saint stephen's day

(This was written about 24 hours ago but not posted due to sleepiness and then laziness throughout the day)

Today has been super long and full of excitement. It's Saint Stephen's Day, which is celebrating the first Christian king of Hungary, St. Stephen. It's very similar to the 4th of July for Americans. Many businesses are closed and there are festivities everywhere.

We woke up bright (well it was rainy so maybe not bright) and early around 8 to leave by 9 get to the dorm by 10. Once we had all the students with us we headed back into the city to see some booths and look for some cake. A backstory on the cake: every year there is a competition for the best cake and the winner is served special on this day. When we got to Batthyany ter we set out - with raincoats and umbrellas - looking at booths of foods and desserts and trinkets but keeping in mind this special cake. After having made it a couple blocks down to the Chain Bridge with the rain growing heavier we were starting to doubt if the cake we had been told about really existed. Then we finally asked some Hungarians and they pointed us back to where we had started. But we went anyways. We found the cake just past the point we started at so if we had gone the other way it would have been right in our face. In the end it was worth it however because the cake was delicious. 

After devouring the cake we had to walk back to the Chain Bridge across it and to the "magic" fountain near our apartment. A quick group meeting and then we had nearly two hours of free time before the mass at St. Stephen's Basilica at 5 o'clock. I went to our apartment for some down time. I did a smidgen of school work and relaxed. The time went surprisingly fast and before long I was back out the door to meet the group at the fountain and walk over to the Basilica. There were thousands of people all around the square in front of the building and some priests and officials on a stage up front with a large screen that I could almost see on my tiptoes. The service was long but fascinating. I kept thinking everyone my age back home is at school learning things they most likely have little interest in when I am surrounded by people of all nationalities speaking languages I can't understand and how incredibly lucky I am to be here. 

On a different note during the mass I discovered something horrifying. There is a bug inside of my camera. It looks large but we aren't really sure. At first I thought it was crawling on the lens so I looked but it wasn't. Then I thought it was between the body and lens, but it wasn't. So there is a bug of unknown size or type living inside of my camera. No idea how it got in or how I'd never seen it before but it gave me goosebumps just looking at it so that was really fun. (If anyone has any ideas on what to do about that please let me know). 

After the mass many of us were in desperate need of food so we made some time to eat and set a meeting point. My family shared some ginger ales and fries. Following dinner/snack we made our way down the river to the point where we were going to watch the fireworks. We also met our Hungarian friends Zoltan and Peti. We had a great, if far away, view of the city and the fireworks.

Now after walking back and getting home we are all exhausted. A good nights rest is a must because early (for me; apparently 10 is a normal hour to be awake) tomorrow morning we start our Hungarian lessons at the dorm.