Introductions and Everlasting Friendships

I cannot believe the amount of things I have already done in these first few days! I will try to recount as much as possible, but will just give brief recaps…
Thursday was our first day of classes/work. Since it is about a two-mile walk to the business school at the University of Pecs, we all had to leave at about 8:30 to make it there by 9. As with every other destination in Pecs, it pretty much a straight shot, as all streets wind around and eventually meet up at the same places. We walk along the southern circle of the city to suddenly come upon the massive green building of their college of business. Everyone is standing outside and we are then directed downstairs to one of the classrooms.

At about 60 students total, we listen to opening remarks and introductions from the advisors of the program, their expectations in us (one of which is simply to ‘be nice’ which is often overlooked in today’s world), and an overview of the schedule for the next six weeks.

The first week (Thursday and Friday) will primarily consist of lectures, team building activities, and introductory projects.  

The second week everyone will be assigned to projects for the 30-some businesses we will be consulting for this summer. With briefings in the morning, teams will work together from 10-4 with a lunch break in the middle. The first week all teams will be having client meetings to figure out the problem and expectations. We will be working closely with the advisors and other professionals to help increase the value and quality of the projects. At the end of the second week, the GCP students will be arriving (another 20 Ohio University students) and on Saturday, everyone will be participating in a city tour and team building activities. The following Sunday, there will be the big opening banquet and anniversary celebration for everyone, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the OU-Pecs relationship and the official 5th anniversary of the Simonyi Center. Tons of really high uppity people are going to be there, such as important government officials (ambassadors, governors, past presidents, etc.), deans of different universities, CEOs of huge companies, and Charles Simonyi himself, along with a whole bunch of other honored guests. It should be good food and interesting stories…just too bad the GCP kids are going to be there, detracting away from our attention :/ 

The third week will be more work, meetings, lectures, etc. The GCP kids will be placed onto separate projects, with some of us leading them. On Wednesday, everyone will be heading to one of the top wine regions in the world, the Villany region about 15 minutes away from Pecs, for dinner and wine tasting. On Saturday, we will also be going to Lake Orfu for the day. 

The fourth week will be more work. On Tuesday everyone will head up to the Mecsextreme Park at the top of the hills for some extreme sports…which should be incredible and hopefully result in no broken bones. At the end of the week, the GCP kids will give their final presentations and have a closing banquet. The following weekend will be a three-day vacation that everyone is planning on going somewhere, possible London, Spain, Venice, Vienna, or Prague. It all depends on whether I have enough money to go, but fortunately, flights in Europe are inexpensive and I might be able to squeak in a trip.  

The fifth week will just be work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with another three-day weekend following. This is when everyone is planning to go to the beaches of Croatia (the top in the world), but again, it all depends on money for me.  

The sixth week is our last week of classes and work, with presentations at the end. There will be a final closing banquet and many tears, as we will all be leaving on Saturday, July 24. Some people are traveling for two weeks afterwards all around Europe, but I will be going back to Athens to take summer classes.

I said how I would so do cluster again in a heartbeat, and this is my second chance. Except this time, it is for actual businesses in an international environment, and grades do not matter. The quality of our work does matter though, which means I will be working extremely hard these next couple weeks, but will be so worth it.

After reviewing the schedule, all the students introduce themselves. The class consists of an incredible mix of students from different countries, not just US and Hungary, but South Africa, China, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, etc.

The American group consists of 18 students from Ohio University and 1 from Xavier who has family in Hungary. Everyone is majoring from business to history, journalism, and communications and are going to be juniors, seniors, and some who have already graduated. Some have participated on the program before, some have traveled abroad, and others have never been on a plane before. However, everyone has the same type of personality – driven, entrepreneurial, and analytical. Four other students are actually from about 1-2 miles down the road from where I live in Stow, so I wonder if geography has anything to do with determining our ambitions…something must be in our water.

After introductions, we break for lunch. All the US students head to the mall food court. I get a type of chicken paprikas with spaetzles which was typical mall food – good, but not great. After eating, we find out the joy of the Hungarian public restrooms, that you have to pay about $0.25 to use. There are barely any public restrooms, only in restaurants, and when you do find one, you have to pay…oh well. I wander around the mall with a friend looking for makeup, which proved to be more challenging than we first thought. The huge supermarket chain (Interspar) that is like a super Walmart, does not carry makeup…you have to go to a drugstore or specialty stores…I just thought it was interesting.

We head back to the college of business and listen to a lecture on the Hungarian economy. This is when my jet lag set in…horribly. The speaker had a really strong accent and soft voice, I was sitting in the back of the room where all the windows were open, and he was going on and on about numbers. I could follow everything going on but felt like I was going to die. I could not stay awake no matter how hard I tried. Everyone around me probably thought I was going crazy because I kept moving around and stabbing myself in the arm with my pen trying to keep myself awake. The 1.5 hours of sleep I got in the past 54 hours was setting in and I was just about to give up. I remembered I packed a whole bunch of Starburst in my backpack and started eating them, welcoming the sugar rush. Surprisingly, Hungary does not have Starburst, but no one was wanting too try them…I did not know if it was considered extremely rude to eat in the classroom in Hungary, but it was either that or blacking out, so I just ate them secretly in the back.

