Welcome to Roma, just call me Anne Frank...

I apologize for the delay on the post, but I learned a 23 year old body doesn’t recover from a long, fun travel weekend as quickly as a 22 year old body and I sadly had to use yesterday evening to recover. So now, without further ado, Roma!

There are two key phrases to traveling, “hurry up and wait” and “be flexible”; if you don’t like them, don’t bother packing your bag. The friends I met in Roma, (Leah, Anya, and Jenny) got there the day before me and experienced a horrifying cab ride. I’ve had one of these cab rides in Miami, where you catch glimpses of your friends’ terrified eyes, squeeze each others’ legs and pray you survive. While the driver in Roma didn’t seem to care if he ran into traffic, he did want to make it clear to Leah, Anya, and Jenny that the hotel we booked (though claiming it was in Roma, next to a metro stop) was not and was in a very dangerous area. So, after sadly forking over 100 euro for the cab ride, the three spent the night at the hotel and in the morning got the hell out and found a new hotel (flexibility). The hotel they found was perfect. It was right by Termini Station and had air conditioning. The only problem was the room was for three and therefore had three single beds. In ten years, when we have more money, the solution to the problem will probably be - get two rooms. But, with a little flexibility two single beds pushed together become one triple bed and I become a hidden stowaway, leading to my code name and the title of this blog, Anne Frank. (In the next post we will talk about “hurry up and wait”.)

Just hiding from the staff in the wardrobe

Since this is Italy, let’s begin with the food. I would be content eating nothing but margarita pizza, wine and gelato for the rest of my life. But, due to the unfortunate fact that I’m a medical student and know in detail how terrible this would be for me, I’m still weigh my options on expanding my appetite. Though for my four days in Roma, I pushed away that knowledge and ate. My favorite meal was our final dinner. We were exhausted from a hot day of sight-seeing and just picked a random place by our hotel. That’s how it always happens, when you let go of the planning you stumble upon the best things. We all got the exact same meal, caprese salad and penne with vodka sauce. I never know how to write about food, but if I did, and I properly described this dinner, you would cry. It was that good. 

Margarita Pizza

Leah with the best gelato we found

Delicious dessert wine

Quattro Formaggi Pizza

The tear-producing penne with vodka sauce

Deb Caputo, Leah tells me you read my blog (thanks) and asked me to let you know, if you couldn’t tell by my facebook pictures, that your daughter is still alive. And, still very much herself, as the story below proves. We spent Friday in Vatican City, a country within a country. Still trying to figure out if this counts as another country on my country count? I think it does because the 800 residents of the State of Vatican City are ruled by the Pope and have different passports than Italians. Though there is the giant wall surrounding Vatican City, you can pass in and out freely. My favorite part was St. Peter’s Square. You could stand back and easily imagine the entire square filled and overflowing on Easter and Christmas with people hoping to hear or see the Pope. Being the first day of our Roma trip, we were very enthusiastic about photos. We were trying to be very creative and one of Anya’s artistic flashes required Leah to climb up on a stone.  Regrettably, Leah was wearing a dress and instead of getting Anya’s picture, Vatican City got a show. For the rest of the trip, whenever the heat was getting to us, all anyone had to say was “remember when Leah flashed the Pope” and we’d all be doubled over laughing.  

Not the face you expect outside the Sistine Chapel

The hallway leading to the Sistine Chapel. You can't take pictures once inside the chapel.

