International Kids

To finish up our orientation, the International Students Community planned fun activities, beginning in the afternoon and continuing into the night. We started out with a bus tour of Budapest, receiving some more history of the city, and ideas for more places to go explore. Hero's square was awesome, and there is a huge park and museum complex around it. I will definitely go back there. We also toured inside Mátyás (Mathias) Church inside the castle walls, which had amazing stained glass windows, gilded alter, and (in restoration) towering spires intricately decorated with color tile and stone sculpture.After the tour and returning to the University, we met our international mentors, local students who are here to help us adjust and show us the fun of the city. We broke up into little groups who went to various bars and restaurants for individual getting to know each other. The groups met up at a big international dorm where the mentors planned lots of fun activities and games.
It is fun meeting new people, and I'm looking forward to making some good international friends.

Getting There, Orientation Day 2

Day 2 of orientation (or should I say máodik nap?). Today we had a brief history of Hungary, some introduction to the culture of Budapest, and a three hour "Survival in Hungarian" language course. Now I at least know the way to properly pronounce words...kind of. I've almost finished up my registration, looks like some fun classes (Vibrations, Measurement and Signal Processing, Production Engineering, Engineering Mathematics, and Materials Engineering). A few lectures, a few labs, a few independent studies. Also picked up my student travel pass, unlimited public transportation! Tomorrow we have some more business during the day and in the evening is the getting to know each other international student party. Hope you are doing well and life is looking good for you too, dear readers!

Orientation: the long quest of filling in forms

Today began our orientation and official registration at BME. This meant lots of paperwork and waiting in lines. Our International adviser, Eszter Kiss, is really awesome and quite helpful. We got a glimpse of the University cafeteria food, and it was quite fulfilling. Now I have my student ID, my course registration form filled out, and I'll be meething with some of the professors tomorrow to work our classes and research. Exciting!!! The courses look like lots of fun, and the exchange program has some interesting trips planned throughout the semester, Krakow, Transylvania, and a few destinations inside Hungary. I'm also looking forward to meeting all the international students. Our group is pretty diverse, America, Germany, Spain, France, Brazil, Estonia, Turkey...Fun! Looks like it's going to be a good semester.