parking problems

The more I spend time in our apartment the more I'm beginning to like it! I've never lived in such a big room! The only problem is that you can hear very well what the others are doing in their rooms! :)) So far, it has been quite fun living with the guys (Uku and David), although we already had our first (friendly!) argument last night - we are thinking of having a welcome party in our flat and we have some disagreements concerning the number of people and some other issues. Hopefully we we'll manage to sort it out peacefully! :)
Right now my biggest problem concerns parking the car - I went to some municipal office today to get a parking permit to park my car in front of the house. Unfortunately, it turned out that they are not issuing parking permits on the basis of a rental contract - only the owner of the apartment can apply for the permit. Since we are renting the flat via a real estate agency and the owner is currently abroad (she's not even Hungarian), this will be a big problem. Today I already got a parking ticket, but since there's no way for them to trace where and whose name the car is registered to (I have the old license plate and no "EST" sticker), they cannot claim the parking fine. And as the ticket is in Hungarian only, I could not figure out when, where and how much I would have to pay, I decided not to pay at all! :)) Let's see what happens...

apartment!!

Finally we found an apartment! We moved in yesterday. I'm living with 2 guys - Uku and David (from Serbia). It will be fun! :) I uploaded some photos of the house and the apartment. I'll write more about it soon. Have to run now....

riot!

The reason why I haven't posted anything in a few days is not because I've been taking part in or fallen victim to the riots in Budapest, but simply because I've been extremely busy with schoolwork and apartment-search (still!).

Last night we went to the city centre to watch the demostrations. The TV building which had been raided by the mob the previous evening and burned from the inside, was surrounded by the police. There was a huge crowd gathered in front of the parliament - people were carrying flags (in addition to Hungarian flags, there were some others which we didn't recognize) and speeches were being held, which we didn't understand as they were in Hungarian. Luckily the demonstration was not as violent as it had been the previous night. I took some photos.

As for the apartment, we STILL haven't got one, although there's one which we will take if we don't find anything better. I've made two appointments for tonight to see some other apartments. I've decided that by tonight or the latest by tomorrow, I have to have a place to live, as I only have a few days to stay in the hotel and I kind of feel homeless and depressed..

By now, I've selected courses which I will take this semester. Altogether, I have to take courses for 16 credit points. There are several interesting courses and I'm thinking of taking one more, but then I would have 20 credit points which would be defnitely too much to cope with, since the workload is quite demanding for each course. The mandatory courses are Academic Writing and Foundations in Gender Studies I. I've taken the following elective courses: The Work of Gender, the Gender of Work (that's 1 course), Gender and Migration and Reading Popular Culture. The additional course I'm considering of taking is Queer Theory, which I'm sure will be very interesting.

Well, I've got to run now - I'm having a consultation with my Academic Writing instructor, who has evaluated my first piece of writing. Can't wait to hear her comments!

looking for an apartment & other annoying practical things

Since Monday I've been extremely busy with practical issues, such as (most importantly!) finding an apartment and doing some things for school. Therefore I haven't had any time to write the blog; I haven't even taken any photos since Monday.
As of now, after spending each morning and evening looking for apartments (which entails calling to real estate agencies and responding to ads, setting up appointments to see the apartments and then actually seeing them), we (the Estonian guy Uku and a girl from Slovenia) have found an almost decent apartment, which we are thinking of renting. However, since we are still not completely satisfied with it (there are two main problems with this apartment: the lack of light and ugly furniture), we are continuing the apartment search. Right now I feel that this is really exhausting and I'm sick and tired of it. We have seen around 10 apartments already and they all seem similar to me. Typical houses in Budapest (at least in the central parts) are unlike any I've seen elsewhere in Europe - they have inner courtyards with a long balcony surrounding each floor. Most flats have such a layout that in order to get to the bedroom(s), you need to go through the living room (which is usually huge). For us, it is not good, as there would be no privacy for the person living in the room where everyone else walks through. But then again, it wouldn't make sense to have the living room empty, because in that case we would pay rent for the square meters we are not using.
As I've mentioned, driving and parkin is a huge problem in Budapest. It is very unlikely that I find a flat with free car parking next to the house - I'll probably have to keep the car in a paid parking lot or arrange something with the CEU dormitory.