St. Peter's Square

Leah, Anya and me

Now on to the cliché yet wonderful Roman sights. First, the Colosseum, the structure that makes it clear, humans will go to any length to have an entertaining weekend. Amazingly built between the years 70-80 AD, it’s estimated that it held a capacity of 40,000-70,000 people. One fact I didn’t know beforehand was all citizens of Roma had a free ticket to all events. Your social class dictated how good the seats were, but nether-the-less, no matter who you were, you could go. Next, let’s go to the Trevi Fountain. This is the largest fountain in Rome and has been an icon of Rome in many movies like Roman Holiday. I’m still unsure on the whole coin tossing thing. So many different travel books and people have reported variations on what the coins mean, it’s like house rules to Circle of Death. I know that one coin ensures a return trip to Rome (self-fulfilling prophecy or the best way to ensure Rome tourism never dies, take your pick). I’ve heard the second either leads to a new love, a love in Rome, or a wish and the third leads to marriage or divorce. I decided to throw in two coins and used the second to make a wish (my remaining euros go to anyone that can guess it). Several thousand euros are thrown into the fountain every day and the Italian government uses the money to fund a grocery store for the homeless of Rome. So, no matter what the coins actually mean, the money leads to some good. Now let’s venture to The Pantheon, a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome. Though the concrete dome extending up to heaven was once the largest in the world, we had quite a struggle locating it. The sunlight at the top of the dome is the only source of light for the building and you can tell the time by locating the sun spot. Apparently, when it rains shadows of the drops are reflected around the room, from the sunlight, and it is breath-taking. Finally, we end where we actually ended our Roma trip, in the Piazza di Spagna at the Spanish Steps. This is a place where supposedly students like to hang out, though all I saw were tourists, and the stairs Dylan refers to in “When I Paint My Masterpiece”.   

Jenny, Anya, and Leah taking in the Colosseum

The Trevi Fountain

The Pantheon

Telling me it's 16:00

Leah and I on the Spanish Steps

Finally, my birthday!!! To celebrate, we went to our favorite restaurant by our hotel that had a bottle of vino that was to die for and the staff spoke only Italian. (The picture of the wine is above; if you are a fan of sweet wine get it.) Afterwards, sharply contrasting our restaurant choice we entered the most American bar possible. I don’t believe there were any Italians inside. The bartenders were Australian and Anya was very concerned with them learning that Iowa produces large quantities of corn, soy beans, and pork. Whether it was American or Italian, it had great house wine and we had a great time. I did learn a lesson though: Sambuca, Jager, and Tabasco sauce should never be combined. One of the Americans we met decided he needed to buy me a birthday shot and we decided to try the shot the bar was known for entitled, The Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick to the Face Shot. The recipe above is what we were given and let’s just say not long after I was in bed for the night. 

Leah with me and my birthday balloon

Altogether it was another great trip and I was sad to leave Leah, Anya and Jenny. On Monday they went to Naples, Tuesday to Venice, now they’re in Cinque Terre for a few days, after that Nice, Paris, London and then home. I hope they continue to have a fabulous trip. I’m so happy I was able to be part of it.

Tick Tock...

Only for a few more days can I smirk at my friends and say I’m 22, while they for some reason freak out about being 23. But, alas, in a few months’ time they will be turning 24 (bahahahaha). Now that we’re past sweet 16 and the legalizing power of 21, I appreciate being the youngest. I’ve never felt overwhelmed about becoming older. I’m not sure if it’s because I get to see my friends turn the age first and witness that they don’t implode or immediately start wearing mom pants, because I’m going to be in school until I’m 25 so I’m still kind of a kid, or because I just do care what age I am. Thirty sounds a little scary, but it’s 7 years off and the 29 things remaining on my “30 under 30” list prove I have a lot of living to do before then.

This week my roommate in Romania, Lindsay, asked me if I was ready to turn 23. I quickly and almost subconsciously responded that not much happened while I was 22, so what’s the difference in turning 23. After thinking back over this past year, I’m not sure what has to happen for my subconscious to think something happened. My gauge seems a bit broken. 

At the time, my 22^nd birthday seemed like nothing exceptional. All my roommates and I went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Iowa City, 3 Samurai. Afterwards, we went back to our house and hung out like a million times before. Only a week and about 100 Mr. Clean Magic Eraser later, we moved out of our house and some out of Iowa City to begin our post-grad lives. Since my birthday dinner, my roommates (yes, I will still call you my roommates at my 90^th birthday) and I have had only a handful of meals together. A night like my birthday last year would now be exceptional. 

After watching my roommates leave Iowa City, I moved into my new condo, that I bought! Hey subconscious, isn’t that something? For the first time, I was my own landlord. I painted and decorated to my heart’s content and my kitten and I settled in. Then August rolled around and I began medical school, apparently no big deal according to my subconscious. While the hundreds of hours I spent studying are not memorable, a fact that is quite unfortunate for the USMLE, actually entering medical school, receiving a white coat, and taking the Hippocratic Oath are memorable.  

