Easter in Budapest

Friday:
Talking about spontanous. Easter is coming up and I go to lunch with Anja at the mensa. First of all we had to find one which is open, cause of Easter holidays. The mensa was never that empty before! Anja told me she made her final decision about going to Budapest. And she was going.
Later that day she wrote me on facebook, that Daniel and Carol (the other two interns left here) decided also to go. That was around 6 pm. So here I am with two choices:
a) going to Budapest and spending my last savings from this month on that
b) or staying in Belgrad with basically everybody gone as the Serbians went home to their families for the weekend.
So I was thinking and then finally packing!

We took the night train around 9 pm. We got a train compartment with two ERASMUS students from Budapest and we tried to sleep. I ended up at the floor at one point as this was the most comfortable place - Seriously! It was pretty hard to sleep cause there was always somebody coming in: Serbian controller, Serbian passport control at the boarder, Hungarian passport control at the boarder and then Hungarian controller. They are very serious people and kind of scary - Passports!!!! One of them really liked the Brasilian passports.


Saturday:
We finally reached Budapest around 5 am. We wanted to get a map at the tourist info, but it was closed. But I was actually able to remember all the ways around the city :-). We were looking for a place to eat breakfast and the first place which came to our mind at this time: McDonald. Problem: we were at several and they all would open at 7 am. And we had a new ides: a Mc Map. For all the Mc Donalds in towns with opening hours ;-b.

So we spend some time walking around the tourist streets in the city and at the market hall and then we went to search for a hostel. Which was not that successful. Four hostels later it seemd like all the hostel were booked or reserves at the city and a hostel employee was very helpful then and booked a cheap hotel for us incl. breakfast.

The hotel was at the Buda site up the hill close to the Gallerthill. So after checking in we climbed up the Gallerthill. And enjoyed the beautiful sight. Afterwards I was chassing Daniel and Carol around the city so the could see all the important places :-D: Gallert bath, fashion street, market hall (eat a studel), St. Istvan Cathedral, Andrasy utca, Heroes Square, City park ...

We wanted to meet Anna, who picked up her boyfriend at the trainstation, what proved to be very complicated as our cell phones were all not working that well. Later we found out we were probably at the same meeting point at the same time, but we didn't see eachother.

At the city park we were laying down in the grass, enjoying the sun and resting our feet.
Afterwards we took the tram to Deak ter to go to a supermarket just in case nothing would be open on Sunday, to buy some water and for me some things to bring to Belgrad, which are soooooo good in Budapest.

The shower in the hotel felt very good that night and we fell in our beds.

Sunday:
Actually Saturday was the day of the sun (really hot and me getting red again) and Sunday the day of the drizzle.
The breakfast was great and then we had to check out. Which ment for my pulling my suitcase behind me for the rest of the day. **** - I will never again go away for a weekend with a suitcase. It was not heavy, but that it survived that day made the Brasilians think about buying a German suitcase. German Quality ;-b.
Still we went up the castle hill with lots of other people that had the same idea. Still it was nice. Afterwards walking through the city again, checking out lots of souvenir shops and stopping at one of my favourite restaurants with this great garlic soup :-).
And then walking all the way to the train station to check when our trian will go. It didn't go earlier then we guessed - it went a 11.30 pm. Arena plaza (the big shopping center next to the trainstation) was kind of open. So we went to the food court there and I went to watch a movies, as I didn't want to wait 4 hours without doing anything. I watched "Limitless" with Bradley Cooper - was pretty good.
6 h later and lots of controls again, we arrived back in Belgrad.
GREAT weekend! And I have to say I really missed Budapest and I think it it a beautiful city!

Global week

Global Week:
Last week was about internationality. After being invited to a Global Village, that was then canceled due to the wheather, their was another one. We actually thought that it was the same one, but then we learned that there are actually two Global Villages as there are three AIESEC LCs in Belgrade. It was really confusing.
But we went to the Global Village first from the LC where Carol is. This LC was having a project with high school students "hands of the world" or sth. like that. So they asked as to join them for a Global Village for the closing of the project. Not expecting to have a Global Village at all I was actually not having any German stuff anymore. But I had my flag, some flip charts and I bought some gummibears and "Kinderschokoloade". But they didn't really tast like those you can buy in Germany. So I also had some flipcharts and some German music as I want people to know that there are other German musicians as Rammstein and Modern Talking.
One of the students really came up to me: "You should meet my friend, he really likes Hitler." I really don't want to meet his friend and I was starting to talk with him about, why I do not like Hitler. But some people really were interested about Germany and I had some great talks.

