Less than a month left!

First, a quick update on the past couple of weeks.

Last weekend (not the one that just happened, but the one before) was our language competition. I don't know how well I did, but congrats to those who got 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place! We had the opportunity to walk around Sátoraljaújhely where the competition was held, went on the bob, and had a little party (which wasn't a party at all). On the bob I managed to get into an accident which resulted in being taken to the hospital, getting a neck brace, and making a very regretful Australian girl cry upon seeing me. It wasn't that serious, so it's really funny to look back on. And the neck brace made me look really ridiculous.

This past weekend was some sort of "Szeged Day" festival as well as a wine festival. I walked around with friends and my host family. Sunday night was one of my friend's birthday parties which was a lot of fun. Monday we also had a holiday (I'm not sure why) and I spent most of that trying to reenergize from Sunday night! I also skyped with my mom which was nice, since we haven't skyped in awhile.

This week is my last week at school, so I've been making an effort to go to all of my classes (like any good exchange student would do). It's so weird that tomorrow will be the last time I'll walk through the halls as a student there and see all my friends and have classes to go to. In retrospect, I wish I would've spent a lot more time in school, but I can't change anything now so there's no point in worrying about it. I wish I had something special to give to my classmates, though, to thank them for opening up to me. Well, in case any of you read this, thank you SO much for everything, from saying hi to me in the halls or asking if I understand what's going on or even just giving me an encouraging smile when the teacher asks who I am. I've loved being part of your class and I'm really going to miss all of you!

Friday to Saturday will be our district conference at Lake Balaton, then Monday I leave really early for Eurotour! I'm soooo excited to finally go on it, since I've been waiting since September when we first heard where we'd be going! I'm probably going to spend all day Sunday packing and getting everything ready.

Once I come home from Eurotour, I only have 11 full days until I leave. I can't even imagine what that's going to feel like. I've had a couple of breakdowns that are like half crying/half laughing because I'm dreading leaving but yet I'm so excited. I'm going to try to not let myself think about it during Eurotour, though.

When I come back to Szeged I just plan on spending a ton of time with my first host family, my friends, and being out of the house as much as possible. I want to make my last days here great!

Nearing the end...

First off, I totally intended to blog about my trip to Poland and it appears I never did that. In short... it was a lot of fun. Auschwitz was horribly depressing but going there was an amazing opportunity. I can't believe a month has gone by since that trip!

As of today, I have 43 days left. It's really hard to believe but I'm also really excited to go home!

Mostly I've just been hanging out with my first family (whose dog had puppies!), going to school, and hanging out with people. My last ever Hungarian exam was today and Thursday is the last class. This weekend is the language competition for the exchange students and I'm pretty excited about that. The weekend after next is our district conference, then that Monday I leave for Eurotour! It's all coming so fast and I'm soooo excited (how many times can I say that?)

Anyway things are good with me and I'll try to blog more often even if it's about boring things.

It's a strange feeling

Being nearly a week away from having been in Hungary for 8 months is one of the weirdest feelings I think I've ever felt. I look back on my time here and realize there is so much that I've done... so much of it that I've already forgot and so much that I never will. I remember sitting in McDonald's in Budapest after the Venice trip with a few other exchange students saying things like "I can't believe we've already been here for eight weeks!" and "56 days doesn't sound too long but it really is!"

Knowing that I only have 76 days left here is hard. I am not ready to leave, but in some ways, I am. I am sadly not as good as speaking Hungarian as I thought I would be, but I can understand a lot of it. I don't have a lot of friends, I do spend most of my time at home, and I don't go out every weekend. If you asked me which life I liked better, my California life or my Hungarian life, I wouldn't be able to give you an answer. The only thing consistent in both lives is the fact that I'm in them. Even who I am is completely different depending where I am.

Looking back on my time here, I can see that I've changed a lot. I'm so much more open to doing things I otherwise had no interest in, I've gained a much larger curiosity about seeing different parts of the world, I've learned a lot about America and the way it's perceived from the outside, as well as a lot about Hungary and the way they view themselves. It's a lot to take in, really. I constantly feel my brain being stretched to understand so much more than I'm used to and at times I want to give up and go back to my easy life.

Before I came to Hungary, I wrote this:

I think the hardest thing about all of this is knowing that no matter what, I'll never be at the position I'm at now. I'll never be exactly the way I am now. I'll never have the exact same friends and relationships and feelings. I won't come back from Hungary and feel the way I do now. That kind of scares me.