This year also brought me the reason I created this blog and am writing this post: Romania. As I’ve said before, I would have never predicted living in Eastern Europe this summer. I have to pinch myself to remember I’m doing this as part of medical school. So frequently, images are conjured up of medical students in an almost prison existence only studying, eating, studying, eating, studying, studying, studying, and finally eating. While I’ve had my moments of panic, as my mom and my best friend Gabby can attest, I’ve remained a human (closely resembling the pre-med self) and have gotten to experience some fairly awesome non-prison-ish things.  

22, sorry I didn’t give you the credit you deserved until now. You treated me quite nicely, so in return, I will literally carry a piece of you into 23, in the form of the cut I got on New Year’s Eve that has yet to heal. I will look more kindly on this next year and be thankful for every opportunity it brings. I already know some that’s in store: London and Liverpool with my mom, cheering my little sister on as she runs her first marathon, Dance Marathon 18 (FR, F-yeah), finding a few great weekends to spend with my friends, my older sister moving closer to me (fingers crossed), celebrating after the USMLE step one, and beginning my clinical years of medical school. But, to make sure my subconscious thinks I’m doing something this next year, I will accept and do 23 dares this year. Let me know if you have a dare for me. Just follow these three rules…

1.       Nothing extremely gross

2.       Unless you want to fund it (which I would graciously accept), it has to be able to be done on a med student budget

3.       I’m a vegetarian – this is not an invitation to dare me to eat meat

To get the dares to me use any social media you would like, comment below, email me (Kaitlin.m.flannery@gmail.com), Facebook me, or tweet me. As of today, you can’t Google+ me, haven’t decide if I should take the plunge.

Check back on Monday for my Italy post and have a great weekend!

Romanian for dummies (aka me)...

Finding a Romanian tutor in June and July is a tall order. About a week after getting settled in and defining my priorities for the summer, the university here began three weeks of finals. Digressing for a moment, three weeks of finals sounds like the worst thing ever. Science students always ended up with the Friday finals at Iowa and some of my roommates would be done on Tuesday or not even have finals. I couldn’t imagine if someone was done three weeks before me. The finals ended right at the end of June and after that there was a mass exodus of the students. Because of all this, our original plan of finding a student to tutor me was out the window. After much looking, the center I work at found me, Aida, my wonderful tutor and I began learning last week. 

My homework before tutoring tomorrow is to write twenty things I like in Romanian. I’ve decided I will write twenty things I like about Romania in Romanian to let everyone know a bit more about life here.

1. Îmi place salata de rosii. I like tomato salad. I’ve mentioned this previously but I have to again; the tomatoes here are AMAZING! You don’t need to pair anything with them because they are so flavorful, although mozzarella never hurts. 

2. Îmi place mămăligă cu brânză. I like polenta with cheese. It’s the Romanian rendition of mac-n-cheese. Kraft will never be the same. 

3. Îmi place ciocolată Primola. I like Primola chocolate. This is a brand of chocolate made in Bucharest, Romania and it’s to die for. Milka and you other Swiss brands have nothing on Primola. 

4. Îmi plac croissant ciocolată. This one’s easy, I like chocolate croissants. Actually, I like anything with chocolate. 

5. Îmi place Pizza Hut din România. I like Pizza Hut in Romania. I mentioned we went to Pizza Hut for the 4^th of July but it wasn’t like one at home. It was fancy, you could order a drink and they gave us the best napkins in all of Romania. It isn’t “Wing Street” over here. 

6. Îmi plac caise. I like apricots. I had only ever eaten dried apricots before being here and I don’t know why…they are marvelous. Do we have fresh apricots in Iowa and I’m just oblivious? 

7. Îmi plac alimente. I like food. If that wasn’t apparent enough from numbers 1-6, I thought I would sum it up.  

8. Îmi place mea de mers pe jos de la locul de muncă. Not sure if my Romanian is correct, but it’s supposed to be: I like my walk to work. Someday I may actually bring my iPhone with me to capture parts of the walk because it’s great. 

9. Îmi place agitatia din afara fereastra mea. I like the commotion outside my window. At all hours of the day something is making noise whether it be kids at the playground nearby, a cat, the roosters, or groups of happy drunks. The noise would probably be bothersome if I was trying to study but for the summer I just love it. 

