Blogging
From Abroad

The weekend was filled with firsts.
I attended my first aerobics class, cooked dinner for my friends for the _first _time, attended my _first _Nigerian worship service, tried my _first _pot of Sri Lankan tea, and watched my _first _Hungarian movie.

• The aerobics class was quite an adventure. I found out about the promotional free classes from my roommate who has a membership to the gym. Luckily Desi, a Hungarian language major from Bulgaria, came with me and translated the location of the lockers and fitness room. I thought the class was going to be a fun from the title, dance aerobics with weights, but I forgot how fit Hungarians are compared to Americans. I took the lightest weights, drank the most water, stretched the longest, and still was the weakest link in the class, fulfilling the American stereotype.

• Cooking dinner for my friends?and the food actually being edible was a huge accomplishment. My goal for the semester is to have friends over at least once a month. This weekend I decided to start easy, two friends came over and I cooked French toast. Martha Stewart would be proud. I even sliced bananas on top and (gulp) paid for the oh-so-expensive maple syrup to make it perfect. (Maple syrup is found in the international food aisle and cost me about 6 USD!)

• The Nigerian worship service was wonderful. Religious Studies is part of my major so I eat worship services up like candy. I love seeing people praise God in singing and devout prayer. I was thankful for the invite (and the awesome Nigerian food offered after) and hope to be back weekends to come.

• Drinking tea has been a daily routine since my semester abroad in Hong Kong. I?m glad the tea craze has caught on in Szeged too.
  One of my best friends back at WVU is Thilanka from Sri Lanka and he could talk about tea for hours. In fact, it?s his dream to someday have a tea plantation in his home country after working for NASA. (Side note: I love hearing WVU international students dreams. It is so encouraging!)
  When Nora and I headed to a famous tea house in Szeged on Sunday and I saw Sri Lankan tea on the menu I decided to order it in his honor. Thilanka was right, tea from Sri Lanka is “goooooood!”

• My roommate and I watched Valami Amerika, aka Kind of America, about a Hungarian who pretends to be American. It?s quite funny, check out the website for more details. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0303184/

I hope to use all of my weekends here to continue to try out new firsts.