Sleepy Little Head--Christmas with my Sister in Bekescsaba

I probably got a little carried away with posting a thousand pictures from France. That was only day ONE of my adventure. But, I mean, when's the next time I'm going to be in Paris?

So, I was overjoyed when I saw Sarah and her manager person Adam at the Budapest airport (about a 3-4 hour drive away from Bekescsaba where Sarah lives). My first impression of Hungary: fog. Supposedly it's not always that foggy, but the only thing I could see were the signs that said things like"kijárat" and "Hódmezővásárhely". I got pretty good at my Hungarian pronunciation by the end of the trip, but here's some of the cool things Sarah and I did together in Hungary:

This is the castle/mansion we biked to. The day before Christmas eve the weather was beautiful! It was just like old times biking to the baptism monument in Broeksterwoude (in the Netherlands). Sarah is a way faster biker than I am, but I also found out that it was partly because her classy personalized volleyball team bike rides a lot better than the second hand one they had for me (but I did not complain because it just felt so awesome to be back on a European bike). Sarah told me to get on top of this bird feeder but it seemed a bit too precarious.

They decorate all the Christmas trees with pieces of chocolate. It's awesome because then you can just eat the decorations when Christmas is over. So... the door was open of the side building of the mansion, and we assumed that meant we could just walk in. It was freezing inside and we saw this homely Christmas tree and wandered around the whole place until we got a bit creeped out by the hole in the wall and the weird noises. But. Then we saw this man who supposedly (I didn't understand a lick of it) said we could get a tour of it for like 900 forints or something. We had to put on special shoe covers before we walked around. I'm sure he was telling us really fascinating cultural things about this mansion, but honestly, our free tour of the side building was probably more interesting.

No one stole our bikes and we made it back to Bekescsaba without too much trouble.

We met up with our cool friend Richie to watch the new star wars movie (in Hungarian). I might have to watch it again so I'll be able to understand more of the jokes but I think I got the main storyline.

They didn't have any Star Wars posters that we could take our picture in front of but that was basically the only disappointment of the night.

Sarah took me to the Piac (the marketplace) where we bought wrapping paper, these yummy cherry and cheese strudel things and more cookies, cakes and pastries than you would believe. It was all very yummy.

This is langos, deep fried scone things that we also bought at the market. One of them had goat cheese in the middle and the other had sausage and pretty much everything you could imagine in it. It was so yummy but I felt like I never wanted to eat again after.

This is the kolbasz (sausage) we bought from the market in its intestine wrapping. Apparently Bekescsaba is world-renowned for it's sausage. I also thought it was pretty good but it was a while before I could try it after I'd eaten all that Langos.

This is the big church in the town square where they held midnight mass. I've never been to midnight mass before and it was kind of a cool experience (bucket list: go to midnight mass in a language I understand).

On Sunday afternoon we took a nice walk around the city. This is one of the biggest churches of it's kind (Evangelist?)

I think we're standing on a mound where thousands of people who died from cholera were buried.

Here we debuted our career as street performers. We didn't make a lot of money, but I'm pretty sure all the people in the town square were very happy with our lovely songs.

 Ok. So here's where the story gets a little crazy. As I mentioned before, Sarah plays volleyball all over Europe, and it just so happened that she had a tournament in Zagreb, Croatia from Monday to Wednesday. The plan was that I would either stay at Sarah's place for two days in Bekescsaba or be able to ride the bus down with the team. I haven't seen her play in ages, and I've never been to Zagreb before so I opted for that option.

Unfortunately, due to some difficulties, I was unable to get on the bus with the team. I was stranded. In Bekescsaba. Where no one speaks English. And the wifi at Sarah's place didn't work. After throwing myself a pity party, I went to the nearest place I knew with wifi (the church) and contacted Richie. I felt a lot better after eating at the Csaba burger and traveling to a castle in Gyula with some of Richie's friends, a recently returned missionary and her parents from Lehi, Utah. 

