A time it was a time

Hello Gentle Readers,

It is 2 A.M. Not a particularly extraordinary time for me to be awake, but a particularly extraordinary time after all. In just an hour my taxi will come to speed me to Ferihegy Airport, where I will sit around anticlimactically waiting for my 6 AM flight to Frankfurt. Where I will then languish for 5 more anticlimactic hours until I can grab a wing to Denver.

But for now, right now, I'll just sit here in the midst of a rather climactic sort of quietness. Do you know what I mean? Over the past few days each small detail of my daily life here has ballooned in significance as I have realized that this is the last I may see of this life for a long time. It is true that when I come to the end of things I often look back with rose goggles.

This travel experience has been one of singular importance to me, in ways that I did not expect. In the past when I have spent a longish period of time in a foreign country, I have entered into the journey with sort of magnified senses, with the full expectation that I will learn something profound and life-changing. While I have learned and experienced many beautiful and not-so-beautiful things in my times abroad, these past four months have been a different experience in part precisely because I did not begin this adventure with that straining-for-meaning mindset. To be honest, I began this odyssey tired. Tired of school, and tired of being tired. At the beginning of this past summer I pretty much felt like I didn't want to make any new friends damnit, I could hardly keep up with the ones I had and I really just wasn't feeling all that social. And here I have made wonderful friends despite my tendencies toward isolation, without trying so hard - naturally. Here I have "just lived" rather than thought too much about it. Well, now, wait a second if my roommate reads this she might think - no way, you totally overanalyzed stuff. We are neurotic that way. I guess what I'm trying to say - and none too concisely at that - is that I am amazed at the joys and friendships that populate my life here. I will miss these friends, and the comfortable nature of our exchanges. I will miss these folks whose weirdnesses are not so unlike my own. I will miss this beautiful city because it is here that I have rediscovered my love for learning. It is here in Budapest I have learned greater openness to what's going on inside myself - to let go of control and keep my eyes and ears wide. And for these things I thank my God. Whatever God may be, whoever God is, I give God thanks. Gratitude is a way of being, and a way I want to be myself. And in the more tangible realm, I give thanks to each of you my dear readers, because if you know about this blog chances are VERY strong you're someone I know I can count on for support and whom I am so fortunate to know. Thank you for listening. And especially to my parents and family, for enabling all this craziness and encouraging me at every turn to sieze opportunities and push myself.

It has been a rare pleasure, a challenge, and God knows it has been an adventure not set apart from life as it turns out, but more deeply woven in it than I would have at first guessed.

Also, I am rather tired and feeling all loopy and introspective, so I'm sorry if none of the above really made good sense. Hopefully I communicated the gist all right. I get super wordy when nostalgic.

In the coming days I will (hopeuflly) be posting the last of my photos and perhaps an update re: Holy CRAP what is this place I've returned to??? It's so STRANGE and SO familiar. :)
Love you!

Viszontla'ta'sra Budapest! Viszontla'ta'sra Magyarorsza'g!

Zsuzsika