10. Îmi plac taxiuri ieftine. I like cheap taxis. I may be asking too much from Google translate at this point but I think that’s I like cheap taxis. The taxis here cost 1.79 lei per kilometer ($0.60/kilometer)! Taxis in Rome are going to be painful. 

11. Îmi place Zara. Not translating this one because Zara is the same in English. It’s a clothing store that is big in Europe and has made its way to the bigger cities in the states. I got my birthday dress there and I can’t wait to wear it this weekend!

12. Îmi place că nu există tornade. I like that there are no tornados. I’m not compulsively checking the weather this summer and it’s simply sweet. 

13. Îmi place mumie mea. I like my mummy. My mummy is my little travel sleeping bag. It rolls up to the size of a fist and keeps me from having to touch hostel beds. 

14. Îmi place istoria. I like the history. It’s so much richer than the history of Iowa, sorry Lewis and Clark.  

15. Îmi plac cappauccinos. I like cappuccinos (you needed that translation didn’t you?). It’s a bit pretentious in my book to sip tiny cappuccinos out of tiny cups, but I love to do it…at least in Europe.  

16. Îmi place Transilvania. I like Transylvania (again another necessary translation). I actually haven’t been out of the Transylvania portion of Romania, but what I’ve learned is Transylvanians are the Colorado people of Romania.

17. Îmi plac magazine de fructe şi legume. I like fruit and vegetable shops. The Farmer’s Market is open everyday here! 

18. Îmi place având în timp pentru a scie. I like having time to write. I love writing and I’m trying to become better at it and this summer has given me ample opportunity to try. 

19. Îmi place de sănătate publică. I like Public Health. I’m not sure how this will fit into my future medical career because I’m not interested in Family Practice or General Pediatrics, the main fields intertwined with Public Health, but I’ll figure it out.  

20. Îmi plac pistruii. I like freckles. Well at least I’m trying to like them. I’ve reached the point in the summer that my face is dark, not due to a tan, but because of overlapping freckles. My tutor tells me I’ll appreciate them in a few years when they help hide wrinkles.  

La revedere,

Katalina

My place in medicine...

 Last month, there was an op-ed piece in the New York Times written by a physician and mother, Dr. Karen S. Sibert, arguing that women working part-time in medicine accounts for a significant portion of the current doctor shortage. She highlights some of the other problems leading to the shortage, such as not enough residencies, lower salaries due to Medicare and Medicaid cuts and malpractice lawsuits. However, she settles on putting a disproportionate amount of the blame on women, particularly mothers. I haven’t been able to get this article out of my head, and in particular the expert that follows: 

“Students who aspire to go to medical school should think about the consequences if they decide to work part time or leave clinical medicine. It’s fair to ask them — women especially — to consider the conflicting demands that medicine and parenthood make before they accept (and deny to others) sought-after positions in medical school and residency. They must understand that medical education is a privilege, not an entitlement, and it confers a real moral obligation to serve.”

The full article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/opinion/12sibert.html?_r=2&src=me&ref=general. 

Ten years ago I hated almost every vegetable, today I’m a vegetarian. When I applied for medical school two years ago, when I entered medical school last year and even today I don’t believe I want children. But, as my mother and my vegetarian status can attest, I’m a fairly fickle person and ten years from now I may want children. I realize at the absolute earliest, I will complete my formal medical training right before my 29^th birthday. In reality, due to my current interests, the date of my completion, when I become a “real doctor” will be after my 30^th birthday. I realize now and I realized when I applied to medical school that this career was more of a vocation requiring more time, care, attention and morality than most occupations. These indeed were the qualities that lead me to medicine.  I try to think of what my response would’ve been to the question Dr. Sibert poses above if it was slipped into my medical school interview.

Interviewer (almost always inevitably a PhD. who wants to talk about my research for too long): Tell me about your research project, your role in the project and your contribution to your published papers?

Me: Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy blah blah blah… (I hope I’m explaining this correctly, I think this guy studies nuclear membrane proteins too. Ekkkk)

Interviewer: Are you going to have children and as a result cut back on your hours of work (because god forbid your husband/baby daddy cut back on his hours)?

Me: (stares blankly for a few minutes) I just turned 21???? The sight of a pregnancy test in Target terrifies me.

