I guess I actually live here.

I've paid rent (which slipped painfully from my finger tips, for sure). I've purchased and cooked food. I've bitched about the weather, gotten honked at (and threw the finger right back) and can order food without any real problems as long as I apolgize for my awkwardness ahead of time. I thought today how nice the weather is, and how I hope it stays, and then it just weirdly occurred to me for the first real time that I actually do live here. I'm not just visiting, or even studying. I live here.

Yesterday I was sad. I just felt homesick, overwhelmed, underappreciated, whatever. So I went to Margaret Island in my afternoon and laid in the grass. Just laid there, looked at the big fountain (by big I mean that it shoots water 50 feet in the air) that plays classical music, and smelled the grass. I listened to country music and pretended for thirty minutes that I was not in Budapest, but in some rural area, all alone. After awhile I felt better. I think that is the thing I like least about Hungary. Despite the fact that I often feel alone, I almost never actually AM alone. This can be a little bit frustrating, for sure, especially for a loner like myself. I've been trying to stay out a little bit more, to spend less time just laying in my bed. The result is that my shins are a little sore from two straight days of wandering the town but my psyche is much better. I enjoy listening to the crazy sounds of the crazy Hungarians, riding around on public transit, just people watching and looking out the window. Maybe not on my way to work, but it's otherwise very soothing.

Class is going quite well this week. Last night we in theory had parent-teacher conferences, which essentially boiled down to me chillaxing with Bálint in his fortress of solitude (what I privately refer to his small English room, where he spends most of his free time, as), which had no functioning lights due to the repairs that are effectively destroying my school's functionality so got progressively darker from five until six pm. He talked my ear off about Dexter's lab, the wallpapering project in his new flat (he's moving out of his parents'... Europeans are so different about how long they live at home), scootering, and gray markers. I talked his off about the exploding toilet (more on that later), riding public transit all day long, and how normal and happy the students are this year compared to last. It was nice to have a conversation of more than 10 sentences with a colleague that isn't Bill. Not that I don't love/depend far too much on Bill, because he is lovely. But.

Hungarian. It rolls along. As I said, I can order food. I can name a lot of things. I've pretty much gotten over myself and say "yesterday.... present tense whatever." The thing is that conversation must be limited to just a few topics or I stall out, sputter, become red in the face in the way that I do, and then they take pity on me and switch to English. I think that this is perhaps karmic payback for how often I was frustrated last year that nobody in the program spoke Spanish. Damn.

So, now onto the exploding toilet. I have figured out that it is impossible for me to have a normal weekend here in Hungary. I've become nocturnal in Debrecen, almost killed a dear friend in Szeged, gotten drunk in Etyek then surrounded by a group of oversexed Hungarian friends, attended a wine festival in a castle then marched for hours through the dark streets of Pest to show up at an empty bar, stumbled into a screaming metal concert in a pop bar with a Spanish speaking Spaniard and a Spanish speaking Hungarian, and countless other small weird occurences. Every weekend.

This weekend, however, is the winner. First, I head to Jake and Ellen's for Friday night festivities, intending a quiet night in. We play Kings. With wine. Jake goes to use the toilet, flushes it, and the tank essentially explodes. Gallons of water, literally, pour from the tank at head level. In one short hour, I am soaked, have literally run through the building seeking the groundskeeper, gotten told off by a plumber on the phone, gotten sworn at by an elderly neighbor when I asked him in the informal "you" if he would please not call the police because we clearly didn't want the toilet to be exploding, cried, witnessed an old woman wielding a gigantic wrench, kissed the groundskeeper when he finally arrived, and then just changed my clothes nonchalantly in front of the whole group of drunken, soaked friends (don't worry mom, all girls except Jake, and he likes boys).

Wake up Saturday morning smelly and wanting to die. Get McDonalds breakfast. Lovely. Go home to change and then it's off to the bus station to head to Heves for Brigi's name day. Get there, and tramp off to a bonfire which winds up being populated by evangelical American Christians. Take the Lord's name in vain a few times on accident. Hang out two hours after the fire ends, again waiting for the groundskeeper, and eat pizza in the park. Then take Brigi out to all three bars in Heves, come home, watch MTV, crash out. Sounds normal, but it was a weird day.

Wake up. More tv. I miss tv a depressingly large amount. Drink some champagne, then catch the bus home. Get off in Ors Vezer ter and decide to just get gyros for dinner. I ask for them in Hungarian, and the woman "knows I can speak Spanish because of how I speak Hungarian." Chat with the lovely Cuban lady.

This weekend I have to teach on Saturday, because Hungary is weird like that. I hope the streak of weirdness ends, because if this sort of randomness goes down at school I don't know if I'll be able to handle it!

I miss you guys. Hope you're all doing well... I would love to hear more about your lives, so if you have a moment, do send an email.