right, so blogger erased my earlier writing episode, so i'll try and recant...

well my search for engineering classes is going less than desirably. i'm still trying to figure it out. i went to 2 classes that i thought might work, but i was completely lost. plan b starts tomorrow. (and right after this i have to figure out what plan b actually is.) oh and there wer no hungarians in my classes. only these guys from cyprus.

YESTERDAY
me and 6 other travelled to slovakia via train for about $2.75 (round trip). how awesome is that. it was just a day trip so that one fo the guys could get his passport stamped to prove that he entered hungary (a minor technicality), so we all went with him because it was a trip to slovakia for less than $3. it turns out that it's even cheaper than hungary! (oh and the train ride was 2 hrs) it also turns out that catholic countries shut down after about 3pm on sundays because this place was dead. it was a bit creepy. there were hardly any people walking around in this quaint little city (kamaron) on the border. so it was a bit difficult to find food. eventually we found this little gazebo type bar/sandwich shop. so we sat and ate sandwhiches and drank some strawberry drinks that were out of this world. then my soon-to-be roommate, yudai, suggested we try the Absinth. it you dont know what absinth is, it's a compilation of herbs and alcohol and is illegal in most countries (possibly due to its hallucinogenic characteristics). oh, and it's 50% proof. none of this i knew beforehand. so up ordering it, the lady gives me 2 small spoons, some sugar packets, and a box of matches (along with 2 shots of the green liquor). obviously i wasnt going to be able to fake knowing what to do with these items so i asked for assistance. she took the spoon full of sugar, soaked it in absinth, then lit it on fire. pretty cool i thought. once it stopped burning, she mixed it with the drink and they were ready for drinking. so yudai drinks his first with a bit of a stunned look on his face (he also knew what we were getting into). so i thought oh well, it cant be worse than the unicum. well i was right and wrong. it tasted great until it hit my throat. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, Absinth is slovakian for "LIQUID FIRE". holy crap. that stuff burned all the way down to my stomach for about 5 min. i mean, this stuff was serious. after putting my eyes back into their sockets, we headed back to the train station. i cant say i hallucinated, but had i had more than one, well theres really no telling. we eventually caught the train back to budapest and by a miracle, we came out of the subway station right next to KFC. my friend john and i have been trying to make our way to a KFC for the past week because they have a deal for 2 chicken sandwiches (good ones) and a small fry for 499 Ft (which is about $2.25). it was everything i could have hoped for. so we headed back home happy.

unfortunately, the newly arrived hungarian students were also getting happy in our dorm with a highly alcoholic and loud party. right across the hall from me. and these guys were wasted. i met these 2 hungarian guys, walked around teh corner for no more than 30 seconds, walked back and ended up introducing myself to them for the first time again. yikes. the crazy part was that the party ended at 11.5. i came back to my room at 12 (i figured it was no use trying to sleep so i left) and everyone was gone. all opf the beer and crap was still all over the hall but everyone had vanished. i guess they know the value of a tight schedule. or something.

anyway, here i am today and i dont know how classes will turn out, but i'm sure i'll be okay.

take care everyone. and dont forget, if you get a chance to try absinth, it's always best to.

wow. what an awesome last 2 days. friday i spent time several hours working on my hungarian. so it's coming along. the most important words do far are "sima vis", which means tap water. these europeans and their carbonated water.

ANYWAY, friday night we went to this wine festival at this castle on a hill in the city. i couldnt stand any of the wine, but i found some grape juice that was EXQUISITE! i mean, this stuff made welch's taste like toilet water. unbelievable. so i spent all of my tasting tickets on grape juice refills. i'm so glad i have this fleece because it gets pretty chilly and the wind blows a lot and it tends to mist rain fairly often. but on our way back from the thing we missed the last tram by 10 min, so we had to walk about 2 mi back to our place. that sucked.

NOW, today was sports day! and guess what! FRISBEES WORK! it must have just been a bad day or something because they flew BEAUTIFULLY today. so that was awesome. really awesome. and football. these guys play soccer like crazy. so i tried my hand at it and it turned out okay. i was the goalie for EVERYone. first i started out as the goalie for my team and then these french guys asked me to play for them and so on. it was so great. i mean, EVERYone knew how to play. it was amazing. they just went to town. and then i threw frisbee more.

after going home and napping, me and 3 guys went out and ate gyros. then we headed to this int'l student party at this outside club/bar. it was really fun. there were so many people and there was music and everything. i had hungary's "national" drink, Unicum. it was awful, but i drank the whole thing anyway (it was only about a shot's worth of liquid). wow. that stuff hit me pretty hard (considering i havent been hit before). that little bit was enough to disorient me for an hour or so. luckily by the time we left i felt fine. it was funny how the foreign (actually domestic) kids had trouble finding english words when slightly intoxicated. good stuff. well its 3:40 now so i think i'll sleep.

this girl says she knows where a nondenominational christian church is! i'd go tomorrow but she doesnt "exactly" know, so i'll have to wait and find out later.

sleep well, america. i'll be missing you.

and you.

man i love meeting all these people. there are so many wonderful similarities and differences between everyone. i learned form me swedish friends that their prime minister of foreign affairs was killed today from a stabbing. apparently this has happened before with the actual prime minister. crazy swedes.

