Our first full day in Hungary was jam packed with sight-seeing, public transportation, and traditional Hungarian food—not to mention our first volleyball match overseas. The first stop of the day was breakfast in the hotel, which tested our ability to distinguish between butter and cheese, among other things. Hungarians definitely have a different idea of what breakfast should be than Americans do, but they do surprisingly have cocoa puffs; apparently chocolate for breakfast is okay in any country. After breakfast, we were off to the Hungarian marketplace, a giant train station-looking building that is filled with vendors selling everything from fresh pastries to doilies. It was as we were walking away from the market, on our way to a Hungarian castle, that Rachel realized she was missing her passport. Panic ensued and the entire team marveled at the skill of the thief that had taken it from her purse without her even realizing it! Our tour guide (Gabor)’s girlfriend retraced our steps and found that Rachel accidentally dropped her passport, but it was quickly snatched up by someone. So, Rachel and our other guide (Brook) spent the majority of the day in the American embassy getting a temporary passport; Rachel wasn’t very happy. After the case of the missing passport, we spent about an hour touring an old castle that now houses part of the Hungarian government. The buildings are hundreds of years old and the view from the top of the hill on which they sit is stunning (needless to say we took lots of pictures). Dinner was an interesting experience—we walked for at least 20 minutes and ended up at this Communist themed pizza restaurant with red stars everywhere and angry American rock music. The pizza was very good, but they make it without pizza sauce so you have to dip everything in marinara sauce. As a team we’re getting very good at riding the public transportation here. We haven’t lost anyone yet and (Kristin) Wolf uses the time to “establish strong international relations.” Some down time at the hotel was used to rest up for our first volleyball match against University Sports BSEF. We played pretty well as a team but took some time to get adjusted to the European style of volleyball played here. After the match, we went to a local brewery and enjoyed a dinner of authentic Hungarian food and drink. So far, I’d say our trip has been an amazing experience (minus the lost/stolen passport) and I can’t wait to see what else Brook, our Coaches and Europe have in store for us!
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