Reading it again, it makes me really sad because it's all true. I don't have the same friends as I did when I was in California. The majority of people I considered to be my close friends haven't spoken to me in months. And while it's hard to accept that they have lives outside of me, I have no other options, really. My second host mom would talk to me about my friends from home and ask if it made me sad that I lost contact with so many people. I told her that yes, it broke my heart, but if they really cared about me they'd make an effort, and that there's still a chance that when I come home things will be close to like they were. There are some days when I mourn over the loss of my past life. I just sit in my room, think of all the things I could've done back home, think about my mom and my friends and my cats, and sometimes get angry at myself for leaving it all. And then I look at the things I've done here. I've been to Italy, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, and after this weekend will have been to Slovakia and Poland. I've met amazing people who I can't imagine my life without, I've gained three new wonderful families, and I've had so many opportunities to do things I never thought I would.

It's weird to think of all the things I've done and know that I was the one who's done them. It seems like the past 8 months have been a dream. I'm scared to leave Hungary, to be honest. Scared to death. If things now seem like a dream, I imagine when I'm home and away from it all it's going to be so much harder to believe it all happened. I can't even imagine what it will be like. I try to just take everything here one day at a time, but it's hard.

New family and a bit of traveling

Last Monday I changed families to my third and final family! It was a really weird feeling knowing that the next time I packed everything up would be when I was leaving Hungary. I also realized I have a lot of pointless things that I've kept that I really could throw away (old papers from my Hungarian lessons, receipts, train tickets, etc) but I want to keep them. Anyway, the move was easier than the last one. It did really hurt to have to leave, but I was able to handle it a lot better. My new family is really nice and I think I'll enjoy living here.

I just got home yesterday from spending a few days in Croatia with my host family! They have a flat there so we will probably go back two more times. We visited Trieste in Italy one day and walked around there, which was really nice. The weather was pretty cold and cloudy the whole time, so we didn't get to stay by the ocean much. Overall it was a really good trip and I look forward to going back.

So I'm not really in the mood for blogging but I'll try to write more soon since I haven't written in awhile. I leave for a Rotary weekend in Poland on Friday so I'll try to write before then!

Skiing in the Austrian Alps

This past week I was with my Rotary club and the other exchange students in Szeged in a city called Wildschönau in Austria.

I was in a car with one of the Rotarians and his wife and Matt, the exchange student from Australia, and we left on Saturday morning at around 7:30. We made a lot of stops along the way and got to the hotel at around 4. Jill and I just hung out in the room until it was time for dinner. I was really sick, so I didn't really feel like eating and we ended up just having soup and going to bed. There was only one bed, and I didn't want to cough in Jill's face all night, so I decided to sleep on the couch, which actually really wasn't so bad. Jill read Mockingjay out loud to me and I ended up falling asleep.

The next morning, we ate breakfast at 7:30. Us, Matt, and Raymond were the first ones down there to eat. The breakfast was really good... Every day I ate bread or croissants with nutella on them, eggs, and fruit. After breakfast, we met the Rotarians in the ski room to put on our boots and get our skis to take them up the lift. If you've never walked in ski boots before... let me just tell you that it is the most painful and difficult thing to ever do for the first time. The lifts were really cool but also pretty scary.. when they left from the place where you get on, it felt like the start of a ride at Disneyland or something. We got to the middle station and started our ski "lesson" which was really two of the Rotarians telling us what to do. My first time going down the mountain I didn't know what I was doing at all, and ended up going down REALLY quickly and falling at the bottom. The good thing about snow is that it really doesn't hurt to fall in it. Jill and Matt fell a lot too, but Raymond was amazing at skiing within the first hour. By the end of the day, he was skiing down from the top of the mountain with the Rotarians!

We met with everyone for lunch, where we had pommes frites (french fries). We ended up eating fries for lunch every day, even though we could've had something different! We skied a little bit more after lunch, and then headed back to the hotel. I'm really sad because I don't remember what we did on each specific day... So I guess I'll just write in general now :/.

Well, most days after skiing we would either go to the sauna that the hotel had, or Jill and I would take naps or just lay in bed and listen to music. The dinners every night were amazing, and I forgot what it was like to eat an actual meal in the evening, since here it's always just sandwiches for dinner. I had spaghetti, tortellini, some other things, and most importantly: STEAK!!! When they brought it out, I wasn't sure if it was going to be like real steak or just some kind of meat that looked like it... so when I tasted it, I almost cried because I was so happy. I haven't had steak at all in Hungary!

Starting Wednesday night, we would play poker in the lobby with our club president's son, and sometimes one of the Rotarian's daughter and niece. These nights were definitely my favorite! I didn't know how to play poker before, but I think I did pretty well. We didn't play for money or anything though. After poker, we would hang out in mine and Jill's room and listen to music and drink juice.