Interviewer: What are you suggestions for dealing with the organ shortage? (Or other ethically challenging question)    

In the future, I see myself as a full time doctor no matter if I have children or not. But, to place blame on the people who do decided to devote more time to their children is inappropriate and actually quite useless. I’m sure I am not the only person in my class who has yet to cast their vote on the mommy/daddy job and I’m positive no one in my class is using medical school as a fun way to wait out the single life. There is no way you would torture yourself with this much studying or student debt. However, I’m confident there will be those in my class, who after a pain-staking process decide to cut back hours or leave medicine to assume a bigger role as a parent. They, however, couldn’t predict this future in their med school interview. The solution to the doctor shortage doesn’t and shouldn’t lie here.

 The keynote speaker at my classes’ White Coat ceremony was Dr. Jennifer Niebyl. She graduated from Yale, in a class of 100, with only 5 female students.. She went on to train/practice at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center and Johns Hopkins Hospital before coming to Iowa in 1988. She joined the staff at Iowa as the Department Head of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She was the third OB-GYN department head in the country. She is a role-model for all young physicians to be, especially women. I’d heard her speak before the White Coat Ceremony and I’ve heard her since, and her message always remains the same:

“As an obstetrician-gynecologist I want to talk to you about reproduction.  Have your children while you are young!  It is biologically easier, you are more likely to succeed in having a pregnancy, and you have a lower risk of a Cesarean section.”

This is my one and only life. I’m devoting most of it to medicine and I’m utterly grateful that I’m allowed to do this. I know how hard applying to medical school is. However, being as it is my only life I have some other plans. Maybe one of those plans will be having a baby and maybe I will have to make some adjustments to my work (more ideally my future husband would but sadly we live in reality) and that’s okay. This year my friends and I each created a “30 under 30” list. We have seven years to do the thirty things on our lists and only one on my list is medically related. Medicine is my devotion…but I have plenty of other interests. 

I found a rebuttal I was very pleased with and helped my stop fuming from the NYT’s article, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wont-hurt-bit/201106/the-mommy-wars-medical-edition. Since reading Dr. Michelle Au’s rebuttal I got her first book “This Won’t Hurt a Bit (and Other White Lies): My Education in Medicine and Motherhood", and devoured it quickly. Thank goodness for my Kindle in Romania. It restored my faith in the opportunities and choices that lie ahead in medicine and made my hair stand on end with fret for the USMLE and Match Day. I would recommend this book to everyone – especially my classmates – it’s smart, funny and honest. She has also writes a blog that she began as an M2, http://theunderweardrawer.blogspot.com/. The book has a short portion on pre-med and the pre-clinical years of medical school. I got to read my exact thoughts written in a concise funny way. I decided to glance back at her old med school blogs and found her complaining about an Immuno test and her professor expecting them to write 3-4 sentence essays on the broadest topics in the world without leaving out a single detail or chemokine. I guess Immuno sucks everywhere.

I have some lofty expectations of my future career in medicine. I hope to be able to practice clinical medicine, teach, work abroad and work on health policy. I don’t know if all these things are possible but my idealistic med school self refuses to give up before trying. And if I want to add mother to my resume, by god I will try to fit that in to. I just hope my maternal instinct, if I have one, heeds Dr. Niebyl’s warning and kicks in before I’m 40 and I require in vitro fertilization. For now, my baby Dylan is okay with me being gone long hours and spending a summer in Romania.  

Dylan

City, Country of residence: Cluj-Napoca, Romania

When I returned from Budapest this weekend and walked into my dorm, I felt the sense of home you feel after returning from a long trip. I dropped my bag, opened my non-screened window, and knew I was no longer wandering semi-lost. It seems I’ve accomplished my main goal for this summer: to live, really live, in a foreign country. I’m happy to visit other countries as a tourist, but it is a great and different experience to actually live in another country. Though I don’t have much time in Cluj and my “living” includes staying in a dorm and eating out every night I’ve had a much different experience than I would as a tourist. I have a bakery I stop at each morning for a chocolate croissant and the workers now know me. I know when the taxi drivers are taking me the long way because they think I don’t know my way. Now I’m working on telling them to go the other way. I know which ATMs will give me 50 and 10 lei bills instead of an impossible to break 200 (conversion about $65). I have a favorite restaurant and a favorite coffee shop and like a local I complain about the weather no matter if it’s too hot or too cold. 

