My First Impressions

To whom it may concern;
The situation here in Budapest is worst then I expected. Hundreds of buildings are still in flames and the death toll sky rockets in the hundreds of thousands. Children are left without parents and wild packs of mongrel dogs run unchecked throughout the city. These dogs in turn breed with the local breed of avians, creating running packs of mongrel dogs that can also fly through the air. I do not know how long my team or I can hold out, but we have managed to make a shaky alliance at best with the Hungarians. Though we are separated by language, our bond exceeds these barriers to accomplish the language that we all speak. The language of continuing human life. If you read this, you are part of this alliance. Congratulations, you are the resistance...

Just kidding...

Just to give you a little bit about myself. I'm a junior at McDaniel College's Westminster campus studying for a semester at McDaniel College's Budapest campus. Along with this, this will be my first time outside of the United States (I've been to Canada, but that doesn't really count).

Despite what might be expected from someone in my situation, my days leading up to my departure were filled with excitement and not anxiety. I wasn't afraid of being homesick. I made the mistake of reading On the Road during Sophomore year and have since been fighting back the urge to drop out and just Kerouacin' it. It may also be because my own mom travels a lot due to her job. I grew up listening to her stories of visiting other countries. She actually challenged me to beat the number of countries visited. I'm more than willing to do so.

So in essence I'm here because I know I've been bred to travel.

The flight over was pretty good. I had trouble going to sleep, I only got about a good 40 minutes, but I've never slept well on flights anyway. Video games and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (en espanol) served the rest of the way to kill time. The layover was pretty relaxed, got through security quickly (around 7am) enough for me and my friends to sit down at Huxley's pub for breakfast. One large traditional British breakfast (bacon, sausage, fried eggs, toast, fried tomatoes, and of course baked beans) and a tall glass of Stella Artois later and we were on our way to the terminal. Of course there was another terrible meal on the flight to Budapest, but this flight was only two hours so whatever. I arrived at noon Budapest time (6am your time).

Dr. Adamson greeted us and eventually a few more students trickled in. Our group totals at about 10 people. Mostly everyone else showed up later and by that time I had already had a bowl of goulash and a beer. At that moment I was suddenly reminded of Professor Granlund telling me that all I was going to eat would be meat, potatoes, and beer.

Of course, that's always been alright with me...