Howdy, all. Sorry for the lack of updates, this last week I’ve been recovering from what amounts to the worst stomach bug I’ve had in…a few decades, actually! It hasn’t been fantastic. That said, I am all better and exciting events are on the horizon! For now, let me catch you all up on the last two weeks:

  • Sunday (August 25). This is a far way back. I think I explored the Buda side of the city this day, but cannot really remember.
  • Monday-Thursday. Of the three weeks in the language course, this week was by far the toughest. Class started at 9am, we had a 90 minute session, then a 30 minute break, 90 minute session, an hour lunch break, 90 minute session, 15 minute break, then a final 45 minute session that wrapped up at 4pm. The teacher tried to keep the course active and fun with games, especially later on in the day, but this is a lot of information to take in and retain. For prospective students looking for a way to get a head start: consider learning a couple dozen vocabulary words as a starting basis, then jump into learning the grammar suffixes. Fleshing out your vocabulary with things like numbers, places, etc. is the easy part, but the suffixes weigh you down mentally the first time you see them. You’ll do well in the course to already know a bit of what’s coming.
  • Friday-Sunday. Got sick! Not much to say, a blur of sleeping, eating, and antieating.
  • Monday. Monday was exciting, BSM had their first ever official convocation in conjunction with McDaniels of Europe college. The convocation placed students from both schools into the same room to talk for a bit, then the presidents and coordinators of each college spoke. Following the convocation they bused us over to the Danube for a cruise and buffet dinner. Bad time to be sick, but what can you do?
  • Tuesday. Still sick, kept sleeping.
  • Wednesday. While US citizens can enter the EU without a visa or residence permit,they eventually need to obtain the latter to stay in Hungary for more than 3 months. Wednesday the student coordinator got all 50 of the current students together and took us to apply for said permit. BSM does the best in terms of making sure you have everything you need for the application process, but it still ended up being a good 5-6 hour wait for a 15 minute application review. Be prepared!
  • Thursday-Saturday. Slowly starting to feel better, reviewed the language book some.

Not an exciting two weeks, but I promised I’d give an accurate account of the experience, so here you go! The good news is math classes start this next week, along with some events like a World Cup Qualifying match at the stadium close to the BSM school, so stay tuned!