It’s hard to explain that I’m not on an extended vacation. When I had friends in other countries I was jealous that every second they were on some crazy adventure; running with the bulls one minute, boarding a catamaran the next. (I think I’m nostalgic for Spain.) The truth is when you are living somewhere for months instead of traveling for a few weeks you have to do the boring stuff of living too, (i.e.: laundry, haircuts, Facebook stalking) and that boring stuff tends to take a hell of a lot longer. So continue to be jealous, if you were, but only for part of each day. 

Last weekend I spent exploring Budapest and next weekend I’m celebrating my birthday in Rome (insert jealousy here), but this weekend I was just a citizen of Romania doing normal things. Yesterday, I had to do laundry which was a challenge because my normal center closed down. After some searching and dragging my suitcase a few blocks I found somewhere to do laundry and my clothes were the driest they’ve been since I arrived! At this point, I would like to take back any complaints I’ve made about my washer and dryer. Then today I got my first Romanian haircut. This haircut was long overdue due to the fact that I was a little nervous about what could be lost in translation between me and my hairdresser. This stress was completely unnecessary and I love my new hair cut! 

This post is as much for me as for you. I tend to heavily idealize my past and I’m sure this summer will be romanticized more and more as the years pass. I refuse to let this be my only experience living in a foreign country because the positives definitely outweigh the neutrals or negatives, but I wanted to give a clear picture of what it’s like to live abroad.

La revedere!

Paprika, pàlinka, and pashminas…33 hours in Budapest!

Note: The proper way to say Budapest involves putting a –shhhhh before a little t at the end. The ending shouldn’t sound like the end of best.

I love getting more stamps in my passport and exploring unfamiliar cities. I’m a lover of travel so it is no surprise that I love Budapest. Budapest brought plenty of unfamiliar to explore that we will get to; however first let’s talk about what I was right at home with: the layout of the city. Budapest is cut in half by the Danube River running north to south. On the east side is Pest, the business, cultural, and social side of Budapest. Hilly, residential, and relaxing Buda is found on the west side and due to the plant-life is beautifully described as “the lungs of Budapest”. In so many ways this layout is Iowa City. Just add two million people and multiple centuries of history for the similarities to continue.

Looking over to Pest from Castle Hill in Buda

Looking at Gellert Hill on the Buda side

Having a layout that I understood was helpful because I was somewhat sleep-deprived. We left Cluj at 2:15 in the morning, slept on the train and arrived in Budapest at 8 am. Our hostel had some water damage, but they were very helpful in finding us a new place to stay. We ended up two floors above the hostel we were supposed to be in, a block from the “Champs Elysees” of Budapest, Andràssy Street. By 9:30 I was drinking a Starbuck’s and heading out for a day of exploration.

Hostel in Budapest

 Now once again, we begin “The Official Kaitlin Flannery Tour of Budapest” this time with the “P”s: paprika, pàlinka and pashminas. Before this summer paprika was the seasoning used to top deviled eggs and strangely Salt and Pepper’s child in Blue’s Clues, now I’ve learned it’s a large ingredient in both Hungarian and Romanian food, and has a lot more favor here. I picked some up from Vàsàrcsarnok, the Market Hall, and look forward to trying to make mushroom and paprika stew when I get home. Something I’m not sad to say we don’t have at home is pàlinka. This is a Hungarian brandy made from different fruits, most commonly plums, that can have an alcohol content of over 80%. We started our Saturday night pub crawl off with shots of pàlinka. Below you can see my thoughts on the taste. About an hour and a half later when we had shots of Unicum, I would have welcomed a few shots of pàlinka. Unicum is an herb based liqueur that is supposed to help with digestion. I was told to expect a taste similar to Jager but the description I just found in my Lonely Planet book fits much better, “tastes like the medicine doctors give you to induce vomiting – but it’s popular”. I had to chase the Unicum with Kahlua to get rid of the taste. Finally to the last and my favorite P, pashminas. Pashminas are sold everywhere in Budapest like in the grand bazaars of Istanbul, reflecting one of the many Turkish influences. The Turks occupied Hungary for almost 150 years in 16^th and 17^th centuries and left a lot of culture behind, other prominent influences are baths and tea houses.   

