My first week as a Budapestian

As a part of the requirements for my Master’s Program at the LBJ School, I am doing an internship in Budapest with Minority Rights Group International this summer.  The organization promotes and supports the rights and development of minorities and indigenous people around the world.  Because I will be working in the Budapest office, my focus will be on Europe and Central Asia.  I’m excited about working with this excellent organization, and I hope that I can be a useful and valuable member of the MRG team. 

I'm flying!

After a couple bumpy flights, I arrived Tuesday in the early afternoon to Budapest. My naivety (or hubris) led me to believe that I would be able to head into work that afternoon to meet my new coworkers.  Shockingly, I didn’t make it to the MRG office that day. Instead, I wandered a bit around town, and mostly just tried to stay awake.

Chain Bridge

My first day of work was pretty uneventful in the morning.  It was the day of MRG’s big monthly staffwide worldwide meeting, so I had to wait until the afternoon to meet with Neil (my boss) about my position this summer.  I did some research on MRG’s current projects, and started looking through the Global Advocacy Program (GAP).  One of my tasks this summer will be managing the participant organizations of the advocacy training that MRG offers. In the afternoon, I met with Neil to discuss my internship.  First, we talked about the UNITED Conference in Turkey the following week, which we are both attending.  It is in Sile, a beautiful city on the coast of the Black Sea.  While there, I will be participating in the Working Group discussing the rights of refugees.  In the meantime, he also gave me a few other tasks, and a broader idea of my role at MRG.  

Beautiful Synagogue, which is down the street from my office!

On my way to work on Thursday, a Hungarian couple asked me for directions. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, nor could I have directed them in any useful capacity. Still, it was exciting. At work, I looked at recent shadow reports submitted for recent conferences on minority/ indigenous rights. After work on Thursday, I went to look at two apartments.  The first one I saw, I absolutely fell in love with! It was in a quiet and beautiful neighborhood a block away from the Danube. The apartment itself was lovely, and from the roof terrace, you could see the Liberty Statue. I knew that this was going to be my new home (at least for a few months).  Friday, I researched minority organizations and communities in Montenegro, Serbia, and Kazakhstan. For lunch on Friday, I went with two of my colleagues (Ildiko and Zsofia) to lunch at a lovely restaurant where we enjoyed the first sunny day since my arrival.  Although I was prepared to be disappointed, I actually quite like Hungarian food. It is quite heavy, though, and no one could possibly call it healthy. I mean soup with pieces of paste-- not too great for digestion.  

Goulash soup with small pieces of paste! My favorite!

I spent much of the morning Saturday relaxing, and catching up on e-mails.  I went to lunch at a “Hungarian crêpe” restaurant.  I don’t know how genuine it was, but I do know that it was delicious!  After that, I went to meet my new landlord to sign the lease.  I cannot wait to move into that lovely building—unfortunately, however, I must.  I decided to be a tourist in my new city for the afternoon, and headed to Gellert Hill to see the Liberty Statue up close.  It was a challenging walk up the hill, but the views of the city and the river were breathtaking.  While on the way down, I twisted my ankle.  Unfortunately, it has yet to improve, but here’s to hoping it does before I get to Turkey! 

View from Gellert Hill

That evening, I met up with Zsofia, and we went to the Castle.  It was beautiful, and very quiet.  We heard some Roma folk music, and sat and listened to the trio for a little while.  We walked across the Chain Bridge, and went to a delicious restaurant for dinner.  After that, we went to a jazz concert at a pub where her friend was playing.  It was great company and great music, but by the end of the evening, my ankle was really not doing well.  The rest of the weekend, I mostly relaxed. Sunday afternoon, I went to see the Avengers, which was excellent.  It was very exciting in the theater when they mentioned Budapest!  Sunday, I moved where I was staying. It was very unpleasant to go across the city with my huge backpack on hobbling around.  If I were actually disabled, Budapest is one city I would definitely not live in. Stairs everywhere!

Picture by the castle with Zsofia

Monday, I finished my work from last week, and I got my own MRG email! It’s Amy.Booth instead of Amy.Kalmbach. I think they thought Booth was the first of two last names.  How silly of them. Booth is obviously a woman’s middle name. Also, I finished preparing for the UNITED Conference.  I think it’s going to be a fascinating and wonderful time. I even have a couple days to explore Istanbul!  My first week in Budapest has been wonderful, and I am looking forward to the rest of my time here.

back home

Robert Assagioli said “there is no certainty; there is only adventure.” After three weeks of driving around the Western bits of the United States, I can easily assure you that there is absolutely no certainty. Adventure was certainly apart of the trip. From four hour long detours to exploding tanker trucks to water shortages and freezing weather, we did not quite get what we were expecting. I certainly stepped out of my comfort zone a time or two. The trip was an amazing and exciting voyage into my beautiful country with its canyons and mountains and trees and sea lions.

On “This American Life” Ira Glass said “any road trip is going to feel longer than you think it will. And you'll be tired and you won't get a meal exactly when you're hungry. You never find a bed exactly when you want to go to sleep. And you're probably not going to find out what it is you got on the road to find out in the first place. And you know all that. You know all that going into it. And you still -- we all still -- buy into the cliche about road trips. That what a road trip stands for is hope. Hope. That somewhere -- anywhere -- is better than here. That somewhere on the road I will turn into the person I want to be. I'll turn into the person I believe I could be. That I am. And we hit the road. You and me and our whole great nation. With high hopes and no expectations for the future.”

I think he’s right. With every new trip and every new conversation I have with a stranger, I continue to grow and develop as a person. I have hope that I will continue to transform into someone who can do good things for the world and the people in it. Mostly, I hope that every path that each of us takes promotes harmony and acceptance and love between all peoples. I have met people whose opinions make my skin crawl, but I understand that sometimes it’s more important to be working together than to prove yourself. I think if we try hard enough, we could do incredible things.