A few words about the school. We are having the preliminary week now, with different orientations every day and only one class - Academic Writing, which is a very useful course, where we are learning how to write and evaluate academic texts, and the skills of argumentation. There are around 25 people in our Gender Studies group. They come from a variety of different countries, such as Romania, Russia, USA, Canada, Nepal etc. Also, they are from very different backgrounds, although everyone has their undergraduate degree from a field of social sciences or humanities.

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The good news is that the CEU has a gym right next to the university building - the membership card, which I got today, cost about 60 EEK per year! I'll be visiting the gym very soon!

I have to go now, because there's a mandatory computer course I have to take in order to pass a computer exam that all students need to pass. The exam tests your basic computer literacy and it is really very simple. ;)

Touring Budapest

I have to admit that for the last couple of days I've been a typical tourist in Budapest. But I guess that's something you cannot really avoid - somehow you need to get to know the new places.

Both yesterday and today I've started my days with swimming. I didn't think I would manage to go swimming as soon as on my 2nd day in Hungary! :)
Luckily, it turns out that swimming is something like a national sport in Hungary. Because it's so popular, there are many swimming pools. I've been to one on Margit Sziget (an island in the city centre, in the middle of the Danube). This is probably the best pool I've ever swam in. Actually, the place has 3 swimming pools - one inside (which is nothing special), and 2 outside (of which one is usually closed, as they play water polo there - another popular sport in Hungary). The other outdoor pool where I was swimming in is 50 m long with very clean water, although it was rather crowded today. The weather has been really great the whole time I've been in Hungary. It has been sunny and around 25 degrees - much like the summer in Estonia.

I've done some sightseeing in town. Budapest is a beautiful city with very nice architecture. One of my favourite buildings so far is the Hungarian Parliament - it's very impressive with lots of details. Take a look in my gallery to see it.
I've already seen the building of my university, which is located in the centre. Apparently, it used to be a residential building and it still does look like one, both from outside and inside. The Gender Studies department is quite small, with only a few classrooms, and located on the 3rd floor.

The hotel where I'm staying at is almost full, as all the new CEU students were supposed to arrive by today. All of them will be looking for apartments in the next 2 weeks. I've talked to some of the students, including one guy who is also in the Gender Studies program. It looks like we have quite an international student body - the guys I talked to are from Turkey and Romania, and I saw some Asian people as well. Tomorrow the school will start and I will meet more people.
For the next 2 weeks there will be no specific department courses, but instead there will be a preliminary program. We have the department orientation tomorrow, starting at 9 am. Throughout the week there will be the Academic Writing course, which I'm looking forward to, as I've never really studied any academic writing before.
Within the next 2 weeks I'm supposed to find an apartment. I would like something not too far from the universty. It would be nice to rent something with 2-3 other students from the CEU. As for the apartment, it should definitely be furnished, there should be Internet and car parking available. The latter could be a problem though, as Budapest is packed with cars and thus finding a place to park will be difficult. Anyway, I won't be using the car too much in the city, as the public transport is very efficient here.
I'm really looking forward to moving to an apartment already, so that I could cook my own meals. We get breakfast here in the hotel, but there's not much choice for me and I feel like the food I'm eating now is not nutritious enough. I've been eating out every day, which is quite expensive in the centre. Luckily today I found some kebab place where they sell falafel sandwiches - it was delicious, but too small for me. In an hour, I bought another falafel sandwich from a different place! :) Today I got the names and locations of vegetarian/vegan and Asian food places in Budapest. Luckily there's a cheap Asian food place just near the CEU!
I've also been to the supermarket. The lack of soy foods was disappointing. And I didn't find dark bread either. There's a huge supermarket quite close to the hotel, I'm planning to go there by car soon.