Market Hall

Paprika

Shot of palinka

Smiling before the Unicum unaware of how terrible is

Now aware

My favorite part of the trip was Sunday morning. We went on a hike up Gellért Hill to see the Szabadság szobor (Hungary’s Statue of Liberty) that was built after WWII as a tribute to the Soviet soldiers who liberated the city. After the fall of communism the Soviet references were removed from around the statue and the city was left with the simple statue of a woman extending a palm leaf. After the hike we relaxed in the “healing waters” of the Gellért Baths. The water in the baths come from thermal springs and though I don’t know how healing they are for others, the relaxation helped settle my stomach from the pálinka on Saturday.  

Made it to the top

Gellert Baths

Of course it wouldn’t be one of my posts if I didn’t include food. I didn’t partake in much traditional Hungarian food because it’s largely meat but I found a traditional dessert I love as well as some great non-traditional meals. My favorite is a toss-up between marlenka, a layered honey cake I enjoyed at a tea house and a white chocolate blackberry drink I had at a chocolate bar. Take a look at these pictures and try to not get hungry.

Marlenka

I've found heaven and it looks like a chocolate bar

The last thing I have to mention are the street lights in Hungary. I easily over-look details and my roommate Lindsay had to point the street lights out to me so this may happens in other countries. The light goes red, yellow, green instead of red, green, yellow. The yellow tells you are about to go instead of about to stop. Thought it was very silly and led to cars slamming on brakes when the unexpected red came.

At five on Sunday night, we got back on the train to go home to Romania. After only 33 hours in Budapest, I was sad to say good-bye but pleased with all I saw.  

Happy Birthday America!!!

Today, I have visions of ants walking across a checkered table cloth, beer in American flag cans, and fireworks (observed from far away because they still scare me). While none of those visions will be real this 4^th of July, I found some ways to celebrate in Romania. This holiday was rung in with a border crossing, heading back from Hungary to Romania. I will never be completely comfortable with the moment when border control is closely scrutinizing your passport, but thankfully they decided to let me back in and my United States passport is tucked away once again. When I got to work this morning, I was greeted with “Happy 4^th of July” and my co-workers began to google places to get an American hamburger (for me a veggie burger) for lunch. All we found was McDonald’s. So instead we headed to Pizza Hut for an all-you-can-eat pizza festival. What’s more American than eating so much that you have trouble standing after the meal? To close out the holiday, being a bit exhausted from my weekend in Budapest, I decided on Starbucks, skyping with my family, and blogging about the ten things I miss most about my country on its birthday. So here we go…

Found this in the Cluj mall :) 

10. Pandora and Netflix- These websites are restricted outside the states and I’m really missing Mumford and Sons radio and unlimited episodes of Weeds.

9. Goose Island Summertime- Ursus is pretty good but it isn’t quite up to Chicago’s own. So friends please get one for me today and enjoy.    

8. Hothouse Yoga- This doesn’t quite cut it. My balancing stick is becoming more pathetic by the day.

7. Wheat Thins- There is no more perfect snack in the world. My little sister sent me this box, as you see she kindly went with the family size, however today they are officially gone and I’m looking into a daunting month and a half wheat thin void.

6. Diet Cherry Coke- As I said in the last post I’ve settled on Coke Zero here because Cherry Coke is a drink of fiction. I found these in Budapest but I’m thinking they’ve been on the planet longer than me.

5. Making a phone call- I actually don’t miss my iPhone much but I do miss calling my mom or one of my friends  while I’m walking. There is one place on my walk home from work, where I’ve repeatedly reached into my bag for my phone to make a call, only to realize I have about 15 contacts in my European phone and I just left them at work.

4. Sangria and chips and salsa at Happy Hour- Who wants to go to Saloon for Happy Hour Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the week I get back?

3. Shower curtain- Now I’m no stranger to a really dirty bathroom. My roommates are well aware. There should have been some mandatory shots to enter our college house’s bathrooms, but in Romania there is an extra level of dirtiness due to the lack of shower curtains. My feet have yet to be fully dry in this country.

2. Dylan and Pebbles- My precious kitty and puppy who don’t yet understand how to work Skype.

Dylan on the 4th of July last year right after I got to take him home

1. My family and friends- I’ve got some of the best in the world and I wish I could carry you all around in my pocket. I wish you all a Happy 4^th of July!