6-19 First Day in Hungary
So who can say “best field trip ever?” Apparently the Nanovic Institute at ND since they set up and sent us on this sweet trip we’re on now (no charge for us). So expectations about Hungary: a cold, wet desolate communist-stricken country trying to piece back together its government. Only notable for a peppy dance whose many interpretations can be found on cell phones worldwide and a fictional dragon named Norbert from J. K. Rowling’s imagination. So far, it’s been my favorite country. Ever.
A few days ago, we were given an itinerary about our stay and it included things like lectures and other boring stuff, allowing us only a half a day in the large capital of Budapest (Ricky suggests at least 2 days). We were expecting a depressing country and an even more unbearable field trip ‘education’ experience. Today started early with us waking up in our Viennese hostel, grumbling about the French group of girls who would not shut up the night before, and enjoying another hearty hostel-breakfast. We then took 3 modes of transportation to the train for the 3.5 hour ride to Budapest. There were no compartments in the train unfortunately, so no HP time. During the ride, we brushed up on the fascinating history of the country, customs, and we tried to memorize some key Hungarian phrases (I keep forgetting them and when I thank someone I usually mumble something between English ‘thanks’ and German ‘danke’ it seems to do the trick).
Arriving in Budapest was really cool. The city has a fascinating mixture of all baroque/classical structures with paint poetically peeling off, communist functional structures and new, modern, western-influenced office buildings. In the train station we were unexpectantly greeted by a number of friendly, English speaking Hungarian students from the university we are staying at.
It was really nice of them. We then rode on a 40 minute bus with them to Estergom, outside the city. On the way the students chatted with us as they were excited to practice their English on native English speakers. We arrived at a basilica randomly in this small town, took a tour (in German, much to the dismay of the Hungarians) and climbed the tower 
(it was there and had to be done) to view Slovakia across the river. This part of Slovakia used to be Hungary but were taken away after WWI as punishment to Hungary for fighting on the losing side. The Hungarians here (and in Czech and Transylvania, Romania) have always associated themselves as Hungarian, refusing to change their language, and really held onto their traditions. Therefore Hungarian traditions, folklore, and music are most preserved in these areas.Afterwards, we drove to the small catholic university we were staying at of about 5,000 students in the middle of nowhere. We were given some teacher apartments to stay in (with a loft with beds and a bathroom) which we were really excited about. We had a few hours to spare, so some students invited us to the local and only pub in town that all of the university students go to. There we were able to get a hefty pre-dinner buzz for only about 2-euro! We also discovered palinka, essentially a fruit flavored vodka that all the locals seem to love. Imagine vodka with a smooth fruit aftertaste. During this time we had finally discovered the score to the Michigan ND game (it was Sunday afternoon) and we all started to get depressed. But then we realized we weren’t at ND and there was nowhere else in the world we would rather be than right there in this middle of nowhere Hungarian pub with these students. It was an interesting environment. Drunk old men kept trying to talk to me but I had absolutely no idea what they were trying to say. The Hungarian language is complicated and every word is at least 3 syllables long. Their toast is something like 10 syllables long.
After pubtime, we went to the welcome dinner at the university. Traditional Hungarian fare and fun were served as we were accompanied by a folk band. Then a traditional dancer man with a sweet handlebar moustache got up and started doing a dance that involved a lot of jumping and slapping. He then invited us all up with him and he attempted to teach us to dance, it was pretty amazing. Here are some of my favorite parts of that experience:Gürtler trying to stay in tempo
The fact that the only English words he knew were “left, right, okay, and nice to meet you!”
A Hungarian conga line where the leader got to swing a broom around and slap people on the but with it
Fiddler on the Roof-esque circle dances
We closed the evening with another unforgettable visit to the local pub. There I tried Unicum, Hungary’s national drink. It’s essentially a grappa, made from 50 some herbs that was (and still is) used as a stomach settler. Imagine every herbal flavor in the world mixed with potent sinus-cleansing liquor. Top it off with a harsh bitter aftertaste that punches your taste buds numb for the next 15 minutes. We also learned three different ways of saying cheers: 1. Not clinking glasses because some Hapsburg emperor clinked beer glasses when executing favored Hungarian rulers. 2. Clinking glasses anyways and saying ‘screw it’ because it happened 200 years ago. 3. Clinking glasses and saying something that sounded like “Balsamic Highno” essentially ‘F*** him, Highno’ in Hungarian. The latter was of course our favorite. By the end of the evening, some of the people in our group couldn’t remember what the cheer was and ended up giving up and cheering “Fuck-achino!!!” We’re not really sure what that came from, I guess a mixture of the f-word and an Italian based food. Tomorrow should prove to be even more interesting since our schedule has the evening planned out as being “Budapest nightlife with Hungarian students.”
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