Monday, July 18, 2011

Third Weekend Already???

 On Saturday we watched Otto Hapsburg's funeral procession. It was cool to see all the traditional costumes and noble families.
















And at this point my camera poo-ed out. But it went on for nearly two hours.


Saturday night I went salsa dancing. A seven-foot Bulgarian taught me to salsa. It was a lot of fun, but it was super-crowded, and I had a nasty incident with another high-heel, and we ended up going home early.

So Sunday, I didn’t do much because it was swollen, but nothing’s open anyway. In the evening, we went to the music festival and watched opera fantasia-style. The others weren’t so interested, because it was weird, and even though it was in English, we couldn’t understand a word.

So actually, I spent last night listening to Gina, Asya and Angela argue – which is quite entertaining. Angela speaks Bulgarian and Gina and Asya are Macedonian, but the languages are so close that they still understand each other.

Ece taught us the Turkish word for hiccups, which was really fun to say, but I already forgot it. Between the seven of us, we could say Hiccups in four different languages, but not German – we agreed that “der Hiccup” is as likely as anything.

In class today, Juraj (from Slovakia) told me the six languages he speaks. Apparently Czech and Slovakian are so close that it hardly counts as a second language, Hungarian is apparently very similar to the roots of Scandinavian languages and literally everyone knows English. Juraj told me that proper Slovakian is the third most difficult language in the world, right underneath Chinese. Even normal native speakers can't do it, so English is easier for him.  

Despite my low-energy weekend, the approximate half-way point of this month has hit everyone here in the face. I only recently stopped feeling like we “just got here.” And at the same time, I feel almost at home here, as though I’ve done this for years.

It is a truly unique sensation. Half of me feels like I love this city and I love living with my international friends, and I don’t want to leave in less than two weeks. But the other half of me couldn’t stop thinking about how much I’d rather salsa with Sloan, and that I miss my friends and family more now than when I’m at college.

Anyway, I'm still having tons of fun!!!

1 comment:

  1. I can't salsa dance though. I miss you a lot too. don't hurt yourself anymore.

    ReplyDelete