i think i had a chicken crepe for lunch. it was great. however the guy at dinner tried to rip us off. luckily we had 2 guys that spoke hungarian with us. so we came out okay. i've come to realize that i wont be having any sweet tea for a while. i'm running into lots of surprises lately. particularly regarding food. i finally learned to ask for tap water (as opposed to mineral or sparkling, which are the standard) in hungarian. now i just have to master asking for a lot of ice. scott, youd hate it here. not only do they NOT give free refills on anything, but they only put liek 4 ice cubes (very small ones) if any. which sort of works out for more drink since they lack the refill. and the drink sizes are so danty. also, there are no taco bells here. but there an AWESOME pizza place a few blocks away. i had chicken, sour cream, and cheese on mine the other night.

i dont know of much else. i still cant get past the drinks.

oh man. it's really like a desert here. in the sun it's generally like 78 or 80, but at night is drops to 55 or 60. i was wearing my fleece around town tonight and i was still chilly. the wind blows really hard in the city.

budapest ho

well i'm on a the internet now. not mine, but the school's. i'm also going stop using apostrophes because i have to press shift+1 to use one. and the y and z are switched.

yesterday was great. i met all these people from different countries. i went to eat with a few americans, an australian, and 2 swedes. theyre all really cool. then we went out to a bar and i FINALLY got some non-carbonated water. i now know i have to ask for "no gas". but still only like 4 ice cubes in it. as long as i had the water. and i accidentally ordered spaghetti at the pizza place, but it was still good.

today we get to tour budapest via bus! im cant wait.

i got my towel rigged up as a curtain, but i now need rope (which i opted not to bring) to dry my clothes with. i think iám going to miss dryers. and i need toilet paper.

i hope i can find that piano

if i ever type "á" where it looks like an apostrophe should go, itás because thats whats is in place of the ' key.

back to budapest

frisbees dont freakin'work here! i dont know if the air is too thin or what but it drops like a rock. my heart is aching even more now. what am i going to do?? holy crap.

i'm going to go eat and see a movie with my newfound foreign friends tonight.

sooooooo im here now. in budapest. i wrote about amsterdam, but i had no interent and couldnt post anything. (i get it in my room next week)

i dont even know where to start, so i dont think i will.

okay maybe just some.... man europe is different. first off, the jet lag rocked my world (which is bad). ive been chronically tired since i got here. im hoping to overcome that tomorrow. (im not using any apostrophes because they are in a weird place on this computer.) oh yeah and until yeterday food made me want to throw up. most people look the same here as they do at home, but upon closer inspection they tend to speak a different language. speaking of, i know that im going to come home speaking english in a hungarian accent. i just know it. because they will understand me better if i speak like they do, but i feel i must resist! like the brown paper towl paper that youd get from a bathroom on the interstate (if they werent air dry of course) . . . okay maybe a gas station, THATS what they use for toilet paper! i cant wait to let them know that we're past using papyrus to wipe our butts in the states. i think its going to blow their mind. however they also pave a lot of streets in brick if that tells you anything. i cant wait till i know some hungarian.

theres some helicopter hungarian show on tv right now. it sucks. it seems to actually be about helicopters. stupid.

i guess ill go back to my room now. i think ill write about current events until i can post my amsterdam adventure.

oh yeah, and ill never ever smoke marijuana. i tried to give it the benifit of the doubt and assumme that kind i smelled before (which smelled like a pile of crap on the floor) was bad kind, but my walking through their streets confirmed to me that in fact all weed smells like a pile of crap on the floor. i cant believe people smoke that.

see you guys.

okay i'm pretty nervous now. i'm feeling ill. i guess it's nerves.

i'll try writing/calling as soon as i can once i arrive.

bye everybody. i'll miss you guys.



especially you.

dont have much time. gotta finish cleaning before the peeps arrive.

okay first off, i tricked jesse into thinking i had gotten an earing. it was so funny. i was smiling the whole time, but she just thought i was happy. pretty funny. i didnt tell her until the next day. she had mixed emotions about it. (yeah thanks for the support, GIRLFRIEND.)

went shopping with my mom on friday. that was fun. we always spend too much money. i enjoy spending time with my mom. sometimes she's just crazy.

got new shorts yesterday.

finally was able to "sing" something to jesse. still got another somethin' up my short sleeve though.

oh yeah. chance came by YESTERDAY at 4pm. that crazy crazy chance.

and we tried to watch The Two Towers last night at 11.0 but we were no match for its lengthiness. we only made it halfway.

alrighty, i hope to see everyone out here today.

got a lot done today...

haircut (very short)
new mouse
copied visa
got dad new mouse
ate good chinese food
DLed program to remove spyware/popups
DLed winamp 3
rope to practice knot tying with
visited with stovall (twice in one summer)
got sheet music to amelie
and regular music from amelie (thanks to jesse)

i guess thats about it.

oh and i rented "amadeus" monday. that was really good. i don't know how i'd never seen it before. although i dont know its historical accuracy. it could be entirely fictional for all i know. but i really liked it. i think my favorite scene was at the end when Mozart is dictating his last piece to Salieri and you see Salieri struggling to understand the genius in mozart. And depsite how much he hates him, he is simply enthralled listening to him work and is just on the edge of his seat to hear more. I don't really know if, at the end, he was even aware that he was killing him. salieri didnt seem to have that look of . . . badness on his face. i dont know. maybe i just missed it. it was just such an interesting relationship mozart and salieri had. it was like he treated mozart as if he were God Himself. in that his admiration for him couldn't even be expressed in words, but equally great was his hatred. anyway, i love seeing that kind of genius what it's capable of.

ah well. back to cleaning.