Siighh...I have an eye infection. I realized it right in the middle of tonight's yoga session when I thought there was an eyelash or dust under the lid. Instinctively I went to work on the eyeball to try to get whatever foreign object it was out of there, but upon my non-success I realized the feeling was over the entire eyeball and not in one concentrated spot. I ran into the bathroom to look at my eye in the mirror, and just as I expected, the area was covered with a yellow film. I poked at the nearest sinus and I noticed unwanted pressure that tends to come with this lovely pussed-eye look. Great. These type of infections do happen to me frequently- my doc says I have a very thin sinus on the left side of my face by my eye that easily gets clogged- but I haven't had one since the end of June. There isn't a whole lot I can do other wait it out, and if it gets really bad (meaning I get a full-on sinus infection that'll basically make me worthless) I have some antibiotics in my drawer. I just have to keep my damn fingers out of my eye, which is hard when it feels so natural to prod and poke.
But what's going on in my world of Budapest? Last weekend I went to two sessions for the in-house conference the Philosophy department hosted. It was a two-day event where PhD candidates gave talks on their thesis projects. I didn't make it to any of the early morning events, because I don't do early mornings if I don't have to, but I did manage to get to the later ones after lunch. Afterwards there was a wine reception. I find it very kind that after any event they host, they offer free wine to all who attend. This includes the colloquium talks that occur each Tuesday evening. I did stay for a little while last Friday, but from here on out I'm going to skip out of the building as soon as the presentations are over, because I really do not need to be drinking any alcohol (or soda for that matter) while I am staying in Hungary. Yes yes, I'm lame, but I like it better this way.
Anyway, when I was heading to the dorm Friday I was all alone and it was late. Luckily Budapest has a reputation for being a very safe city. I ended up making a very temporary new "friend" on the bus ride from the metro station to my dorm. At first I thought he was some old creepo, and as he talked to me in Hungarian I just kept shaking my head and looking out the window. Finally I realized that I actually knew how to say "I don't speak Hungarian" in Hungarian and I thought this would be a good way to kindly let him know I wasn't interested in a conversation. Turns out he's one of those people who gets extremely excited when hearing his language spoken by a foreigner. He asked me where I was from. Shoot! I just learned how to say where I'm from in my Hungarian class the night before. He then asked my age, what I'm doing in Budapest, and where I'm going (I think). Me: "Am 24 I. Am student I." *Gives shrug for last question.* At that point I was very interested in trying to figure out what he wanted to tell me, and to figure out what I should tell him. Granted, I don't know a whole lot of Hungarian after taking the language class for only two weeks, but still, I gotta practice everything at some point. The man pulled out an apple and handed it to me. "Alma!" I exclaim. (That means apple.) Oh yes, now we're really onto something. He tolds out three more and shoves them toward me. Is he giving me his apples? I'm not sure, but I start to count "Egy, ketto, harom...." I hesistate because I cannot remember the word for four, so he helps me..."Negy..." Ah yes negy! Once we got the apples counted he put them into a bag and dropped it onto my lap. At that point it was time for me to get off the bus and go into my dorm, so I formally said Thank-you to him for giving me the apples, and informally said Good-bye because that was all I could remember. All in all, the whole scenario turned out well, and I totally scored negy almas.
It's supposed to rain all weekend, so instead of doing some sight-seeing I'm going to find some place called Tree Hugger Dan's Bookstore and Cafe. There are actually two locations, one being by the famous opera house and other being just two metro stops down from the first. My sister could probably find them easily because it's close to the photo gallery we went to on Andrassy ut (avenue). Why I want to go to one of these places is they sell free-trade coffee (score) and second-hand English books (extra extra score). I know I shouldn't be reading books that aren't my texts for school, and usually I stick to that rule during the school year, but there's no harm in just taking a look, is there? Anyway, that's where I'll be tomorrow if anyone comes looking. Have a great weekend!
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