All day, every day.

I learned how to say that in Hungarian yesterday, mostly just so I could explain how often I was learning Hungarian. Each evening, I plan something that I want to do in the morning before class - GRE studying, a run in the park, cleaning the living room, what have you. Then, I drag myself out of bed the next morning and can't think of doing anything but staring in to my cup of coffee and then working through the list of forty or so new vocabulary words and verb forms that I am supposed to study for that day's class. Then, I get to the language school and somehow a full day of learning goes by during which I make plans for the evening, like studying for the GRE, going for a run, hanging out with friends, etc - and when I get home, I am completely exhausted and usually manage to accomplish about 1/3 of my plans before going to bed.

That being said, I think I'm learning something. And last night, I went and had dinner with a lovely Hungarian family - and the mother and father in that family know my mother and father. My dad and this dad met in 83, which we realized was thirty years ago as we sat down to dinner. Since their meeting, both these two and my mother and father have met up in various cities (Budapest, London, Washington, DC) and I met their son who is my age the other day for a beer in the city. It was a bit surreal and positively lovely to be so kindly received into this family (and I have heard stories about my dad's two Hungarian friends my whole life) last night.

After dinner, they even had a Tokaj tasting - for, the dad explained, as much his own benefit as mine. We wanted to see if our layman tongues could distinguish at all between some of these wines. The other amazing thing is that Tokaj (a very sweet dessert wine from a particular region ((called Tokaj)) in Hungary) is something I have only ever heard of in books - I associated it with a fictional and dramatic world - and I got to drink it. It is very, very sweet and I do prefer red wines in general, but this tiny glass of pure gold liquid looked so gorgeous in front of me and I had a moment when I tried a small piece of deliciously crumbly blue cheese and though normally I more 'appreciate' such cheese than 'like' it, when I followed it with a sip of the Tokaj that ended up being my favorite of the three, my mouth understood wine and cheese and I was rather transported for a second. :)

Okay. So, now I have to start that routine I spoke of. Breakfast and rushing through new vocab. Oy vey. In the mean time, the escalators in this city are ridiculously steep and long and I've got some pictures here to show it - as well as a picture of the beautiful synagogue which is right near the languages school downtown.