The second Global Village was the next week. Or was supposed to be. It was canceled then at the place as it was in a city park and the LC had the allowance of the government, but they would have also needed the allowance of the city. So instead of the global village we were just chatting with the members of the LC, drinking energy drinks and enjoying the sun. Afterwards we walked around the city with an intern from Mexico, who was there just for one day (her host LC was LC Novi Sad). We also went to the bohemian quarter. This street is full of Serbian restaurants with music at night and the walls are painted with colors so that grey walls look like the most beautiful buildings.



The last things that happend in between was the Brasilian night at the interns appartment. I made some "Kässpätzle" so it was also a little bit a German night. Everybody liked it a lot. And we had really great Caipirinha.
Zelko brought his guitar so we were also singing and he is really an amazing guitar player!

Afterwards we went to one of Lazars friends that lived close to drink some homemade Serbian Rakja. It was really strong!!!!! I drank two and decided not to drink a third. Afterwards I crashed at the interns place as I didn't know how to get home at that time of night.


Saying Goodbye:
It was also the week of goodbyes. Petar went home to Croatia. That was really sad for me as he was the only intern left in the hostel besides me. Now I was the most of the time alone in my room and caught myself starring at Lindas and Petars bed and missing them.

And then Mirsini and Alana came back from their trip to Bosnia and Croatia. And Mirsini was leaving the next day for Greece and Alana would go also to visit her there. So I met them at the hostel, they got some food and we went to Kalmegdan to enjoy the sunset.



Food, Flute and other things:

Anja and and the fluete search :-D! Her boyfriend plays the fluete and also collects this instrument. So she was looking for one for him as a consequence she was getting help from our Serbian teammates and talked probably to all the flute players in the street. (News: Today she got it finally 29.04.2011).


And the food in Serbia. We went to this famous place for tourist. The questionmark. We were sitting outside and then finding out that Carol and Daniel were sitting inside :-D! This restaurant is in a really old house which used to be just a normal house and not a restaurant. Very nice atmosphere.
Besides that we went to another restaurant after the first Global Village. This was really funny. The waiter was such a clown. He was making fun of everything! In the end he cleaned our table with a hand vacuum cleaner :-)! We got sooooooo much food! Danile and Carols meet was still sizzling and Anjas soup was more a soup bowl for a whole family. Yummy!




There was a demonstration at the last Saturday before Budapest. The opposition of the current government demonstrated and lots of people were walking throught the streets for hours. Directly passing my hostel and they sounded like elephants. So I waited till the afternoon to leave the hostel.

And on Sunday after the Brasilian night we went to Ada Island. That is an island in the middle of the Sava river with a huge park with everything: restaurants, golf, football, baseball fields, paint ball, beach, waterski, ...
Daniel and I drove around the island with some rented cars and Anja was reading something on the beach.

Anja and I also started to go for lunch in the mensa. And I have to say though the food looks strange - I really like it. I'm especially fond of Schnitzel with a kind of almost "beansoup".

And to end this blog entry: my search for suncream. When the sun came it was sooooo warm and I got red - like a lobster ;-b. So I tried to buy some suncream, but I couldn't find any. I guess Serbian skin is not that light as mine and they start to need suncream much later.

The iron gate and - humans or pigs?

Marketing Focus:
April really has it here! The wheather is changing within a snip. And I'm sick - AGAIN. *** A new girl from Ukrain arrived last week and we went to drink a coffee at the river bench. That took us pretty long as the waiters were ignoring us - scared, cause we spoke English. But we finally got something in the end. In the evening we met with the teammates from Marketing Foucs (the project im working on) in a students domitory. The studente domitory is huge and there are trees in front where a bunch of birds are breading.
You have to give your passport or ID to the guy at the entrance, so he knows who is visiting whom. Kind of weird! The reason seems to be, that they don't want to have people randomly sleeping there illegal. They have corckroaches - Ihhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
How does it look like in a Serbian domitory? Well they usually share their room. So this room was shared by three girls (but one of them doesn't really live there). And each of them has a bed and a desk. The bathroom is made of plastic - the whole room.
So we were there and tried brasilian "tea" and some candy. And we just had a great time talking, eating and drinking.

