Bugs and Budapest

Today was a "lazy day." I got to sleep in (yay!), but missed out on going to the Milk Market with friends. Turns out, you catch colds really easily when you stay up for 27 hours and are on an airplane for so long. I now have no voice, a stuffed nose, and watery eyes. New places, new viruses I guess! The no voice thing is getting incredibly frustrating, as I can't sing to myself to de-stress. We'll see how the week of classes ahead of me goes! 

Suleyman's Pin from Turkey

Last night is what the International Society here at UL calls "TGIF". It stands for the same thing here as it does in the States, but it is an interesting concept. To explain it shortly, it is basically one big international party at The Stables (the on-campus pub. I will refer to it frequently from now on, it is a great place to hang out). Last night's first TGIF was "speed dating". Everyone put on a name tag, and where they were from, and had two minutes to talk to someone they had never talked to before, then moved on for the next two minutes, and so on. I met a boy from Pennsylvania, a girl from Ontario, a boy from Turkey (so cool!), and an Irish boy. It was a lot of fun. The boy from Turkey, Suleyman (not kidding), at the end of the conversation gave me a little safety pin with a blue bead (it looked like it had an eye painted on it). He told me it was a tradition, that you pin it to your clothes and it symbolizes protection. It was really cool! 

Yesterday also, Andy Steves (the son of the travel expert Rick Steves) came to talk to us about his company, Weekend Student Adventures. Basically, he organizes trips specifically designed for students studying abroad to various cities throughout Europe. They are inexpensive and a lot of fun, it sounds like! It is cheaper to organize my own trips, which I will be doing throughout the semester, but for the cities that I am less familiar with (culturally, etc), it is safer to do it this way. Therefore, we got a big group together that decided we really want to visit Budapest through this program. I was also interested in maybe going to Prague with them, but we'll see what I can work out. I never even thought about visiting Budapest, but it sounds so amazing! This is the link to the information about it! If we can get ten of us on the same trip, we also get a group discount, and finding two more is all we need! 

Today I finally met one of my Irish housemates. She lives at the end of the hall and is a fourth year here at UL. Her name is Orla, and she was super nice and friendly. Being in her final semester at school, she warned me that she is very busy (I believe her, she has been here for two days and I hadn't seen her yet). The Irish boy directly across the hall from me is named Kevin, and I was told he will be here tomorrow. We will then have a full house! The two Irish contacts will be so helpful, and Orla has been living in this same house for two years and has had mostly American roommates, so she knows what's up! She joked that she has more American friends than she does Irish because she always lives with them. It will be interesting to talk to her more throughout the semester!