I am an Inspirational Blogger!

Kinuk gave me an award and over here is where you can find the rules. Once you have been given an award you have to give awards to five other bloggers whose blogging you find inspirational.

My first award goes to Kinuk. Although she awarded me first, she would have been top of my list anyway, so here goes. I feel like the person that I know and love is enhanced through a reading of her blog, I knew about her blog before I really knew her. Not only do I get to talk to K and spend time with her, but I get to read about her perspective while I am away. She is brave in blogging about her feelings on being pregnant and now a parent and I hope I can still feel connected to baby A through her posts while I am in Budapest.

My next award goes to Lisa over at reflections. She is an American woman living in Budapest and raising two boys who look adorable. I have given her a creative blogger award as she not only posts about her life, but her blog is very pictoral, with loads of beautiful artwork and photos. I must ask her how she does that when we get round to meeting!

My third award is going to Caffe Franje, which is a blog I have been reading for a while now. Franje posts in a very honest way, which sometimes gains criticism from his readers, but I appreciate his honesty and reflections about his life. I would definately consider Franje a blog friend, I just wish that he would post more oftern!

My fourth award goes to Post Secret. I know that Frank is not a blogger so much as a collector of slices of life, but I find this blog in turns creative, inspiring, comforting, and upsetting. It defines my week sometimes and often the secrets stay with me for a while.

My fifth and final award goes to Tatiana at Midnight Rendezvous. Again, I have read her blog for a while and feel that out of all the strangers you could meet on the Internet, she and I would be great friends. I like her writing and find the way that she chooses to participate in life, despite her wonderings about it, very inspiring. With her Polish connection too, I often find that she is describing a world that is familiar and comforting to me, even though she blogs from half a world away.

That was harder than I thought to just stop at 5, Vivi should have got one really, but she already scored on Kinuk, I do love her Dispatches from France though. There are loads of blogger out there and this has reminded me that I really should update my links!

Less hiding, more Greys anatomy

The weather is cooling down again, but my work level is hotting up. I am enjoying the new job more and more each day, the routine of the little hill on the way to work and the coffee that goes into my starbucks mug when I arrive is already feeling comforting. Almost as much as my gorgeous duvet at the end of the day, or Greys Anatomy while I eat my dinner. I am already tired, and as the alarm went off at 5.30 this morning I started to eradicate things from my morning routine so that I could stay in bed a little longer.

Last weekend was a blip, and I plan on getting back out into the world and seeing some stuff. Maybe a cooler Margit Sziget this weekend, or a wander around the wine festival, or I could be historical and go to the House of Terror. Any thoughts?

By default

After all these years of living by myself I find that I have adopted some strange coping mechanisms. This has been the first weekend when I have had work occupying my mind and I have swapped the stress of moving for the stress of knowing that I have a ton of things to do. I always wanted to love living in Budapest, and I am sure that I will, but this weekend I have resorted to my default position of hiding away.

Most of the time I make a conscious effort to get out of the apartment and go and find things to do and see. Even this morning I had a walk to a big bookshop that I have never been to, just to wander and have my face in the sun. It didn't mean that I felt like I was living in the world though, I just spent my naval gazing time outside instead of in. I know that I live inside my own little world most of the time, curling into the foetal position when things get hard or new.

One thing I decided before I came away was that my default position was going to change. I don't know when I started to want to hide away, but I know that I want to be part of the world again.

"I'll be stuck fixated on one star,
When the world is crashing down."
(Fall out boy-Seven minutes in heaven)

New things

I feel like I am in a new place today. The weather is cooling down and I went for a wander with C and K today after lunch at C's place. We went to Culinaris on Hunyadi Ter and found an English language bookshop. After that we walked up Andrassy to the shops and stopped for a drink at a cafe near Vaci Utca. There are still a lot of tourists around, now that the summer is drawing to a close they are wandering around with jumpers and cameras instead of sweating over maps in the heat.

There seems to be lots of places open that have had their grills up all summer and I think that locals are coming back from their summer homes and getting ready for a new school year like me. Everywhere I look I see life in the city and I am beginning to see my place here. After a week of work and the setting of new routines I have enjoyed getting home to my apartment and settling in with my cooking and relaxing after being at school all day. Chatting to C today, we talked about how these moves around the world lose their sheen a little and become hard work, but it is still worth it. I can imagine being here at Christmas and enjoying how things will feel different again. I love the change of the seasons and watching a new city move through the changes is why I made this move in the first place.

No words, just pictures

Open

I sat huddled on the tram yesterday amid the dripping umbrellas and soggy commuters. I used the back of my bag to clear a bit of the steam off the window and stared out. I saw a little coffee shop that might provide creamy lattes that will make the cold seem more bearable. I saw a supermarket that had fat roast chickens in the window. There was a shop that sold glass and pottery twinkling in the grey lights of the rainy skies. I suddenly saw that there was so much to be seen, so many places to find.

My brain is tired after this first week of work, but as my first month draws to a close I find that I feel Ok about what is going on around me. I miss my family, I miss Yorkshire, but these are all a part of the adjustment that goes on in these first few weeks. I still feel nervous, but not like I did before. The city is cold today, and there is rain. All that means is that the feeling is cool and calm, where before it was hot and sticky.

Middle of the week

Well, I made it to Wednesday. This week I have been on a treasure hunt, played rounders, learnt first aid and been sunburnt. The people at my new work seem really nice and the school has a great atmosphere, but like at the start of every school year, I wonder where to start on getting done what I need.

Now that the routine of work has started, life in Budapest feels very different. The weather is cooler today and I will spend most of the day in meetings. A picture is forming in my mind of the next few months as the darkness sets in and I am able to pull my knee boots and long cardigan out of the wardrobe. I slept underneath my quilt for the first time since I arrived in hot Budapest and am already anticipating autumn Budapest when the leaves will all fall from the may trees that line my walk to the tram or Metro.

Another two and half days of new faces, new names and things to do before the weekend. My head is so full that I think that only then will I be able to process the next few days. It must be said that the feeling that Budapest did not feel like home disappeared the first time I got on a tram to commute to work.