The Land of Enchantment

If our drive to Las Vegas was difficult, the drive from it was simply frustrating. About an hour into our drive, the traffic was at a standstill for as far as we could see. We discovered over two hours later once we started moving that a tanker truck blew up. We were trying to make it to Santa Fe that night, but we decided to stop in Albuquerque for the night.

The following morning we drove around downtown Albuquerque before going to Santa Fe. With Santa Fe, we were reminded of our problems in the Northwest of parking. We eventually scrounged up enough coins. We walked around the downtown and wandered around the markets and the old church before we decided to get some lunch at a lovely Italian café.

We headed to our CouchSurfing hosts for the night, Ayumi and Taylor, who were wonderful. We discussed social justice and environmentalism and travelling. For dinner, they made a delicious Japanese meal; there was a third CouchSurfer there who was Japanese and loved the home cooking! After dinner, we watched Children Underground—a documentary on Romanian street children. Since Bryan is going to Romania for two months to teach in an orphanage. We left the next morning to go back home.

¡Viva Las Vegas!

I have talked many times of the beauty of the scenery along our drives, and the drive to Vegas was no different. It was different, however, in one very specific way. At some point in every road tripper’s life, s/he is done with careening around the edge of a mountain. I was at that point. It didn’t help that a road was closed in Yosemite, which added three and a half hours to our journey. The hardest part to stomach was the fact that the road opened two days after we left. Yeesh!

They say that “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” but I’m fighting against it to tell you about my short sejour in the city of sin. You can see Las Vegas coming dozens of miles away. Such bright lights! We drove down the Las Vegas strip and saw the huge sparkling hotels and shops and billboards. We saw the beautiful and huge Bellagio fountains by finally settling in our hotel at Planet Hollywood.

After showering and getting ready we headed out on the town. We had a quick bite to eat. Once we finally arrived on the strip, the fountains had stopped for the evening, unfortunately. We still had an amusing time watching the numerous stumbling drunk and scantily clad men and women. We headed back to the casino in our hotel and I slowly lost my cash on the quarter slots, but had quite a lovely time. The next day, we had delicious In-N-Out on our way out of town.

Mountains and Waterfalls

The drive to Yosemite was (as so many of the others) was absolutely breathtaking. As we started getting closer, the mountains surrounding us became grander. We drove around for awhile to see some of the mountains, and we stopped to see some of the amazing sights. We went up to Glacier Point and hiked down the four-mile trail. Every time we turned a corner, there was an incredible and different view of the park. As I looked upon the splendor of the mountains and waterfalls, I thought back on all the beautiful places I’ve been and the unforgettable sights I have seen. Because, as Lucy Larcom said “I do not own an inch of land / But all I see is mine.” All the amazing places and people I’ve come across have become a part of me.

On our way back down the side of the mountain, there was a large group of people clustered together. By the time we parked, unfortunately, the black bear and her two cubs had gone further into the forest. We hiked up Pohona trail to camp, and it started getting dark much more quickly than Bryan and I had anticipated, so we used flashlights to see for much of our hike. Eventually we reached inspiration point, and in the morning after camping we discovered how inspiring the view was! I woke up with a sunrise over the mountains and it was an incredible sight. As John Muir said: how glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!"

The Majestic Redwoods

We took the lovely route of the 101 to the Redwood forest. We stopped along the way and had delicious oysters; we had beautiful scenery along the way, and that night I had a shower before bed because we were staying in a hotel. Showers are a marvelous birthday gift.

We decided to take the Hiachi Trail to Stout Grove at Jedediah State Park. It was absolutely incredible. Even the small redwoods were still the biggest trees we had ever seen. People always talk about the enormity of a Redwood Forest, but few will talk about its beauty; it was so beautiful and peaceful. Ronald Reagan said once “If you’ve seen one redwood tree, you’ve seen them all.” I could not disagree more. Each was its own unique and beautiful creature.

Eventually after tromping through the trail, we arrived at a rocky beach area. It had such a great view of the river and the trees. We discovered we had to ford a stream to get to Stout Grove. We removed our shoes and socks and trudged through the knee deep freezing cold water. Once we crossed our feet were so dirty, we didn’t put our shoes back on. We walked around Stout Grove barefoot and amazed. These were the most fascinating and grandest Redwoods in our day’s walk. Once we traversed back across the icy stream, we relaxed by the rocky beach and skipped rocks in the river and watched the delightful surroundings. We got a bit lost on the way back, but it was so beautiful that neither of us minded. I feel like I can learn so much from these mountains and trees and as John Muir said “in every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

The Pacific Rainforest

We took a long and beautiful drive through much of the Olympic National Park, which eventually brought us to the Hoh Rainforest. We started our walk along the Hoh River Trail in the early afternoon. A couple miles into our hike, Bryan and I realized that we didn’t have a very good map to our camp. We, unfortunately, also discovered that the path split off several times and it was growing steadily darker while we had no real idea of whether the paths and directions we continued to choose were correct. We continued on. Ray Bradbury said that “half the fun of the travel is the aesthetic of lostness.” Our wanderings have been as lovely as our destinations. We saw groups of elk that were incredible; they are such majestic creatures.

Luckily, we eventually found the campground. Campground is such a loose term for where we set up our tent. It did, however, have pit toilets and bear wire so that our food wasn’t taken by bears. I slept poorly the night before my birthday, but perhaps that was so I could have more hours of my birthday awake! We somehow managed the hike back to the car, exhausted as we were. On our way back we saw more elk. It was terribly exciting. Few people have the honor of seeing herds of elk before 7AM on their birthday, so I felt very special. A happy birthday to me!