Everyone was then split into teams of 3-5 to be given an entrepreneurial mini case that we would have to present the following day. I was put into a group of one other American student and a Hungarian student who was extremely smart, well spoken, and very fun. Everyone had to find an abandoned building across from the National Theatre in the center of the main walking street, and provide recommendations as to what could be done with it. They needed to be unique to the area, use the location as a strategic advantage, and be sustainable.

The building was beautiful and large. After analyzing it a little bit, the Hungarian student who knew the area the best thought an antique shop would be the best idea. There are no other antique shops, and with the history of the city and demand for artistic artifacts, the business would be unique and successful. We would also turn the second floor into an event space to be used for auctions, shows not offered by the National Theater across the street, fashion shows, etc. We were not really worried that much about the project, because it was simply meant as an icebreaker to get everyone to meet each other, get our minds beginning to work, and get us to explore/know the city.

We decide to take a break and I head back to my apartment to take a nap. Of course I can’t fall asleep, right when I am about to Laura breaks in and jumps on my back, and finally when I do my alarm goes off two minutes later. So while I was able to at least rest, I was still tired when I had to wake back up and head to a dinner for the Simonyi group at a local restaurant. We all head to a place called Arizona Ranch (I know, I fly 5,000 miles to Arizona), right in the heart of the main walking street, reserved for our group.

We are served pickled salad, fried chicken, baked chicken, and potatoes, everything really delicious. Then we all change seats and are served a lemon cranberry bread dessert that was excellent. After meeting new friends and sharing stories and backgrounds, we head to the wine festival with the Hungarian students. It was a lot of fun as we spent the whole night relaxing on the steps of the Cathedral and listen to a big band made up of police officers playing. We all decide to head back to our places to get ready and meet up later at a café that pretty much turned into a disco later. It was really weird and unexpected, but everyone had a great and unusual time. We all head back home and pass out around 3 am to wake back up the next morning for class again.

The second day was incredible; I met incredible people and made everlasting friendships. It was absolutely spectacular and just kept getting better and better.

I hope your day is also spectacular! It is 3:30 am now…I will go to bed and write about the next days tomorrow.

Welcome to Hungary!

Oh my god, where to begin...Considering I am extremely jet lagged, bare with me and my writing, because I am sure it will not make much sense.

I started off this adventure waking up at 7 am on Tuesday to be ready to leave by 10. I wanted to get to the Columbus airport early for our 4 pm flight because I was scared of lines and security. Of course there were no lines to check in or for security at all, so we ended up being at the gate by 1. I did get to try out the new metal detector/scanner things that scan your whole body…I don’t know if I looked like a troublemaker, or if they just wanted to test it out on me and figured I wouldn’t care.

The flight from Columbus to JFK was on the cheapest plane I have ever been on; I felt like it was being held together by scotch tape. I finally got to see NYC for the first time, off in the distance, but it still looked as magnificent as I always thought it to be. After getting off the toy plane we had to walk forrrrever through the terminal to get on our international plane, and we only had about an hour to do it.

The plane ride was all right…long (9 hours), but not as long as my flight to Japan. However, this time I could not fall asleep at all. Everyone had TylenolPM or Benedryl to knock them out, but I could just not get comfortable. Everyone was excited and just ready to be there, so we were relieved once we finally landed in Budapest around 10:40 am CEST (4:40 am ET).

We cleared customs just fine, and then we had to begin the last leg of our journey-the 2.5-3 hour bus ride to Pecs. We all packed our luggage into a trailer (ps, I packed the least with just a backpack and a carryon size bag) and all packed into the van/bus. Everyone was still tired and tried sleeping, but our driver was crazy and would always speed into oncoming traffic to pass other cars/trucks/semis in our lane. We had a couple close calls, a few angry horns and swerving, but we survived and so did our luggage in the back trailer.

We left the airport driving through notsopretty areas of Budapest, mainly the outskirts with huge, abandoned apartment buildings from the Soviet era. But once we got out of the city, we hit the plains of central Hungary. It was raining in Cleveland when we left, sunny in NY, and raining when we got into Budapest, but finally cleared to be sunny once we hit this point in our travel. The plains grew into gradual hills and mountains of vineyards and towns. Everything kept getting prettier and prettier as we traveled on, and everyone was getting more and more excited. We finally come around a mountain and see Pecs and instantly fall in love.

I can’t even begin to explain how everything looked as we were driving in, because there aren’t words that would do justice. It is exactly how I pictured a European city, with Mediterranean looking houses, gardens, brightly colored buildings, narrow alleyways that are just pure gorgeous, and people walking all around. We finally pull up in front of our apartment complex/flat and finally unload the cramped van.

