completely for living in another country for such a long period. There will always be things you'll have to figure out and deal with yourself. But, many people have gone before you in this, and by reading this and remembering what it says when the time comes, you'll be drawing on the experience of those who have come before you, and your experience will have been better because of it.
(This was the final paper I submitted for the Eastern European Culture course. Of the options we were given, I chose to write some paragraphs on living in Hungary which future program participants might find useful.)
If you're reading this, congratulations! You have been accepted into Calvin College's Semester in Hungary. You're about to embark on what will become some of the most defining and memorable months of your life, and have shown yourself willing to temporarily relinquish all that's familiar for a living experience abroad. This publication is intended to help ease you into the day-to-day aspects of life during the semester.
You will get many bits and pieces of paper from the OC office and other places. Read them all over once and do as they recommend.
And then: ignore them all.
No handout is going to fully prepare you for an entire semester of living six time zones away.
Of course, this sheet is no substitute for the "official" student handbook; rather, its purpose is to help ease your transition into life over there by telling you things you'd have otherwise wish you'd known earlier. But, there will still be surprises; some of them pleasant, others, not so much. Learn to expect and deal with that fact. It's all part of the experience.
BEFORE YOU GO
It's quite likely that you will return home a different person. Take a moment to do some personal inventory. Think about the longest time you've ever gone without seeing your family or friends, and how you dealt with it. If you know you'll get homesick, start thinking now about how you plan on dealing with it. Are you worried about what kind of a first impression you'll make? Relax; chances are, so is everyone else. What's more is, they will barely matter in this situation, because you will be living with and seeing daily these people, so your real self will have plenty of time to show. Everyone has their own patterns in how they read people, make friends, and handle certain situations. Try to get some frank discussions with your family and others close to you going about these topics; the more you know about yourself, the more confidence you'll have in your ability to fit in. Keeping a journal before, during, and after your semester is an excellent way of tracking your development and of keeping tabs on all the little things you'll want to remember later on. Whether written or typed, in full sentences or in point form, find something that works for you.
You may already have heard stories of four-day weekends every weekend, class only once or twice a day three days a week, opportunities for travel all over the continent pretty well whenever you want. Just so you know: it's all true. You certainly won't want to travel every weekend, but opportunities will abound, so start thinking about where you want to go now. Look up those places on Wikipedia, Wikitravel, travel guides, and other sources of information you can get your hands on. For travel inside Hungary or to nearby countries, taking the train is your best bet. Look up fares and station info at the website for Hungary's national railway. For longer trips, there's a number of discount airlines that'll take you to or near where you want to go; Wizzair is a popular one with a large number of direct flights from Budapest.
Obviously, you should also read up on Hungary and Hungarian before you arrive. This should help you get excited for living in the country, and should alert you to things you wouldn't otherwise expect. Everything done differently in this new country does differently compared to home is suddenly held in sharp contrast, especially with the language difference. Suddenly, YOU will be the minority. Moreover, in the eyes of the locals, you will be representing the United States in everything you say and do - even if you're from Canada, or are of a visible ethnicity. (Chances are, they will have just as much difficulty telling the difference between those of American and Canadian/other ancestry as you will telling the difference between Hungarians and Slovakians.) Don't leave home without first gaining a firm grip on current events, perspectives on the issues from all sides, and an understanding of the reasons why other nations feel about the States the way they do. Keep an open mind and prepare for a potentially radical shift in your own perspective.
Got all that? Good. Now for some practical considerations.
MONEY
Hungary's unit of currency is the forint, usually abbreviated as Ft or ft. One US dollar is roughly equivalent to 200 ft, the lowest forint denomination in bill form. To get an idea of what something in Hungary costs in terms of US dollars, move the decimal point in the price two spots to the left and then divide it by two. So as an example, your monthly student transit pass costs 2600 ft, which works out to around $13. The following table lists off common bill denominations and their approximate counterparts in terms of value:
You should already know that you'll be getting the equivalent of $80 US in food money every week. If you live frugally, that should be enough to not only cover your food, but also transit passes, train tickets, shopping, and other expenses, such that you'll only have to dig into your personal funds to cover the largest of your outside expenditures, such as plane tickets. Things are generally less expensive, groceries especially. If you haven't yet, you should definitely contact your ATM card's bank and let them know you'll be in Hungary and its surrounding countries for a few months so they don't automatically block your card when you try to make a withdrawal over there. And it's always better to draw money from an ATM and pay with cash than to pay directly with a card, since that may not always work even if you've called your bank already - you don't want to be stuck having no cash but with a bill to pay to someone who doesn't speak your language.
If you don't have an ISIC already, don't worry about getting one; the student card you'll get from BME will be good enough for discounts within Hungary, and you probably won't be outside Hungary enough to justify getting one to take advantage of the (relatively few) discounts it affords. A Eurail pass isn't as good a deal at it may seem - rail travel within the country is already dirt cheap, and discount non-connecting flights within Europe are cheap enough for students if you're going a significant distance.
DORM LIVING
You'll be living in a dormitory among many other Hungarian students. Your room will either be on the ground or the first floor, and you'll be provided with beds, bedsheets, pillows, tables, chairs, desks, and on the first floor, half-size fridges. Much like a hotel, you leave your key at the desk when you leave, with the deskie who's usually over 50 and doesn't speak English. (A good person with whom to practice your Hungarian.) Life there isn't nearly as crazy as in Calvin's dorms, and the rooms are large enough for three or four people to coexist reasonably comfortably.