I will soon write about Budapest and about some observations I've made here. So far, I've talked only to the international students, but I would love to chat with a local, to get to know Hungary and its culture.

The road trip

Day 1, Sept. 5: Tallinn - Riga

I guess that during the last days before my departure, I finally learned what it REALLY means to be BUSY and STRESSED. I've never had SO much to do during so little time, as on those last days in Estonia. Because there were some people whom I wanted and needed to spend time with and say goodbye to, I left all the practical issues to the last minute (which I normally never do!). On the morning of my departure, I had not packed anything and hadn't managed to exchange any money either. So, instead of starting from Tallinn at 1 pm, as I had initially planned, I managed to start driving an hour later.

This time, my departure was kind of unique - always when I've left Estonia for a longer period time, I've gone by plane, but this time it felt strange to get in the car in front of my house and start driving along the usual way that I often take to my summerhouse and to pass the familiar places, only this time knowing that I won't see them in a long time...

I feel that this road trip is good for me - lately I haven't had much time to spend with myself; there have been lots of people to communicate with and there's been no time to just be on my own and think about things. So, I'm really enjoying that time. My life is about to change and somehow I like it that this time I'm approaching the unknown slowly, not plunging into it straight away but letting my mind gradually adjust to the new.

A few words about the actual trip. The distance between Tallinn and Riga is around 300 km and I covered it faster than I expected - only in 4 hours. But I learned a very good lesson on that trip (mom and dad, please skip the following paragraph!): it is NOT a good idea to drive, to look at the map and to send an sms simultaneously. When already in Riga, I was slowly approaching a row of cars standing in front of me at the traffic lights, engaged in the above mentioned activities when I suddenly felt that my car gently hit something. In a shock, I discovered that I had bumped into the car in front of me!! The driver came out and we drove off the main street to check the damage. Miraculously, my car had NO damage at all, while his car had a small scratch where paint had come off.. The guy didn't speak any English, except for the words "police" and "money" - I was still in a slight shock, apologized and offered him money. The guy was furious and at first threatened to call the police and then asked for 100 euros. I didn't have that much (and even if I did, I wouldn't have given him!), so I offered him 20 dollars (from my previous experience (of bribing the Lithuanian policemen) I've learned that dollars could be quite useful when travelling through Eastern Europe) which he finally rather reluctantly accepted, after which I was VERY quick to disappear!

Although my description of this little incident might seem somewhat amusing, the real situation was very far from being even remotely funny - I was in a shock when I realized what had happened and at the same time relieved that it ended so luckily for me. I don't even want to think what could have happened if my speed had been a bit higher... But the point is that I definitely learned a lesson here and I'm thinking that perhaps it was meant to be, maybe as warning of more serious things which might happen if I don't concentrate ONLY on driving..

The accident happened near Lola's place and when I turned to the next street, I already met her. I spent the evening with Lola and Christian - we walked in Riga and went to see a ice hockey match where a friend of Lola's was playing.

One more thing – it is great to know that there are people who care about me and I am very very grateful to you for everything you have done for me and I appreciate it more than you will ever know.

Day 2, Sept. 6: Riga - Kaunas

I started driving from Riga at 2 pm and arrived at Kaunas around 5.30 pm. I lost some time on the way, because the roads were being repaired at several places. Almost the whole way from Riga to the Lithuanian border was closed, so I had to make quite a long loop on smaller roads. The way to Kaunas was rather uneventful, except for an incident at the Latvian-Lithuanian border where the border guards (who were obviously bored) told me that they won't let me into Lithuania because my car doesn't have the new license plate with the country code (EST for Estonia) on it. At first I didn't understand what they wanted from me, as they didn't speak English. But then they showed me a page from some EU regulation (in English) about the license plates. I really had no idea about that! After arguing with them for a few minutes (during which they became quite amused!) they let me go. Hopefully this won't happen again at the next border crossing! Although this little incident seems funny now that I describe it, the actual situation was not really amusing for me and like yesterday, I experienced a moment of panic. Because of these incidents, I find it increasingly difficult to just enjoy the trip - I'm worried sick about safety, road accidents, reaching the next location without getting lost, not losing my documents and a whole bunch of other things. By the evenings, I'm so exhausted (more from worrying than from driving!) and I have a headache..

