Turkey Day in Hungary.

11:31 pm CET

First of all, happy Thanksgiving to you, my dear readers! If I thought I missed home before, it's nothing compared to what I'm feeling today. I miss waking up early to watch the Macy's and Detroit parades; I miss lazing around all day waiting for the big meal; I miss being surrounded by family, even if we always end up driving one another nuts; and I really miss pumpkin pie (Hungarians think it's weird). Though this Thanksgiving ended up being entertaining and well worth the several hours of work, I still miss being at home for the holiday; it's just not the same!

So this week has been... kind of terrible, to be honest. The course is crazy difficult (so much math; it makes me want to just put my head on the desk and cry) and incredibly boring (I must have played over a hundred games of solitaire on my laptop while zoning out in class, not to mention drawing an entire page of panels for "The Philosophizer," a superhero comic for Jane). That said, I haven't paid even the slightest bit of attention to anything the professor has said in the past four days. Hopefully this take-home exam won't be too bad, and the few notes I have will be somewhat suffiicient in at least helping me understand the questions...

On Tuesday we had our last Hungarian Culture class. It was about music, and the guest professor they brought in to present the lecture was this old guy (he must have been in his eighties) who was a conductor and composer for an orchestra here in Budapest for thirty-something years. He was pretty much insane; he sang and danced around and laughed at nothing and was basically losing his mind as we watched. He was adorable and very enthusiastic, and he gave an energetic and hilarious lecture, for which all of us were extremely grateful.

Today was a little chaotic. After completely spacing out in class (again), Carrie and I went to Keleti train station to buy our tickets for Salzburg (oh yeah, in case I haven't mentioned it yet [I don't think I have...], Carrie and I are going to Salzburg, Austria this weekend! Yay!). We had a little mix-up with the dates (because we were exhausted and thus braindead), but we figured it out after making complete idiots of ourselves to the lady working at the ticket counter. Once we had our correct tickets, we walked from the station to the Aréna Plaza so we could buy tickets for those of us going to see Harry Potter tomorrow (FINALLY). The mall is huge and full of really great stores and stuff, and we managed to get lost trying to find the movie theatre. Turns out it was right in front of us the entire time (how we missed it, we'll never know; it is massive), so we went upstairs and got in line. The guy who was helping us didn't speak much English, so trying to procure tickets was a pain and a half. If everything worked out correctly, we have twelve seats reserved for tomorrow night's showing in English with Hungarian subtitles. We're planning on going much earlier than necessary to make sure it's all in order, so that way, if it's not, we'll have time to fix it. After that mind-boggling language barrier adventure, Carrie and I decided to alleviate the brain pain and get some delicious Häagen-Dazs ice cream that had been beckoning to us since we passed the shop on our way to the movie theatre. A very good decision, if I do say so m'self. A very good decision, indeed.

All in all, I didn't do much this week, though. Lots of sleeping, reading, and movie-watching, but that's mostly because halfway through the week, all of us lost our internet. Apparently we needed to register our computers, so now that that has been done, the excrutiating idleness of not having a connection is finally gone. Now I'm just idle, but with internet access.

The preparation for dinner and the feast itself tonight were lots of fun, and I'm glad we had the chance to get together (mostly; a few of us were absent). We're going to have leftovers for a month, and I probably won't have to eat again for that long a time, either. For now, however, there will be no more thinking about food or school or anything; I think that tryptophan is starting to kick in...