My Dad comes tomorrow!

Well, later today, I guess. Hooray! I'm so excited!

Goodbyes

Last night I had dinner with and said goodbye to Bill, pictured above. Bill was totally my mentor when I first arrived to Hungary, and became one of my best friends. He's one of the best people that I'm sure I will ever have the pleasure of knowing.

Goodbyes and see-you-laters. Such is the life of the expat. Goodbye (so far) to David and Barbara, Dave and his kids, Kenzie, and now Bill. Many more to come. So it is.

"Now now. No tears."
"Oh, they're happening. They're happening right now."

Farewell to Madrid

My visit to Madrid a few weeks ago was an excuse to see my friends and eat delicious food. It was also an excuse to bid farewell to a city that has been with me from my tender teenage years. I first spent time in Madrid while studying abroad. I have returned at least yearly since, including to live there again during my masters.

For a long time, I thought Spain was where I would eventually make my home. It was my first love, so to speak. The first different place I lived as an adult. My first foreign country, outside of Canada and Mexico, that I remember clearly. It was the first place where I felt history seeping through stones and into my fingertips. It was the first (and second) place where I fell in love. And while Madrid has never been my favorite part of Spain, in many ways it has grown to be my part of Spain. I hop off the plane and am home again, casually chatting in a language that comes so easily to me, navigating the city without a thought and popping into favorite places. 

I am leaving Europe after five straight years here, plus my time studying abroad and the two years I spent obsessed with getting back to Europe after that. I am excited, but I am also terrified. I try to remember how very hard living in new places was for younger-me. The challenges I overcame, the loneliness I suffered, the many times I was lost. I try to remember these because they feel so far away now. I am comfortable in Europe. I am at home. And I am leaving this home I've made for myself to go carve out a grand new adventure in a new and totally different part of the world. 

While I have spent the majority of my time in Europe away from Spain, it was always close, a comforting presence there for me to escape to. Now it will be so far away.

So I went to Madrid. I sat in the sun and lay in the parks. I rubbed my hands on old sandstone buildings. I promised Quijote that I would keep tilting at windmills. I felt the strange southern wind dance across my cheeks, that wind that exists only in Spain and even more uniquely in Madrid. And I said goodbye. And I promised to return.

It's Done

Camp has finished. I have been paid. I am done with the Foundation. I'm free!

A camp ending Tuesday...

is pretty much the only time I've ever been so darn happy that it is Monday.

A fizzle

Yesterday was Krudy's closing ceremony. We stood in the hot evening sun for an hour or so while the eighth graders were honored, along with the good students and a few teachers. I cried, quietly and under my sunglasses, when I heard Himnusz played for what will probably be the last time. Then the ceremony ended and we all went upstairs. I said goodbye to a few students. Then we all sort of grabbed our stuff and left.

The year-closing meeting is on Tuesday, and I'll still be at camp. So I won't say goodbye to hardly anyone. Which is for the best, because I'll be less of a disgusting crybaby. But it was a strange and anticlimactic end to the year- to the years- for sure.

I got my placement!

I'm officially off to Daejeon, South Korea in August!

Festivals

One thing that I love about life in Budapest is all the many, many festivals. It can actually become exhausting trying to keep up with all of them! Last weekend I visited the Fozdefeszt, one of my favorite festivals. It features craft beer from all over Hungary and even some neighboring countries. Fantastically, there is no cover charge, so you can just stop by without the pressure of getting your money's worth. Best of all, though, is getting to drink something that is not a gross light-colored lager for once. IPAs, stouts, ales, and more are all available to be tasted. It's a great time, and something that I really recommend in Budapest.

bitter chocolate in my hands

(This photo was taken by Rebecca Sangster-Kelly. Check out all her work here!)

A Comment

From my Dad's best friend, who is a really cool guy with a really cool family that was immediately warm and welcoming to me the first time we met, one of the coolest things I've been told in recent months:

Lauren - dream girl for the eligible bachelors of the planet...intelligent, interesting, independent, 

international and beautiful (I ran out of "I's for that alliteration). But they're not worthy. This is your 

time and you alone have the helm!

My Madrid Friends

Jess, me, Mary

Chelsi, Mary, Leandro

me and Chelsi

Mary and I

me and Hernan

Finalized

My parents' divorce was finalized today. My mother posted about it on facebook. My father said nothing. I guess that this is me, blogging about it.

It still seems so strange.

Madrid Food

Welcome to my culinary tour of my weekend visit to Madrid. "What did you do in three days in Madrid?" people ask. "I saw my friends, I lay in the sunshine, and I ate food," I answer.

Croquetas de chorizo y de anchoas y queso (Sausage Croquettes and Anchovy and Cheese Croquettes) at the Amazing Javier Martin's Cafe near La Latina. 

salmorejo

olives and "una tostada" at Naturbier in Plaza Santa Ana

taster pinxos at Plan B in Lavapies

serious pinxos at Plan B: chorizo with onions and peppers, "una bomba," gulas, cheese with carmelized mushrooms...

Mary's boyfriend, Leandro, was kind enough to invite me for some pulpo. You have to dip it in the water three times, or else the skin falls off and it isn't beautiful to eat.

pulpo a la gallega y un torito

aceitunas

Hernan, my old roomie, was also kind enough to invite me for lunch: salad with the most beautiful tomatoes I've seen in ages, chorizo, vino tinto, and steak milanesa. Om nom.

the steak milanesa

Not pictured: my first "breakfast of champions" consisting of a whole bowl of boquerones, some more salmorejo, and muesli. A perfectly content snack of doritos, eaten while laying in bed during a siesta and radiating waves of happiness. Plenty of cider and tinto de verano. A visit to El Tigre and the mountain of questionable tapas consumed there. Lots more salmorejo. A pan tumaca and several cafes con leche. A bacon bocadillo. 

6492

That is the approximate number of times per day I check my email, waiting to hear back about a placement in Korea...

June is such madness.

Forgive me, forgive me. All will go back to normal on Thursday, for at least a week. I promise many blogs soon.

Camp Songs

Singing camp songs around a fire with my seventh graders under the stars adds up to equal parts sadness, happiness, and nostalgia. Camp has been such an adventure. These kids and Hungary itself has been such an adventure.

Reports

At the end of each school year, we have to write reports. One paragraph per student in every subject in every grade we teach. Plus one "general" paragraph about each student in our main class. Of course they can't be done ahead of time because they have to reflect the final grades. So we are all typing like crazy, bitching like crazy, trying to get it all done.

It's such an exercise in creativity, too. How to say nicely that a student has a low grade because they're lazy? Or that a student has a good grade only because of an innate gift with languages? How to avoid praising some students too much, and others not enough?

It's certainly my most challenging use of English all year!

I agree!

Baby Pomeranians for world peace!

Being alone

I just went to the baths with some friends. Then one friend and I sat to have a beer. She had to run. In the past, I would have gulped down my beer and left at the same time as her. But instead I'm sitting here, sipping the rest of my tasty dubbel, people watching and soaking up the sun. The ability to be alone is one that I am very glad to have developed!