Before leaving Estonia, I printed out a route plan from viamichelin.com. However, I'm not really using it much, but instead I'm driving according to a European road atlas, but mostly just following the signs on the roads. So far, I haven't really lost my way, except for a few minutes when entering Kaunas where I had some trouble finding the centre of the town - I was driving the opposite direction (there were no signs!) until I noticed that the house numbers are getting bigger, after which I turned around. When I arrived, it was rush hour, but miraculously, I somehow found my way to the hotel right away.

The hotel where I'm staying in Kaunas, is probably one of the worst hotels ever. It's an old soviet building soon to be completely renovated (or maybe demolished!) and that's why it's so cheap! The hotel (and definitely my room!) would make a great set for a bad horror movie!! :)) Well, but anyway it's better than sleeping in the car, as I had initially planned (after hearing some rumours about Kaunas having high crime rates, I decided for the hotel). After checking in the hotel, I took a walk in the city. Kaunas is not a very nice town (except for the main street, which is ok) - it has lots of old soviet buildings in very bad condition (like the shitty hotel). I'm not sure what event was taking place in Kaunas today, but the city was packed with drunk and extremely noisy Scottish people wearing kilts.

Tomorrow will most probably be the most exhausting day, as I have to cover around 700 km from Kaunas to Krakow.

Luckily I’ve found a good way to calm down – reading the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will definitely help :)

Day 3, Sept. 7: Kaunas – Krakow

Wow, I can’t believe I’ve made it – 700 km in 12 hours!

After a surprisingly good sleep in that shitty hotel in Kaunas, I woke up at 8, packed my stuff and started driving from rainy Kaunas. It took me 1 hour to get out of Kaunas and find the road to Warsaw! There were no road signs anywhere.

The way to Warsaw was ok and I didn’t get lost at all. My biggest concern was getting through Warsaw. I didn’t have any map, so I followed the road signs. It required hard concentration, but I drove through Warsaw and found the way to Krakow without any problems. At around 8 pm (Polish time, which is 1 hour behind from Estonian time) I reached Krakow and met with Monika whose place I was staying at.

It is strange how my emotions changed when compared to the previous day, and how my mood and feelings changed during the long trip. In the morning, I was still worried like crazy. Being lost in Kaunas was kind of depressing. But after I got out of the city and was on the highway, I began to enjoy the trip and got the feeling that everything would turn out fine. Perhaps the hardest part (both emotionally and physically) was in the early afternoon, about 2 hours from Warsaw, when I felt as if the road was endless and that I would never reach Krakow by the evening. When in Warsaw, I had no time for any thoughts and feelings, but concentrated only on driving and traffic signs. After Warsaw, I felt somewhat tired, but this lasted only for an hour or so. The rest of the way to Krakow was very enjoyable.

It is strange what can happen (in the mind) during a long distance drive. At first I was frightened and quite emotional about things, but the more I drove, the more I lost all feelings and emotions, until driving became completely mechanical, as if I was a machine or as if it was all in a dream (not that I actually felt sleepy). There was just no strength to feel anything – all my efforts went to driving. At some point on the way, the final destination and the purpose of my trip became irrelevant – I was just there on that endless road, and the only thing I knew was that I had to keep going (now it might seem to you that I was delirious, but I assure you, it wasn’t really as bad as it looks – I'm just trying to describe my thoughts and emotions, or rather, the lack of them).

As I was approaching Krakow, the road became more hilly and the views much nicer than in the north. Since I was in a hurry, I didn’t have much time to admire the landscape.