However, if having to share a bathroom with your suitemates at Calvin was your idea of "roughing it", then you are in for a shock. The bathrooms in the dorm, and in Eastern Europe in general, are not exactly the temples of hygiene you've come to expect back home. Although these ones are cleaned regularly, they're still reminiscent of old church bathrooms that look, feel, and smell as old as the building they're in. You're about to get used to toilets with tanks mounted high on the wall and flushing by pulling a string, as well as sinks with separate hot and cold faucets. The 1st-floor showers have no curtains, knobs are liable to pop off, showerheads are not fixed to the wall, and sometimes the water won't get as warm as you'd like. Fortunately, the apartment bathrooms are much nicer than the others, but they are by no means the standard. If you find this distressing, just keep repeating to yourself that this is Eastern Europe and they've only had 17 years to play economic catch-up since the fall of communism - their market economy is still in its infancy, money is still scarce, and improving bathrooms is seldom at the top of organizations' lists of priorities.
If your whole life you've been eating your mom's or the dining halls' cooking, now would be a good time to teach yourself how to prepare some basic foods. The lack of dining halls and a dearth of good pizza places means you'll be cooking for yourself a lot. Your weekly food allowance can go a long way if you like eating out, but that is probably not your healthiest option. You do have several options for buying your own food. Most items you'll get at Auchan, a large Meijer-esqe store south of the dorm, which you can take the 18 tram directly to from the dorm stop. There are two corner grocery stores near the dorm: a Plus, just one block north of the dorm located at the next tram stop, and a Spar, two stops further. Keep in mind that some things like brown sugar and peanut butter can only be found in speciality shops in Hungary, if at all. If you're into fresh or local foods, be sure to visit the Central Market, located in an ornate building right beside Corvinus University. Slightly smaller, but closer to the dorm, is the open-air market, a bit of a misnomer since walls and a roof have been built over it. You can find that right beside where the #4 tram ends. If you're out in the city and needing something to eat but don't have the time for a sit-down meal, there's plenty of gyro joints or cafeteria-style places serving a variety of ethnic foods which are better and cheaper than what's available at your standard fast food establishment. Yes, you could go to a McDonald's - Budapest has several - but those places are actually remarkably expensive considering the quantity and the quality of the "food" you end up getting.
Internet is available in the dorms, both in your rooms and in a computer lab on the 1st floor (one floor above the ground floor, in European terms). Unlike at Calvin where the cabling is hidden in the walls and is accessed through mounted wall plates of network jacks, the dorm has bare cabling strung along walls in some places and terminates in a plug, not a jack. This means that where you locate your computer is limited to how long your room's ethernet cable is, and bringing your own cable will do you no good unless you have some sort of female-to-female ethernet bridge. Be aware that only the Calvin students' rooms have cables running into them, and that running lots of bandwidth-intensive programs will slow down the connections for the lab computers, which may result in your cable to be unceremoniously unplugged at the other end. Turn off things like iTunes music sharing, iPhoto library sharing, and resist the urge to run file sharing and bittorrent programs. Also know that there is only one ethernet cable running into each room, and only one cable for the entire apartment. However, this does not mean you're limited to only having one computer online at a time. As long as the laptops you bring along have wireless internet capability, you can designate one of them as the "base station" that stays in one place and always has the ethernet cable plugged in, and set it up to share its internet connection wirelessly. Instructions for creating such a setup is only a Google search away. This can be done with either a Mac or Windows-based machine, although you may have to fiddle with settings to get it to work well. If you can bring your own wireless internet router or an AirPort Express, do so. Another difference from Calvin: the dorm doesn't use DHCP to assign IP addresses automatically, so getting a computer online takes more effort than just plugging in the cable. Be sure to look up instructions for how to manually enter IP address information for your operating system, and be prepared to change that information if your computer complains of an IP address conflict with another machine on the network. You should receive a sheet of the IP numbers you need to get connected within the first few weeks of arriving. Until then, you can get online using the stations in the lab or in the lobby, or leech off of any open network within range of the dorm.
The dorm does have laundry facilities, but only for the washing side of the equation. All your drying will be done by hanging your clothes out on collapsible racks, which are provided. Past participants of the program have had to do their laundry in bizarre side-spinning tub machines that load from the top, and they have somehow earned a reputation of gradually ruining any articles of clothing fed to them. Fortunately, there are a few very new side-loading washing machines now available on each floor, so all you have to worry about is finding some non-bleach detergent and remembering to change your sheets now and then. The machines' controls aren't very intuitive, but you can probably find and download their operation manuals online.
Stay tuned for part 2...
I, like everyone else returning from the semester, kind of took re-entry into Real Life full in the face. It's just one of those things that happens when you take a semester abroad, you know? A few other people blogged during the semester, and none of them have been any better than I with keeping up the posts since returning. I at least think I have reasonable excuses: I may only be taking 9 credits' worth of actual courses, but the internship I just took on eats 4 afternoons a week. I also haven't let go of my old job at the ITC. I play key roles in two weddings this summer. I'm applying to stay in the States for a year after graduation. I'm looking for a job and a place to live (okay, the job is probably not going to be an issue, actually). Band practice every week and a half or so. Keeping family updated. CVN. Tax filing. And the rest. To quote Peanuts: AAAUGH!
But forget about all that. Already two of my sisters are following my example and are doing semesters abroad themselves. Elena, in Grade 11, is now in Belize and is making everyone envious with stories of sand and surf and giant critters. She's keeping a weblog about it too, called Under the Mahogany Tree. Meanwhile, Suzanne plans on spending the Spring semester of her 3rd year in Vienna, a mere stone's throw (so to speak) from Budapest. I've already imparted much advice to them both, but I have much more that I wrote for the culture class last fall. I'll be posting it here in two or three parts. Eventually.
