Last Day of Games

Well, today is the last day. I can't believe how quickly the week flew by. The first couple days I felt nervous and I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the week. Now, I wish there were still more days. I guess it always works out that way. I've been slacking on the blogs lately so I'll have to catch you up.

Thursday we had another day off and we went into Budapest. It was an amazing fun day. 9 of us took the 2 hour drive down and we started out in Hero's Square which is right in the middle of the city. It's got like two blocks of flat stone laid on the ground and then these HUGE statues jutting up in the middle. Visually it was pretty neat. Then we went to a castle, the citadel (which is a monument thanking the Russian army for giving Hungary back their independence - how nice of them). Then we went to this open air market that was so fun. I bought a palacinta for 90 forint (50cents!). They had every kind of meat, cheese, fruit, pastry, paprika, tablecloths, dolls, tshirts etc... that you would never use but at the moment it all seems like the best thing in the world to buy. I controlled myself and mostly just bought more palacinta. Then we took a nice stroll along the banks of the Danube which separates Buda from Pest. (Walking along the Danube is almost as nice as the Schuylkill...well, almost) It's a beautiful city which huge bridges spanning the river that were really nice to look at. It helped that we had a 70 degree day. After that we ate dinner at a great Hungarian restaurant and then went to a church which was probably one of the biggest churches I've ever seen. I think it was Matthius Church. They have all the buildings beautifully lit and it was just a really great day. At one of the castles there was a sign that had some Hungarian words and one of them was csilug (chee-lug) and I yelled, that's what my Grandma calls me! In Hungarian Csilug means "star" I think someone explained it like "the light of my life". It made me smile and think of her.

Tonight Mom and Marika come and they'll get to watch me work my last game. Hungary vs. Korea. I'm excited they'll get to see me work and just to see them in general. Tomorrow everyone else is leaving and I think we're going to go to a cave bath (I think it's kind of like a spa/pool type thing) and then on a tour before we head back to Agi's house in Budapest.

I guess I should start packing. Last call for any requests of gifts to bring home!