Day 4, Sept. 8: Krakow – Budapest

There have definitely been too many impressions today and I’m really exhausted. I started driving from Krakow around 8 am. The whole city was a huge traffic jam and it was raining heavily. This time I was really sure which direction to go and which way to take in order to get out of Krakow… but... I still managed to get lost!! This time it took me around 1,5 hours to get out of the city!! Again, there were no proper road signs and I didn't have a map of Krakow either. Anyway, it's not good to drive and look at the map at the same time, as I learned. At one point, I became extremely frustrated. After asking for the way in 2 gas stations, I finally managed to get on the right road. From then on, I had no problems finding my way. Driving through Southern Poland and Slovakia was quite enjoyable (the landscape there is beautiful), although it took me a bit longer than I expected, as the roads were hilly and curvy. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to stop to take pictures, but I shot some pictures while driving (that’s why they are not that great!). In Slovakia I passed some places where I had been this winter when I was skiing there!

Budapest is only 85 km from the Slovakian-Hungarian border and the roads there are very good, so it didn’t take me long to reach the city. It was around 5 pm when I entered Budapest and there were huge traffic jams, which was actually good for me, because I had to follow the map while driving. Somehow, I managed to find the dormitory of the CEU where I was given my student card and a bunch of other documents. From there, I drove to the hotel that the CEU had booked for students receiving the scholarship. The hotel is quite ok (compared to the one in Kaunas, this is luxurious!) and I have a room here for 2 weeks. Hopefully during that time I will find something to rent. Luckily there’s fast wifi in the hotel!

After checking in, I left my car at the hotel and took a bus and metro to the city centre, where I met Sander, an Estonian guy studying in Budapest. He gave me a little tour of the city. It was already dark then, and the city looked very nice.
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To prevent this blog from becoming like a diary where I describe my daily schedule, I will from now on write only about the most interesting experiences and observations.

Today I’m too tired to write anything more, but tomorrow I will write a about why I am in Budapest and what I will be doing here, because some of you probably don’t know that. Also, I will write about Hungary and Budapest soon (in fact, I don’t know much about it myself yet, as I had no time to read about the country before coming here).

I’ve taken some photos during the trip – most of them are not really great because I took them from the car while driving. The photos are at the usual address: kadri10.pri.ee/gallery.php

Getting ready for the trip!

Looks like it's time to write the blog again! This time the "adventure" will be longer, but in a place closer than South Africa - I'm going to Budapest, Hungary.
I've been accepted to the Master's program in Gender Studies in the Central European University. I've been wanting to study that field for quite a while and so I'm rather excited to do it finally! The program will last 10 months.
I'm leaving for Budapest on September 5th, which is in a few days. I'm going by car and the plan is to get there in 3-4 days. As the distance is long and I'm going alone, the trip will be exhausting and challenging. I'm planning to stop in Riga, where I'm staying for one night at Lola's place. From there I will drive to Kaunas the next day. On the 3rd day I should cover almost 700 km from Kaunas to Krakow, which takes about 11 hours (of course the time depends on my speed and the condition of the Polish roads). And on the 4th day, I'll hopefully arrive in Budapest.
According to viamichelin.com, the distance between Tallinn and Budapest is 1664 km when choosing the shortest route.
As of now, I don't know anyone in Budapest, except for 2 Estonian guys whom I've met once and who are also going to study there this year. I have no clue where I'm going to live yet. The university has booked a hotel for me (and other students who are getting a scholarship) for 2 weeks, but according to the rumours I've heard, the hotel is supposed to be so horrible that it gives you motivation to find an apartment and move out rather quickly. Can't wait to see that! :)
On the whole, I'm looking forward to be in Hungary already, to get to know the country and meet interesting people. Wow, can't believe that I'm going to be a student again!! :) I've almost fogotten what it feels like! Right now all this seems kind of improbable and still at a great distance from me (rather an emotional distance than the physical).

Again, I'm writing the blog in English, but you are welcome to post your comments in either English, Estonian or French.