For a visual representation of this next part go to:  https://www.google.com/maps/dir/B%C3%A9k%C3%A9scsaba,+Hungary/Szeged,+Hungary/P%C3%A9cs,+Hungary/Zagreb,+Croatia/@45.9261708,14.6564527,6.37z/data=!4m26!4m25!1m5!1m1!1s0x47442b94eb71f6fb:0x400c4290c1e11c0!2m2!1d21.0877309!2d46.6735939!1m5!1m1!1s0x474487e22bcce54b:0x400c4290c1e1190!2m2!1d20.1414253!2d46.2530102!1m5!1m1!1s0x4742b111ea3252e3:0x400c4290c1e1200!2m2!1d18.232266!2d46.0727345!1m5!1m1!1s0x4765d692c902cc39:0x3a45249628fbc28a!2m2!1d15.981919!2d45.8150108!3e0

Anyway. This returned sister missionary and her parents were some of the most amazing people I've met. I feel like meeting them was probably an answer to all my grandma's prayers. It turns out that the next day they were planning on traveling to Pecs, which is very close to the Croatia border. I looked it up and found that trains ride from Pecs to Zagreb every 2 or so hours so figuring that if we arrived in Pecs about 4, I could catch a train to Zagreb and be there before midnight, I reserved a spot in a hostel. I asked them if I could get a ride since my train alternative for getting to Zagreb had me leaving at about two in the morning and arriving at around the same time. It was such a pleasant ride down with them. We went through a Hungarian car wash (if you ever want to do that plan about and hour), and it wasn't even too foggy. Five hours together in a car can make you pretty close to a person, so instead of just dropping me off at the train station in Pecs, they came in to make sure I caught my train. It's a good thing too, because the ticket lady informed me that there were no trains riding from Hungary to Croatia. The bus station people were a little more helpful, informing me that although no busses rode from Pecs to Croatia, I could take a bus back to Szeged and then go through Serbia on my way to Zagreb. However the next bus to Szeged didn't come until the morning. My new friends suggested I come with them to the ward party while I figured out what I would do.

No one in the ward could understand why I was there. At first they thought I was the returned missionary's sister, but once they found out that I had met them only yesterday, we had to explain so many times who I was and what I was doing there. Still, they were so welcoming and kind, and Pecs is such a beautiful city, and their friend David was so awesome taking us around the whole city as we searched for the best pizza place that I couldn't help loving this place that I ended up in accidentally.

While I was at the ward party, I ended up getting a facebook message from some Bekescsaba fan named Attila saying that he could give me a ride to Zagreb from Budapest. That was my best offer yet. The next morning, I caught a train to Budapest at 6, got there at 9, met Attila at 10, got a tour of Budapest for the next hour while we picked up some other fans, and then drove for five or so more hours to get to Zagreb.
Attila and the Bekescsaba fans were awesome. Every time I would just about fall asleep on the car, Attila would point out some awesome city or geological feature. When they got drunk, they spoke even more English!

I got to watch the last tournament game. Bekescsaba won and my sister even got the winning point. Plus, I got to ride back to Bekescscaba with the team!

We were kind of tired New Year's Eve because our bus didn't make it back to Bekescsaba until 5:30 in the morning (we ended up driving through Budapest). But it was my last day in Europe and we told Richie we would go to Budapest for New Year's eve with him.

This is a cool lizard that we saw.

Awesome church on castle hill.

No judging, but we ended up eating Mexican food in Budapest for lunch. It's a little place called Gringos burritos. Richie really wanted to eat there, and I really wanted to eat. It wasn't bad, but Mexican food isn't really that good on that side of the planet I think.

It was freezing cold and we almost froze to death waiting for a bus that we mistimed to get me back to the airport. Fortunately, this guy saw Sarah's volleyball jacket and gave us hot chocolate for free just cause of that:)

In conclusion, it was awesome. I'm so lucky. I'm also ready to stay put for a little while. But just a little while. #seeyalaterseeya. #nextweekaustin. #thenbrazil

Hungry? part 1. City of Love

Remember when you were a kid and trying on your mom's dresses wondering what it would be like to be big enough to actually fit in them? Sometimes life feels like that.

Anyway, I'm surrounded by humans who do incredible things, one of them being my sister. She's kind of a big deal. Once upon a time she was doing what most humans do, having a normal person job when she just decided to up and live her dream. She moved to Europe, got recruited by a professional volleyball team in Hungary, and soon became one of the best volleyball players (the best in my opinion, but I've got a bias), on one of the best teams in Eastern Europe.

