These past few weeks in Budapest have been so wonderful but also quite bittersweet. In the midst of studying for exams, writting papers, and finishing up projects, we have all been running around trying to see things we haven't gotten around to yet, and enjoy all that this amazing and unpretentious city has to offer. We have been spending alot of time at the Christmas market these days in the center of the city. Budapest sure knows how to do the holidays right, with beautiful streets lit up with lights and christmas markets strewn about the city. It is so fun to walk around while filling your mug up with delicious hot wine, eating steaming treats, and shopping for your friends back home. 
Corwin organized a tour of parliament for us last week. The building is almost as impressive inside as it is on the oustide. One of the members of parliament who has some connections to Calvin took us around. We also got to talk to the minister of foreign affairs for a while, before they both had to run off to a meeting with the prime minister. Here is a kinda crapy picture of the famous hungarian crown with the crooked cross on top.
Corwin organized a tour of parliament for us last week. The building is almost as impressive inside as it is on the oustide. One of the members of parliament who has some connections to Calvin took us around. We also got to talk to the minister of foreign affairs for a while, before they both had to run off to a meeting with the prime minister. Here is a kinda crapy picture of the famous hungarian crown with the crooked cross on top.
When ali's family was here I took a tour of the Jewish Synagogue with them. It is the second largest Synagogue in the world, next to the one in New York. It was so cold walking around that day that I stopped at the christmas market on my way home and bought some hand knit socks and a sweater at the store next door which I put on immediatly.
Yesterday some students threw us a farewell reception (which I unfortunately had to miss for class) and our final wednesday night dinner at Corwin and Marilyn's which was delicious as always. Some of our Hungarian friends came to dinner too, as well as my art history teacher, who I have really enjoyed having this semester.
These past few days we have spent quite a bit of time walking around, revisiting our favorite coffee shops, bars, restaurants and flee markets, as well as exploring some museums we hadn't managed to visit already. Tonight we are going to see the Nutcracker at the Opera House. It is so sad to think that my life here is almost over. Although I am stooked to come home for Christmas and see all the people I love, I don't think I am quite ready to be done traveling around this area, and enjoying this city.
The first day we spent most of our time in a tiny town in Southern Hungary where the Ars Longa Foundation house is. This is the foundation that Janos and Robbie volunteer basically their lives to and that organize our group trips. As it says on their website, "the Ars Longa Foundation was established to identify issues, opportunities, and needs in the Christian churches and communities of East Central Europe and to address these concersn from the perspective of a Reformed Christian world view." In the yard behind this house (where many volunteers stay during the summer when they run children's camps throughout the area) we eventually planted 60 walnut trees. It was really fun digging holes and snacking on biscuits from the neighbor lady. Later that afternoon a couple other people and I took a unbelievably beautiful bike ride through through the sun setting in the surrounding fields.
The next day we drove into Croatia and stopped at this monument up on a hill. You could see across the Danube to Serbia and the only bridge that was left unbombed during the Yugoslav Wars in the late 90's. It was also the site where the Russians choose to fight the Germans in the 1940's killing 50,000 people.
We then drove to another town and went into an abandoned and rotting ethnographic museum once full of Hungarian artifacts that was owned by the church and never restored after the wars. Since communism it has been left to looters and not given back to the church.
Behind this musem we walked up a hill to beautiful vineyards where we could look over and hear a bit more about this church and community which Ars Longa is working with. This is one of the few reformed chuches which has actually been (at least from the outside) restored. The Reformed church recieves very little support from the Croatian state unlike the many surrounding catholic churches in perfect condition.
For lunch we stopped for some local fish and paprika soup. It was not delicious although Janos and Robbie devoured it. Whole fish just cut up floating around in red broth sadly isn't my favorite. 
We then went to another Reformed Church where we helped out with church school, played games, and made crafts with the local kids.
On Sunday we spent most of the day at one of the larger Hungarian Reformed churches in Croatia where Robbie used to be the pastor. Although most of the outside has been restored, the inside still lies in ruins. This whole village was completely destroyed by the Serbians during the most recent war and literally bulldozed into the back yard of the church where we once again were recruited to help with the planting of trees.
Diggin holes in dirt full of rubble gets a little tricky. 
The hospitality of this congregation was unbelievable. The ladies brought out the best homemade pastries I have ever had as the men kept bringing out new bottles of their homemade Palinka to drink with them. It was pretty unreal taking numerous shots of Palinka with these fantastic old church men before 11 am on sunday morning in the back yard of this church waiting for the venicin soup to cook over the fire and the church service to start at 2.
Everyone there had once fled the city only to return years later with loved ones, as well as houses lost... and yet they were some of the most kind and jolly people I have ever met.
Still waiting for the service to start we walked to the train tracks where Serbian buildings were still left in ruins next to the new homes the government built for the people.
I had no idea coming into this semester that this is what the group trips would be like but I so happy they were. It was incredible to travel with Janos and Robbie (two of the most jolly, knowledgable, selfless and hilarious people I have ever known) and see these communities in such an intimate way.