The apartment complex is gorgeous. It consists of a door/gate at the front off the street, with two small buildings facing each other opening up into a central courtyard. The Simonyi students are the only ones staying here. We have a backyard/greenspace with my favorite, a blackberry tree in the back in full bloom…I just don’t know if I am allowed to eat any of the blackberries.

I was assigned the only single apartment that was just added on all the way at the end. It is perfect! Clean, hardwood floors, kitchenette, bed, nice bathroom, just enough to live an enjoyable 6 weeks. After checking in and helping everyone sign on to the wireless, we left to go explore the city.

With the students who participated on the program before leading us, we walked just about two blocks to the main square, Szechenyi ter, along gorgeous streets lined with shops and cafes. Everyone was just admiring the architecture and people, just trying to take it all in. We did learn though that you would be fined $100 for jaywalking/crossing against the signal and are already finding it hard not to coming from Athens, where we walk where we want to, when we want to. We suddenly come into the corner of the main square and are caught by the beauty. As Pecs was named the Capital of Culture for Europe for 2010, Pecs had undergone a massive renovation and everything was in prestine condition. The square is just like the rest of Pecs with the incredible sculptures and artwork surrounding buildings with incredible history. There are gorgeous fountains that seem to appear out of the ground and gardens that grow out of the walkways. There are also buildings that have gone under many different uses through history, such as the Great Mosque that was later turned into a Christian church.

We then continue to walk down Kiraly Street for a few blocks, with its many shops, restaurants, open air cafes, and stands. I could easily go broke just shopping and trying food, but will try to keep calm. After everyone exchanged money at the Western Union in front of the National Theatre of Pecs (which will be showing the opera Carmina Burana sometime in the future that I will definitely try to go see), we decide to split up into groups. Some wanted to go eat and we wanted to go to the Wine Festival at the Promenade.

Again, we walk a few blocks down gorgeous walking streets, turning corners and coming upon beautiful parks, buildings, and squares, and arrive at the Dom ter and Barbakan ter. This is where the giant Bishop’s Palace and St. Peter and Paul Basilica are, with gorgeous parks, museums, artwork, and festivals. Just like any wine festival in the US, there are stands all around with fresh made food and drinks. I ask the Hungarian student living with us what she recommended as my first meal in Hungary, and she explains that the pork sausage is really good. As I was too nervous to order it myself (mainly because I couldn’t pronounce it in Hungarian), she took care of it and explained to me how to do it for myself (like what to say, what they might ask, etc.). I get some wine, because I am at a wine festival in Pecs (which is in one of the main wine-making regions in Europe) and because I can, sit down with my meal at a table in the park with everyone else, and dig in. The sausage was really good, kinda spicy (probably from the paprika), but was excellent.

A couple other Hungarian students that participated in the program before met up with us and we had a good time relaxing, getting to know each other, hearing stories. We decide to head back to the apartments before going out again, because some people wanted to take showers, naps, etc.

Laura, Vicki (the Hungarian student living with us), and I decide to head back out to walk around/explore because we were getting tired sitting around talking and wanted to move around. We walk down more walking streets to Kossuth ter were the giant Synagogue is and a giant big screen TV showing the World Cup (we are only a one hour time difference with South Africa apparently) to a ton of people. We make our way into the Pecs mall looking for ice cream, but everything is pretty much closed down at 5/6:00 pm, so we just go to the supermarket on the ground floor and buy some candy and fruit for our breakfast in the mornings. Most stores close around 5/6, but the restaurants, cafes, and bars are buzzing all hours of the night and everyone is walking around.

We make our way back to the apartments, passing by ruins of ancient Turkish baths, more gorgeous churches, and beautiful alleyways. We get back, check a couple things on the internet, then pass out. We ran into everyone going back up to the wine festival, but we just did not feel like going out since we had not slept and were supposed to begin work the next morning at 9 am.

I of course fell asleep around 11 pm, wake up at midnight as everyone else came back, and have not been able to fall asleep since then. I am tired and might take a nap later, but decided to write this as the sun is rising at 4:30 am (yes, that early over here) and I see a couple other Simonyi students walking around outside my window who also can’t sleep.

Today, we are going to the University to get a tour, learn our schedules, meet everyone, etc. at 9 am, then we have our opening ceremony at 5:30 which will be wonderful.

Overall, I LOVE PECS!!! The city reminds me of a European version of Charlotte, with gorgeous artwork perfectly integrated into the structure of the city, the cleanliness, safety, and overall outdoor atmosphere. There is incredible history here and the people at first impression are just as friendly and personable as ever, even though they automatically start speaking to us in Hungarian and then look disappointed to have to speak in English. I will just have to try to learn as much Hungarian as possible, which is the most gorgeous language I have ever heard, hands down.

Ok, off to get ready and experience a second day!