The next day: Monday. Instead of having the meeting at the university we went to a cafe. They had a drink called "helga". I thought that was really funny, so I drank it - and it was delicious.

The mensa and reception:
We interns are supposed to get free lunch at the mensa here. But it doesn't really work as we have to upload money on our cards and you can only do that at a specific place and none of us intern knew where it was. Then one of us knew and we went there on Monday, BUT it was 1 to 2 and at 2 the thing closes :-(.
Then today (Thursday) we went with guys from the project, but they had an IT failure. It is doomed! But we ate in the mensa and today the food was actually edible.

The iron gate:
On Tuesday we went on a daytrip to the iron gate. That's a huge canyon the Danube forged into the "mountains". And there is a nature park where the Danube stands as the border between Serbia and Romania and there a lots of old castles, caves, ... on the way. It's just beautiful. They even habe this big stone head in the wall of an old king.
So the view was great, BUT .... BUT ... we only saw everything from the bus :-(.
The plan was to go by bus to this place in the middle of the park and we were hoping that there would be a boot, a walking route or anything to see the iron gate. But there the woman in the tourist information told us, that we would need a car. And so we went on with the bus instead and saw the iron gate through the windows of the bus. We got out at a stop a woman told us to get out and that was a boring place. I think she just wanted to get rid of us. There was kind of like a camp, one store and a very strange restaurant. So we went hungry as the store only sold chips, cookies and chocolate - NO REAL FOOD.
So we spent two hours being ironique and sarcastic - enjoying the sun.
Then we had to get back in the bus and the woman there could only speak German and told me that the bus would come at four. It didn't come on time and everybody was starting to freak out: in the middle of nowhere and maybe missing the last bus back to Belgrad. BUT I was totally calm - yeah, take that stereotypes ;-b!
So it was a nice day, but not as great as expected. The next time I'll go there with a car or bike.

In Comparison and Co

Last evening with Linda
Linda went back to Germany last Thursday. So Wednesday night was hers. We went to a palacinca place: yummy! And then to drink a coctail. In comparison to Germany, they are below happy hour prices ;-b.
Also one of these last days of Lindas we have been at the park next to our hostel and there was this homeless dog. There a lot of homeless dogs around here. They seem pretty happy laying in the sun or at the grass, but still sometimes I wonder what will happen to them. Will they enjoy their freedom, what the heck do they eat, will a mean man catch them and kill them (cliche) ...

In Comparison
From Friday till Sunday afternoon I was in Bonn for AIESEC planning days. Being in Germany for some days and coming back is the chance to see what is really different.
So on Friday I went to the airport by bus. This is the airport of the capital city and it seemed like that the most flights go to Munich and to Paris. My flight went to cologne. And duty free shopping is not really cheap in neither country.
The airport in Cologne is much bigger then the one in Belgrad and there are much more stores. But the one in Belgrad currently has more interesting stuff to buy ;-b.
Communication is different for me - as you can imagine. People in Begrad don't always understand me, so I use my hands a lot (imagine me explaining w/o words that I need a spoon ;-)) and I look a lot. In context I understand a lot of things, as nonverbal signs here are about the same as in Germany. So understanding suddenly everything in Germany was (again) weird.
Also in Germany you just can see that we have money. Everything is renovated, clean, there are more bigs stores ... In Belgrad there is just a lot of grey houses, which would need paint. There is trash in the streets and sometimes flying through the air (I saw a plastic bag from the window of the hostel). And I always feel bad, when I have another plastic bottle from the store and I throw away a plastic bottle w/o recycling it.
As we went shopping for food in Germany the guys from my team carried everything in their hands, hoodies, pockets ... so they didn't need to buy lots of plastic bags.
Back in Belgrad I felt like a piece of meet and the taxi drivers were attacking me. But I took the bus again!
And yes, there are some buildings from the NATO bombing still standing. But that was just like 10 years ago. And I think having that in mind and that their economy is not the strongest, the city and its people are really great and make the best out of it!

This week:
This week not so many things happend. The conference (workshop and lecture presentations) of my project happens, but I kind of got "uninvited" as everything will be in Serbian. So I have free time. I went jogging along the river bench the other day and that was just beautiful! They have so many nice cafes there and the view is incredible.
And I went shopping at the shopping center. I didn't by that much, but I found out that they have laser tag there. So now I hopefully will play that with the other interns ;-b!
That's it for now.