I'm really proud of her but I miss her a ton, and because they're kind of intense over there, they didn't give her enough time off to come home for Christmas. But, as part of her contract, they agreed to fly someone out for her, and as her significant other, the honor went to me. It was kind of crazy, one of the coolest things I've ever done, so here's my story:

 1. France

I was slightly worried about traveling to Hungary all on my own.... Last time Sarah came home she ended up with like 7 different layovers including a 12 hour layover in somewhere like Qatar (not that that would be a bad thing, but I have an aptitude for going into paroxysms when I'm in a strange place for long periods of time by myself). Anyway I was excited when I found out that my flight only had one layover. In Paris! It was perfect. I had 9 hours there from about 11am to 8pm, which would be just enough time to see the city. 

This was my first view of Paris. Grey skies, train tracks and those glorious rustic apartment buildings. It felt like Europe.

I took the train to the Notre Dame cathedral. It was beautiful, and tourist-filled . 

It was so strange, wandering around the streets in Paris. I guess my whole life I've imagined that someday I would go there (although I didn't officially add it to my bucket list until after I left), but I never imagined that I would experience it so quietly and on my own.

This is the store we used to shop in on my mission in Belgium. I was so happy to see it, I walked in and looked around just for old time's sake.

Just another gorgeous street corner church/castle thing. Why is there so much rich cultural beauty everywhere?

I'm pretty sure this also has some great significance, but there weren't as many tourists around, so it's probably less famous than the other buildings. I should have tried harder to learn about these sites. I'm guessing there was a princess who wanted to live next to the canal, so she built this castle:)

I thought this monument thing was really neat. It has like sphinx things on the bottom and an angel thing on the top.  There were a lot of people asking for money and spare change, and I was pretty tired from not sleeping much on the flight, so I'm pretty sure I gave away more euros than I planned.

See the Eiffel tower there in the distance? There was a train you could take from the Notre Dame cathedral to the Eiffel tower, but I had so much time on my hands, I thought it might be nice just to walk. I didn't realize how incredibly big it is and thus, what a long walk I had in front of me. 

I almost bought this useless door hangar thing just because it said our name on it. In Belgium they always asked if I was French. It was pretty interesting though, because on this street almost every store I passed was some kind of plant store or a pet or pet grooming store. I guess they're pretty fond of their pets.

I went inside this church. I think it's called the Saint Germain L'auxerrois. It's impressive to me, seeing these huge beautiful structures made to honor God that now stand so empty and solemn.

I guess this is how they decorate Christmas trees in Paris, with huge bows and ornaments. It seemed a little tacky, but had a lot of character.

This is my panorama of the inside of this famous palace. 

The Louvre. I thought about paying to go in, but I was so excited about getting to the Eiffel tower that I decided to move on.

King Louis XIV had a really nice horse.

The Triumphal Arch.

I sat next to a French guy on the plane who told me that the best place to get a croissant was PAUL. I think he was right because never have I enjoyed a croissant more than this one I ate outside the Louvre.

Next time I go to Paris I will ride on this Ferris wheel.

I think this sign means "no people with one leg shorter than the other".

A cool government building. By this time, I couldn't really see the Eiffel tower and I hoped it wasn't too far.

Not sure, but I think this is where they held the climate change meetings. It's cool because a bunch of my friends were sending around a petition to be read here. And then I was here!

This wall right around the corner was covered in green stuff--mosses, ivy of some sort. I'll have to take another plant class to know for sure.

My first view of the Eiffel tower.

Made It!!!

It's pretty incredibly huge. Bigger than it looks in this picture even.

Looking Up...

Looking out over Paris. There was a whole party going on in the upper level. They even had ice skating. How fun would that be? Ice skating on the Eiffel tower.

This is my friend Christian. I don't always take churros from strangers, but sometimes when I'm really hungry and haven't spoken to another human the whole day I give in. We climbed up the tower together. Turns out he's a swing dancer from Georgia, USA, and we ended up in the same place in line.

I feel like you shouldn't go to Paris without having some sort of crepe, but I was pretty hungry so I ordered this galette with goat cheese, bacon, spinach and apples. mmmm good.

So, I accidentally got on the wrong train back to the airport (some miscommunication with a French man), but fortunately, the flight to Hungary was late. I didn't know how I would find Sarah but she was there waiting for me at the airport:) Awesome