I'm waiting for my pasta to cook but I thought I'd make a little update letting everyone know I've returned from Budapest, safe and sound!Last night ended up pretty mellow and I stayed in, talking to a guy from the University of Arizona who had been doing some kind of student teaching in Freiburg, Germany since last June. He just started a long break and was headed south via Novi Sad, Belgrade, Macedonia and more! Needless to say, I was pretty jealous because it was very similar to my initial itinerary plan post-AHA classes. So we had a lot to talk about and it kept me busy most of the evening.

Today I did more walking around but I wasn't as lucky with the weather. It wasn't too cold but still a little wet and rainy. Today is the Hungarian Revolution Day, similar to our own Independence Day, and families were out and about in full force, sporting Hungarian red, white and green colored ribbons, flags and clothes! There was some kind of scavenger hunt for kids and other patriotic activities. In other parts of town, the riot police were suited up and ready to go because demonstrations were planned in Heroes Square, from both sides of the argument about taxes being used by the "gypsy" people. Apparently, a large portion of Hungarians are very upset with the way their tax money is being handled (given away to Gypsies for them to live off of) and another portion of Hungarians are okay with it. I was tempted to go check it out but witnessed some other areas of riot police gathering and decided it would probably be a lot of standing/waiting around and nothing actually happening. So, off to the train station instead.I occasionally take short videos with my digital camera and I thought about posting them on the blog but since some readers don't have access to high-speed internet, I didn't want to load it up with a bunch of videos. I decided to upload them onto YouTube so if you want, you can check them out there. They aren't anything fancy and they're all less than a few minutes so don't feel like you're missing out on anything special because I honestly think they're kind of boring but more of a little memoir for me. The link is: http://www.youtube.com/user/kittysliderThis week is going to be pretty hectic because, like I said before, it's basically finals week for everyone since the winter quarter students are leaving. The semester students still have two more weeks of classes but it should be pretty relaxed stuff. SO, this week I have three papers due and I have to give a five-minute presentation about myself and my family in German. So, I'd better get busy!