***Will probably put up more pics when the internet is actually stable...

So it's been a while since I posted anything up here. The last couple of weeks have been really busy though- on the week of the 4th, my energy was primarily focused on my work at 3H. After having been there for a week, I was beginning to get the hang of the work routine- Wake up at 7, take a quick shower and be out the door by 7:30; Catch the street car and get to my stop by 8:15, and then walk the half hour it takes to get to the studio itself, arriving at least 15 minutes early. I could get off at a stop closer to the studio, but I don't get much exercise otherwise, and I figure walking the distance twice a day was at least something of a substitute...

Work would then run from 9-6, and I'd do whatever anyone asked me to do. That week, I was

doing some more model building as well as a lot of computer drawings, starting to get the hang of the Hungarian ArchiCAD program. Lunch would come around between 12 and 1, and I'd usually take about half an hour or so to eat/chat with my coworkers- They all spoke English very well, which made things easy on me.

I enjoyed working there though- Reminded me a lot of studio life back at school. For me, it's a good stress reliever and it takes my mind off things. Plus I really enjoy fiddling with little models and drawings, and I like being able to talk to the people around me doing similar work. I actually gave a tutorial on Adobe Illustrator on that Monday to the studio. I've never done a tutorial before, so I felt a little awkward trying to teach something, but I think I did well enough. Zsolt (the boss) complemented me on it, though I'm never sure when he's just being nice or when he actually means it...

Anyway, my last day of work was on Thursday, as Zsuzsi had made plans to go to Hevis on Friday (which evidently got cancelled...), but I managed to finish up everything I was working on a day early so I got to relax a bit on Thursday.

On Saturday morning, I woke up around 3:30, and we left for Rome around 4:30. I managed to sleep for most of this one- Stopped for lunch at an Italian place on the way, and I had some fish dumpling things. Didn't get to Rome until around 8 PM, and Zsuzsi made some Hungarian food for dinner (she'd pretty much brought the entire fridge).

The week in general though was pretty impressive. The first day we walked out of the subway station and the Colosseum is right there in your face- I really was taken aback at its size. You always figure that it's a pretty big structure, but to actually be there and see it in person gives you a completely different sense of the sheer scale of this building. The heat in Rome quickly got to me though- Every day, it was between 90 and 100 degrees F, which made things quite uncomfortable at times.

We saw a lot that week though. We went through all the generic stuff early on- the forum, the colosseum, St. Peters, the Parthenon, etc. I liked St. Peter's Square a lot though; That was another one of the places where I was just completely awe struck. There just isn't any place like it in the US (that I've been to/heard of). We went to a lot of churches though, to the point where I really can't remember their names... I remember them more for the one important fact there is about pretty much each one. There were a lot of Church of Santa Marias though... There was the church where the pope holds his first mass, the church with the longitudinal line running through it, the church that mixed 3 different ages of architecture... The Sistine Chapel was really cool though. I'd seen all the pictures in my textbooks, but to see it for real was, again, really something else.

I'm also a huge fan of the number of fountains that are in Rome. The big squares that you can't really find in the US pretty much all have elaborate fountains and/or obelisks, and it's nice to see all these really old structures spewing water out everywhere. Plus there are the really old Roman fountains on the side of the roads where people refill their water bottles/wash their faces/etc. I took a liking to those very quickly, especially considering the heat. Tap water in Europe is apparently much better than tap water in the US, and, as I figure, when in Rome...

I also actually enjoyed the art museum I went to with Tusi. Tibi had gotten his wallet stolen that day (whoops...), so while he and Zsuzsi went to the police station, Tusi and I went to the museum since we'd reserved the tickets beforehand... I'm still not much of an art genius, but I felt that it was a good opportunity to try and see how much I'd progressed since I first started attending art school a year ago, especially since Tusi knows quite a bit about art. I was pleased to be able to recognize a lot of the mythology in the statues before reading the names of the statues...

By the time Saturday rolled around though, I was exhausted. Zsuzsi definitely knows how to move around the city quickly. We started from the hotel at around 6, and stopped in Ravanna for a few hours at around 11. Saw another fancy church, and checked out the burial site of Dante, which was interesting. I was really tired from the week and from waking up so early, so I was probably only half as into it as I normally would have been, but it was interesting nonetheless. We stopped for lunch a little while later at a small restaurant in Italy where the Szabo's wanted to have some fish for lunch. Fresh fish is apparently a rarity in Hungary, which didn't occur to me until then as I'm a regular fish eater back in the states, but I was happy to have some seafood. Of course, when we tried to order fish, the waiter guy misunderstood, and brought us a basket of fried calamari, shrimp, octopi, and crawfish, all of which I was happy to eat. However this was the meal that I discovered just how picky Zsuzsi is with food, and it's since been something I've come to give her grief about (mostly when she gives me grief about not eating enough for breakfast or whatever...) Finally made it home around midnight, and I was happy to finally have a few days to just loaf around and relax.

It was good to be able to just sit back for a while, especially after all of the stuff I've been doing since I got here- Haven't had much down time outside of the times when it's night time and Zsuzsi is sleeping, but I finally had a bunch of it after Rome, and I was using it to recover and prepare for the bike trip coming up this weekend. Yesterday though I met up with the daughter of one of Zsuzsi and Tibi's good friends, and we played tennis (my game started to get better as we played), and then went to the mall where we met up with her boyfriend. Had dinner at a sandwich place, and then we went over to a pub to have some drinks. They were both very nice and they spoke English well, so I was able to enjoy myself pretty well for the entire day. Got home at around 10:30 that night and went to bed.

Woke up this morning at 8, as 3H had invited me for a "proper farewell" that morning. I made it there around 9:30, and they greeted me with ice cream and champagne- breakfast of champions. It was nice to see them all again and talk with them after 2 weeks. I also met the girl who was replacing me, also a pretty solid English speaker. I left after about an hour so as not to waste too much of their work time, but I enjoyed it. Got home for lunch, and we headed out to attend Tusi's graduation ceremony at 2. It was in Hungarian, so it was only mildly entertaining for me, but it was short enough that I was able to get myself through it. Went home and Zsuzsi prepared some food, and then we moved over to Tusi's house with Csaba (Choba...), his wife, and Zsuzsi and Tibi's neighbors. Everyone spoke English except for Tibi, so I was able to talk to people well enough, though the majority of the conversation was in Hungarian...

Eventually got home though and started packing for the bike tour this weekend. Next update probably will be either on Monday or Tuesday, depending on whether or not I'm tired from this weekend (high probability...)