why have I been so sick? ugh...

So, I am home with a migraine – my medicine’s not working and laying down is just frustrating, so in silence and with as much darkness as possible (I even have a white shirt covering the screen to block some of the unnecessary light), I am chilling at home.
I am also quite certain that I should see a dentist soon. Hmmm… finding people to help me here is going to be interesting. I guess I’ll work on this as soon as I can get my brain to think a bit more.

The flats in Budapest have become, as we have jokingly put it, hotels. It’s great. In the girls’ flat within the last 2 weeks, there’s been Kristy, Isabel, Emilie and now Isabel is coming back for a night. In the boys’ flat within the last 2 weeks, there’s been 3 French girls (friends of Timothée), Kristin, Janos’ girlfriend, Jeff, Simon, and Romain. There were also 4 German girls in town this week visiting Silke and Budapest. It’s been a bit crazy, to say the least. It is nice, though, to come back to the calm ‘normal’ life. I am not a very good tour guide as far as coming up with things to do… but I can navigate the city like a pro! Regardless of Kevin’s lack of trust in my sense of direction, I am quite confident that I will not ever be lost in Budapest. w00t!

So, there’s been some emails about how the swine flu is affecting us. Here’s the thing: Aside from Facebook telling me who has swine flu, I would have no clue it’s even happening. I have yet to find a good way to stay up on the news here – it’s not like I can just sit, watch the news and understand what’s going on around me. I just took that for granted in the states! The only thing that has been affected by it is when one of our volunteers, Livia, went home to the Ukraine. She tried to get back to Hungary and couldn’t. Apparently they had closed the borders of the EU in hopes of stopping the spread of the H1N1 virus. Hmmm… However, that was Saturday. Not sure if that situation is still a problem or what even happened to create this issue. Anyway, my prayers are with my many friends back home that are dealing with this virus. May you soon be restored to health.

Well, I am going to go back to study my Hungarian and figure out how to say “toothache.” Sziasztok!

*~*~*

Some sights of Budapest:
These are just some cute benches near my flat in Freedom Square. We also think that the American Embassy is near here because there were guards out front and an American flag. We didn’t investigate due to confusing construction, but maybe someday, eh? For the meantime, I can’t wait until Spring, because I am totally going to people watch from these benches :)


This is the great chain bridge. It’s not a very good picture, but it shows you how beautiful it is.


This is an old run-down building that remains a great mystery to me. I wonder what it was back in the day. I wonder why no one uses it anymore. I wonder who those people are that are standing guard. At any rate, you can see quite a few buildings like this throughout the city. It’s sad because they must have been so beautiful!


This is Freedom Square, which is very close to my flat.


This is a morning view of Citadella. It was an ugly morning, but we hiked to the top even though the sunrise was not visible. Boo! The views were absolutely nothing like the night views I’ve already shown you. Hopefully some morning, though, we’ll see a sunrise.