RTgoes2spain: December 2011

Finally, I have come to the end of all my blog updates for my trip abroad to Spain! Whew! Only took me a little longer than 5 months from when I came home from Spain to finish! haha

I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to go to Spain and teach. It definitely satisfied my longing and craving to go back abroad before settling down into a more stable teaching career here in the States. I made some amazing friends who will always be family to me. I learned so much about culture. About people. About language. About stereotypes. About food. About myself....

This blog was an amazing outlet to vent, to share, to stay in contact. I look forward to having it made into a book to keep as a memory forever.

As I wrap up, I would like to say I think the biggest thing I learned from this trip is that traveling as much as possible is the healthiest thing a person can do. It opens up the mind. It teaches you about other people and cultures in the world, while also allowing you to learn more about yourself at the same time. I know traveling is expensive and can be a scary thing if done alone, but make the most of any opportunity you may get!! Open-mindedness leads to a happier and more satisfying life.

Muchos besos.
Rachel

So these first few pictures are not going to mean as much to you as they do me, but I am still going to try to describe this ridiculous experience! Upon arriving to our hotel in Budapest, one of the other teachers tells me that two of the students are sick and need me to go with them to translate at the doctor. Ok, no problem.

I go to the front desk to ask about the nearest doctor and where they recommend we go. The man working at the desk was probably one of the coldest people I have ever come in contact with. He spoke English and circled a hospital on the crazy looking city map. I told him we thought the students just had Strep and needed prescriptions, so that if he knew of any urgent care type places or doctor offices that maybe that would be better. He quickly snaps at us saying that was the only place he knew of. Ok then! A Hungarian hospital it is!

He called a taxi and rambled to him in Hungarian our destination. Luckily the taxi driver was much more pleasant and spoke some English. He drops us off in the basement of the hospital where we are then greeted by a desk of nurses who spoke zero English. Thank goodness there was a crazy looking patient around who knew a bit of English, enough that we could basically play charades and use words here and there to figure out that we could not be helped at that hospital that night because it just so happened to be the night of Gastrology. Fantastic. So they recommended we go to another hospital about 10 minutes away.

Now this is the place where I wish I had taken video...no pictures can describe it fully....

We pull up to this church-looking building. We were instructed by the nice cab driver to go up to the door, knock, and a tiny window/door would slide open. Sure enough, the little door slid open and I see a big lady's face. She says something in Hungarian...I said, um yeah we have two sick patients?? She said nothing. Closed the tiny window/door and opened the big door. She motioned us to follow her into a rickety elevator. We arrive to one of the floors where no joke, it looked like it was the set location for the movie "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". We proceeded to wait for EVER, sitting in a hallway where crazy looking patients walked back and forth with straight up mummy bandages wrapped on their heads. So bizarre. Finally, the doctor comes out to tell us she is pretty busy. I said please, we just arrived, we think they just have Strep throat, could you please see them....we will wait. She was nice and agreed. The two students were finally seen and she gave them prescriptions. Again, the pictures don't even come close to portraying the actual creepiness of this place, but you can take a look and imagine at least....

(I'm not sure why I didn't break up this big long post into little different Budapest posts...oh well, everything's finally uploaded and I'm not changing it!)

Here is the next day at the beginning of our Budapest city tour.

I love this next picture with the random student dashing across the statue in the background....

The outdoor dining is definitely something I miss about the European lifestyle...I mean we have patio seating in the United States, but it's just different...

The beautiful catedral in Budapest.

Here is one of the main streets for touristy shopping and dining

Even though I got along with my students more like friends, I tended to go out to lunch and dinner with the other teachers during free time just...because I felt like it was the appropriate thing to do. But to be honest, by this time in the end of the trip, I had had enough meals with closed-minded Spanish adults who complained about everything and ANYTHING that was different from Spanish food. So the next few pictures are from a restaurant when I decided to go with some of my students to actually ENJOY a meal of new food and culture. There were some students I had noticed throughout the trip that are close-minded too, but these girls were great. I was so proud of them for trying new food and not being afraid to actually ADMIT that they liked it.

Here are a few pictures from out Opera House tour.

Strange statue outside the opera with boobs? Sure, why not? Standing next to the statue is our tour guide. She was awesome and spoke Spanish very well.

You had to pay to be able to take pictures outside of the main lobby of the opera house. So....here is my one picture from the main lobby! :)

Now this tour of the Parlamento was really cool.....This building is absolutely enormous and it is very old---finished in 1896 or something like that.

Now these next few pictures are taken from the internet! Ha! I was never in the right place to be able to take a picture from the front. You'll see why I just HAD to include these pictures. This building, along with La Alhambra in Granada, is one of my favorite buildings from my entire trip in Europe.

This is the Blue Danube River. (Which I learned separates the "Buda" and "Pest" sides.)

This main hall where the meetings take place is absolutely breathtaking...

This was a cool little tidbit of information on the tour. Outside of the main meeting hall, you see these velvet benches. It was pointed out that above them on the windowsills are little cigar holders for back in the day when smoking was allowed in the building. Our tour guide said that politicians and speakers would come out, take a couple drags on their cigars, and then leave them in a cigar slot while they would go back in to speak.

The following pictures are from a balneario (spa) in Budapest. So incredibly relaxing. These pictures are taken in the outdoor section, but there were also so many hot and cold pools inside.

Now if I had been in Spain, I would not have ordered this particular adult beverage in the afternoon because it is highly judged to drink anything besides beer or wine during the day in Spain. Copitas (mixed drink cocktails) are ONLY acceptable (acceptable meaning they won't judge you, but you can still order them) AFTER you eat or at night---NOT before or with a meal haha. I learned that the hard way!