Here is Budapest... I beg the pardon ?

Last Sunday I visited Budapest with a Hungarian guy I knew thanks to a website. For the future EVS and anyone else who likes travelling this website can be interested : www.hieverywhere.com

There you can find people who accept to be your touristic guide. And of course in return you’ve got to be their touristic guide in your own city.

With Csaba (pronounced Tchaba) we’ve been walking 3hours in this cold but pretty Budapest. We’ve been to touristic places, to the Jewish district (3 synagogues at 15 meters from each other) and close to the Danube !!! I don’t know why I really wanted to see it. Maybe because all the documentaries I’ve watched before coming were talking about the Danube. By the way, Csaba took a picture of me front of a bridge. This is the bridge where the French student have disappeared in December. So ironic isn’t it !

Budapest doesn’t look like Paris. Paris is beautiful but seems to be so “uniform” with its Haussmann style. Here you can find in one street 4 following flats with different architectures (from different periods sure). I can hear some people to say : “what’s this upside down city ?!” But I like it. Just by looking the buildings you can see a part of the Hungarian history. On some walls there are still the holes done by the shootings of the 1956 uprising (ok this is not a history lesson, so just remember that this year is important for Hungarian people and there was an uprising). Ok no conclusion. Just… It’s so good.

Welcome... In airports !

Ouuh ! 19H30 (7.30 pm) and not yet at Budapest. I'm proud to say that I've learned another English word today : Delayed ! I should be in Budapest for 1 hour already, but the strange women said "Flight delayed. Bad weather".
Waiting 3 hours in Paris (the plane should have left at 1.00 pm and left at 4.00 pm), missed my transfert plane, and I'm waiting now for another one which should (at first) landed at 7.55 pm and finally should land at (I can't use will yet) 8.30pm.
As I want to arise pity I want you to know that I lost 5€ to call 30 seconds my hosting association and tell them I will arrive at 9.00 pm (and not 6.30 as it should be). But in fact I will arrive at 10.30pm.
Anyway, this (these) delay(s) give(s) me time to think about everything I left and the choices I've done to live this experience (EVS I mean). It's not so joyful but very useful. And as my friends reminded me, I always wanted to make an EVS. I'm not running away something like I could say before. I want to do this.

Just something running in my mind... Why this fucking former plane wasn't delayed ? Je porte la pois se ou quoi ???

Well, go back to my favorite activity right now... Looking at the window.

[5th of January 2009, almost 8.00pm and still in Prague]

... Not ready yet !

10 days and I didn’t pack my bags yet! Lot of things to prepare. I also lost my identity card and so I’m not sure to leave the 5th. HAAAAAA! Take it easy Baby!

Not yet in Hungary

I’m expecting nothing. I’m just in a hurry to leave here. I was waiting for a longtime this project that I am not excited more. I’m still happy to go there but I feel like… I’m going to live something different somewhere else. That’s maybe the best feeling to have. If I am expecting nothing, everything can happen.

I’m looking for nothing. I just want to feel alive.

Marta in BP

Let's start. My name is Marta and I arrived in Budapest 18.01.2009. My train was 2 hours late - a fact I was really surprised then, but I wouldn't be now knowing that trains in Hungary are never on time. Anyway, I met Kriszta and Amanda at Keleti Railway Station. I was impressed how nice it was. Unfortunately, I was to realise a minute later that Budapest is just like all my friends said - beautiful but extremely dirty. And this is an undeniable fact!. Our flat turned out to be really cosy and nice - not the kind I expected having heard all the frightening stories of former EVS volunteers. That's how it started. It was quite funny but during my first day in BP i was at 2 parties! One of them was Messzelátó, a green NGO, office warming party, where I met some of my friends to be. I did not get much of sleep the first week visiting many farewell parties and I really got the impression that BP never sleeps!
I guess I should write something about myslelf. Once I prepared such a short note, so let's post it here: 25-year-old Pole. Sociologist. Restless being dreaming about changing the world (for the better) and naively believing it's possible. Interested in grassroot social movements and constantly excited it might work. Back in Poland, human rights and global education trainer, privately fond of bicycle raids and kayak rafting organised at the spur of the moment. Sometimes at the flow of inspiration makes jewellery from easily accessible materials (occasionally referred as "trush"). In Budapest constantly amazed with hungarians and they way of work. Drinks beer with a straw (what in Hungary, don't know why, evokes peals of laughter) and would drink it even with syrup if it was possible here! At Zöfi organized a Living Library and helps at present projects and takes a good look at Roma community. Her life motto is 'magis' (the more) and that's why she believes that "it's not difficulties but our dreams that scare us most"

What Amanda is doing in Budapest ? No really ???

Who am I ? Amanda. 22 years old. French, from a malagasy family.

I arrived here last january and I'm leaving in august. I've got a kind of public relations diploma, and next year I'm studying, (if these dear teachers let me) local development.
Well, what I am doing here ? I know EVS since high-school. I want to work in solidarity field since I am 14. So EVS seems to be something normal to do.
I am in Hungary because I applied mainly in Eastern Europe to local development organization. I tried several times to come to Eastern Europe through workcamps or personal trips. Didn't work. But I want to know more about these former communist countries who just joined the EU club (or may join in the futur) ! So here I am !
Zöfi was my first choice. I liked especially the activist side written on the description.

I had to wait 7 months before coming, my trip was awful (6 hours late, they lost and found my luggage...), social life was difficult at the very beginning... But all my fears of little girl left away on my first walk in the street ! I fell good. I like this city and more when I found the people to be with.

For me this EVS is a time to think, about me, my futur, people around... A step forward in my life.

A step forward for a girl from "cité" (name of social French districts).

SAPERE AUDE (Dare to know). Emmanuel Kant