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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Since BSM is a program for students from US schools, the program
administrators declared this Thursday a holiday. Most students are
travelling this weekend, so pretty much all the classes have decided to
make Friday an unofficial holiday as well--so few students would be in
class, that it wouldn't make sense to have class. I am travelling to
Prague with Forrest, Melody, Natalie, Jonah, Alethea, and Mike R.
We're leaving early Thursday morning and coming back on a night train
Saturday night. How exciting!
As a consequence of my travel plans for this weekend, I won't be able
to write you my usual Friday email...hence, this early email.
Last weekend was quite entertaining. Natalie cooked dinner at her
apartment Friday night, so we enjoyed a delicious dinner of chicken and
sweet potatoes, and met Carolina, who is the daughter of Natalie,
Melody, and Vanessa's landlord. Carolina is a American Studies major
(!) and wanted us to take a survey about American vs. British sentence
phrasings. (The survey had 10 sentences written in British English,
and we each had to rewrite the sentences the way we would say them.)
We helped her with that assignment, and then had an interesting
conversation about different US accents.
On Saturday, Forrest, Mai Anh, Melody, and I went to yet another flea
market. This one is held in City Park on weekends only, and of the 3
flea markets I've been to in Budapest, this one best fit my idea of
what a flea market should be: crowded with people and all different
sorts of stuff for sale. The range of things for sale was rather
overwhelming: you could get anything from fresh cookies to antique
faucets.
After the flea market, we met Mike R., Natalie, Jonah, Vanessa,
Alethea, and Ian at the ice-skating rink in the park. Sunday was
Mike's birthday, and he wanted to go ice-skating to celebrate;
unfortunately, the line to get in stretched all the way down the
block. So, we decided to ride the yellow metro line all the way from
one end to the other, instead. We hung out for awhile and then had
dinner at the "Taj Mahal," an elegant but expensive Indian
restaurant.
I spent most of Sunday working on Analysis with Vanessa and Mike; in
the evening, the 3 of us plus Melody went to see "Kontroll," a
Hungarian movie about the ticket-checkers in the Budapest metro. It
was in Hungarian, so we could only understand a few words here & there,
but fortunately, it was a highly visual movie. I enjoyed it; it
probably wouldn't have been worth seeing if it were an American movie
of the same style & quality, but for me, the added novelty of seeing a
Hungarian movie--set in the very metro I ride every day--made it worth
it. Mike said, "It's the best Hungarian movie I've ever seen on
my
birthday!"
Last night, Melody, Forrest, Mai Anh, Pei Zhuan, and I went to the
opera. As it turned out, there were about 10 other BSM students there
too, sitting scattered throughout the 3rd balcony. Yes, we got the $4
nosebleed seats again, but this time, we were sitting closer to the
center of the balcony, so we didn't have to crane our necks to see.
We
saw "Bluebeard's Castle," a one-act opera, and "The
Miraculous
Mandarin," a ballet. The music for both was by Bartok. I
didn't like
the staging of the opera; the set was minimalist, so instead of getting
to see the gorgeous but blood-stained flowers, for example, all we saw
were some soap bubbles. Without understanding the lyrics of the opera
(which were in Hungarian), it looked like the actors just kept doing
the same things over and over.
I enjoyed the ballet more. The stage was set to look like an
apartment, which it was supposed to be, and I felt like I could better
appreciate the orchestra's playing when it was accompanied by the
visual form of dance, than when it was partially covered up by opera
singing.
Well, that's the news for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful
Thanksgiving, and I'll talk to you again soon!
Viszlat,
Abra
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