Budapest, Take One

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from my internship in Budapest. When I landed, I was worried that the guy who would be picking me up, Gery, would be late, or maybe I wouldn’t be able to find him. But I did find him. His dad, who was driving, didn’t speak a word of English though. I had no directional sense, and I could only trust that this random stranger would get me safely to the dorms (the name and appearance of which I wasn’t even sure of). And he did.

Once at the dorms, Gery helped me get the key to my room and settle in a bit. No one else was in the dorms; because it was a weekday, the other trainees were still working at the camp. I stood in the middle of the rather large dorm room, at a loss for what I was supposed to do next. Gery didn’t really know either, so he tried to call the other trainees and see what they were doing. After a short conversation with a guy named Mark, he told me that Nick and Ani (more strangers) would be back in the dorms shortly, and that I should wait for them.

Nick turned out to be a shredded trainee from Singapore with a heavy accent, and Ani was a tall Indian with a mustache and a heavy accent. I mostly tagged around with Ani for the afternoon. He took me to the mall to pick up water and an Ethernet cable (there is no wifi in the dorms), and then out to dinner at Burger King. (Yes, I did have my first Big Mac in a foreign country.) We also attempted to get a phone for me, but it turned out to be too much of a hassle. I ended up just using my cell phone to call home every week or so to check in, emailing updates when I could and using an app to call using wifi when wifi was available.

We got back around 8pm, so I had more than enough time to settle in before my roommate, Ioanna from Greece, came back around 10pm. She brought with her three other trainees: Hesham from Egypt, Jonathan from New York, and Mark—the guy Gery had spoken to on the phone—from Hong Kong. (Later on, Hesham told me that coming back at 10pm was early for them. Usually, we trainees didn’t come back until at least 11pm. That night, however, they knew that I was arriving. “Oh, Amy’s getting here!” they said, according to him. “She’s from Yale! We need to meet her.” So they came back early just to meet me.)

A mere 17 years of age, I was the youngest in a group of 10 trainees, the rest of whom ranged from 20 to 22 years old. They were all shocked that I hadn’t even started my freshman year of college yet—it ended up being the source of many jokes, especially when I had trouble getting into clubs—but accepted that I was more than capable of running the AIESEC Summer for Youth camp with them. Speaking of running the camp, I came in with little to no idea as to what I was supposed to be doing. I trusted that the other trainees would help integrate me into whatever system they were using, and, as nervous as I was about hanging out with people two to five years older than me, I appreciated the effort they made to include me, the latecomer, in their plans. The second day I was at camp—a Wednesday—Hannah, the girl from Australia, approached me and asked if I wanted to go to a beach retreat with them that weekend.

By the time we were at the beach, it seemed ridiculous that I’d only met the other trainees a few days ago. I bonded with them in just that short period of time, to the point where I felt comfortable going out at night with them and staying in an apartment with them.

My relationships with the kids we taught, however, were more varied and complicated. But that’s a blog post for another time.

Love, Amy