Catch up

Once again, I apologize for not keeping up on posting my blogs. Because of this, and because I have so much to catch you all up on, I will be writing a few shorter blogs. To save data, I will not be posting photos to this blog, but only to my facebook account, so please check them out there.

Since the last time I posted, life has been a rollercoaster. There have been so many ups and downs: break ups and reunions, new friends and lost friends, family seen and friends missed, good grades and bad, and so much more. I have managed not to horribly hurt myself once again, and even brought up the nerve to return to the baths where I had fallen previously. I have visited my cousin Janet and her Husband in Mosbach, Germany, gone boldering, watched my new favorite movie How to Train Your Dragon, met a new close friend Chris and have gotten closer to others. Throughout all of this, I have horribly missed home and desperately wished to return, but I have still managed to have a great time and enjoy my time in Budapest. I only have one month left, and I intend to make the most of it (while in the back of my mind I will be counting down the days to my return).

For my first blog post, I'd like to talk to you about my new friend Chris. I met him about two weeks ago, and he is an amazing person. He is a friend of another girl in the program and came to visit her for an extended time period. You see, Chris does not work, he does not go to school, but at the same time he makes enough money to survive and I know that he has much more world knowledge than I do. Chris travels. He dropped out of college and flew to Europe with what he had left in savings plus a little help from family. He volunteers at hostels and farms when he can and gets paid with a roof over his head and some food. He has been bouncing around between many different countries since January, and I was lucky enough to get to know him while both him and I were here in Budapest. I am very lucky to have met him.

Chris is an amazing person. He truly does not care what others think of him, and he tries to help his friends feel the same way. He is comfortable taking risks if need be, he's comfortable sleeping on the streets if he cannot find a bed; he's comfortable sleeping at the homes of complete strangers because he knows by the next day that they will no longer be strangers; he hitches rides all across the country- he blows my mind with what he can do. Thing is, he rarely needs to go out of the comfort zone of most people (as long as you're okay with hitching rides). He plans ahead where he will sleep and if he feels that he has overdone his welcome, he finds somewhere else to stay. He tries to hitchhike in groups or take transit when he can. He rarely sleeps without a roof over his head because his friends simply will not let him. The stories the can tell by letting him stay with him more than cover any expenses he may cause them. He is such a charismatic person, that after a few hours of talking, many people want to travel with him, let him sleep at their place, or even cook him a meal: he feels like an old friend.

I know that some of you may be shaking you head right now thinking, “he's a con, he's a fraud, he just wants into your house to steal your things”, but I promise you that is not what he is. He has been in Budapest for around a month now, and he has done nothing but good. He has introduced myself and others to different ways of living, made us less likely to judge others for the way the look or for their lack of the traditional “needs and expectations”, told us many stories of his travels, introduced us to different bands in the area and stalls that although we have been here for months, he could find in days, ...he has made all of us better people.

For me, Chris has done a lot. He sat down with me for dinner on one of my hardest days here in Budapest. He sat and listened to me, at times questioning me in such a way that made me really fight for my beliefs and cement them into my mind, at others he simply sat and listened. When he did give advice, you could tell that he had really thought it through, and always with the pretext that he knows that it's still my decision, not his. He has done more than I can list on this post. He is an amazing person in so many ways. He has really helped me enjoy my time here in Budapest, and although he leaves the city shortly, I know that I will see him again in the future. We will be friends for a long time. We'll be those friends who rarely talk, rarely see each other, but when they do, it's like old times again. Who would have expected that one of my closest friends here wouldn't be in the program and wouldn't be Hungarian, but a traveling American? I wouldn't have expected it, but if someone had told me that it would happen, I'd smile and say “I look forward to it”. I really have been so lucky to get to know Chris, and I will miss him, but we will work hard to keep in touch.

If any of you ever get a call from me telling you that I need you to do a favor for me and my friend Chris, now you'll know who I'm talking about, and I really do hope that you'll take that favor up. I know that you won't regret it.