On the third day, my leg felt really bruised from the boot, so I was unable to walk in it and couldn't ski. I just sat at the middle station and watched Jill go down. We played cards and made snowmen though, so it was still pretty fun. Also we all got really nice sunburns! Oh also, the Rotarians gave us all nicknames... Raymond's was "Ching chong chung" or "Indian," Matt's was "Kangaroo" or "Koala," Jill's was "Miss Florida" or "Sitting Bull," and mine was "Miss California" or "Snowflake."

On the fifth day of skiing, the Rotarians helped Jill and I go down from the very top to the middle station. It was really hard and tiring, but we did it!! I was really proud of myself afterwards. On the last day, I didn't feel like skiing, so I just sat around at the top of the mountain. Matt didn't ski for a bit so we talked and played cards, and for the record I'm much better than him at the Australian version of speed!

Basically, this past week was amazing and I miss it so much already. I would do anything to go back! I miss the really good food and just being able to lay around and not do anything. And now it's so lonely because I don't have to share a room with anyone and ahh I just miss it!

REALLY Brief February Recap & Some March Plans

The last time I posted, I was feeling kinda down about everything. Regardless, February was actually a really great month!

I've started Hungarian lessons again and it's so great to be back in the classroom and learning more. We're finally starting to learn the future tense, which I know a little about already. There are a lot more people in our class this semester than there were last semester, which makes it a lot more fun.

Terry came and stayed with me last weekend. We went out with Olga and had a really good time. It was so fun having one of my best friends here around! Hopefully I can get Alex and Annika to come visit as well.

I think March is going to be a really good month. Next weekend the exchange students in Szeged and I leave for a week of skiing in the Austrian Alps. I'm a little nervous since I've never skied before, but I think it will be a great trip! The weekend after, Jill and I will go stay with Gabby in Szombathely. We'll also get to hang out with Tawny and Kristof, who was in California last year. This month will probably go by REALLY fast!

Andddd that's all for now. Just wanted to give a quick update :)!

Honestly,

Stupidly, I just tortured myself for a bit by looking at pictures of my friends from home. In albums with clever quotes about it being the last year of high school, or simply the word, "Senior!," I can't help but feel insanely left out.

Coming into this, I was well aware of the fact that I would at some point feel like this. I tried to prepare myself for the way that all my friends would keep on living. And why wouldn't they? It's not as if they're living their lives just because I'm gone or doing anything they wouldn't be doing if I was still there. It's so hard to put this into words right now and I feel like I'm sounding crazy, but just bear with me.

Even though I'm living in a foreign country this year, even though I'm living in EUROPE this year, even though I've been to four new countries so far and will go to more, even though I've met the most amazing people I've ever known, even though I am learning a new language, even though I'm immersed in a new culture, even though I'm having an amazing time... I wonder what things would've been like had I just stayed home. I look at pictures from cheer and from forensics and read this year's newspapers and it actually hurts me to know that I'm not there and I'm not participating. 

For anyone who doesn't know, my life in the US this year would've been really awesome. I would've been on varsity cheer again, I'd be debating, and I'd be the editor of the school newspaper. I'd have a job and my car and my family and my cats. I'd be surrounded by familiar faces and foods and English. 

But this is seriously the perfect example of idealizing (...is this the right word?) home. I know I would've had arguments with my friends. I know I'd complain about being too busy. I know I'd be sick of having to do so much homework. I know I'd be tired of writing articles for a newspaper that is way too under-appreciated. I'd be bored at times. I'd get frustrated with the immaturity of the people I was around. I'd miss my best friend Alissa and my other senior friends from last year. I'd have bad days where all I wanted was to get away -- which is exactly what I have here.

My life in Hungary isn't perfect. I feel stressed about the fact that I don't speak only Hungarian all day and I do spend too much time on the computer. I feel guilty about not hanging out with my host family all day. I feel worthless at school when all I do is sit in English classes and am not invited to participate by the teacher or the class, and I actually don't learn anything. I feel like I don't know what to do with my time here, and waste it by watching Gossip Girl or reading Kindle books. 

With all of this said, I don't regret coming here. I know my life here is a million times more interesting than my life in America was. Sure, it's not perfect, but at home it wasn't perfect either. It's really hard to keep that little fact in mind. When I think about home, I don't think about the bad things that I am happy to be away from... I think about the good things that I'd do anything to get back. And it's funny, because one day I'm going to feel exactly like this, but in reverse. I'll be dying to get my time in Hungary back and idealize it as well.

So, while I feel like this is entirely random and scattered and maybe a little too honest, I hope some day an exchange student who feels the same can read it and know that they aren't the only ones who've felt like this. It's so hard being here. It's a challenge almost every day. In the end, though, I know it'll be worth it. I don't think there will ever be a day in my life that I regret coming here. I'm going to try to make the rest of the time here as amazing as possible, since I only have about 19 weeks left.