My six month party has ended.
Back to reality.
I have a long list of things to do.
I’m in debt up to my ears.
I need to go get a real job.
Need to go back to school.
I miss all my friends in Budapest, and all my friends from the tour.
I hope I can come back sometime soon.

This will be my final travel blog post. For now.

Today is my last full day in Budapest, tomorrow I leave for London. I will be staying at a friends house in London, and bright and early Wednesday morning I leave on my tour of Western Europe. After my two week tour I will have one more night in London, then will be coming home on the 16th in the evening. I will try and update on the road - but no promises. I started missing Budapest about a week ago, and I’m sure this feeling will only grow. Everyone was so welcoming and I’ve made many friends who I will never forget. I wish I could bring all of you with me, even the man on the bus who wears grocery bags for shoes and yells at me in Hungarian on my way to work. Hopefully, I will be able to come visit soon and see everyone again. No good byes, I’ll see you all again soon.

I wish this party would never end.

Back home, I’ve always been friends with people either my age, or younger. Here, in Budapest, all my friends and co-workers are older then me, this has forced me to look at myself in a new way. Before, I would judge myself on my younger, often less mature friends. Here, I judge myself on older, much more mature and experienced people. These older people see me not as a young adult, but as an equal, which requires me to make a greater effort in how I act around them. I am learning how to properly greet people, how to formulate a discussion, hosting others in my home, behaving at work, and just being a friend with another adult. I now realize how far I have to go in becoming an adult, and becoming a member of adult society. I have met many people that I hope I can come close to achieving their level of maturity and I think my new state of mind will bring only positive rewards for me in the future.

Whats is the national holiday like in Canada? Fireworks, Lame Stage Performances, some teenagers smash some things, but all in all a pretty dull holiday. What is the national holiday like in Hungary?

Rioters smashed cars, injured journalists and fought with police following a demonstration by the Hungarian Self-Defence Movement on Blaha Lujza tér Saturday evening.

Violence erupted after far right activist György Budaházy told the nearly 5,000 people to march to the Palace of Arts, where Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was to deliver a speech. The crowd of 600-700 that followed him along the Nagykörút toward Üllői út grew violent, throwing Molotov cocktails, stones and firecrackers at police. The uniforms of seven policemen caught fire, as did a photographer’s vest. Two protesters were also accidentally set on fire by petrol bombs, but they were not seriously injured. Police responded with tear gas. The rioters damaged several cars and injured journalists and photographers before calm was restored by 11 p.m. (Source: Politics.hu)

You thought I was over reacting about the far right movements in Europe, didn’t you? Fortunately I had been warned this was going to happen, apparently it happens at every sort of national holiday every year, so I stayed home that night, listening to the yelling and the sirens. That hidden layer of anger and dissatisfaction I’ve mentioned before? It’s not always so hidden. Don’t miss understand me, Budapest is lovely city to visit or to live in, things don’t seem as simple here as they seem to be in Canada.

Hungarians pigeons are crazy. They have no fear, obviously they still have some Red in them. One of the Soviet Pigeons walked in front of me as I walking towards it today and it didn’t move out the way - I had to walk around it, I had to get out of the way of the pigeon. Unbelievable. I think they might be planning some kind of uprising. I can hear them talking to each other outside my window every morning.

I am 25 tomorrow. The big two five. I feel old.

Every state in the European Union has a long history of war, revolution and development. However, as we all know, those who live it write history. Although it may seem as though Europe has moved into an era of peace and economic development, in truth, there is a hidden, dark layer, in European society, it is called racism and discrimination. After all the death and destruction in the worlds turbulent history, why does Europe continue to struggle with concepts of human rights for all? The answer lies between the lines of the maps of its continent.

Having a union of states in this part of the world is a significant achievement, but this union is more unstable than is understood by the average non-european. The borders of this region have disappeared, reappeared, and shifted in multiple directions at varying times. Therefore, the borders we recognize today are not legitimised by the people living within them. This fundamental conflict in the hearts and minds of many Europeans is causing strife and displeasure that those outside the union do not often see, if at all.

These borders are now being slowly taken away. Globalization, the European Union, and immigration, legal and illegal, are all eroding the concept of separate states. It is important to remember that each of these states has its own history, culture, and economy. The blood of each countries ancestors is all over these borders. This fact haunts its people, in the statues, memorials and museums that fill their cities, and reminds them that they need to protect their lands, as their ancestors did.

At the same time, the people of Europe are still grieving, mourning the death and destruction that has occurred for hundreds of years. They also mourn what they have been left with; borders that cut through their ancestral homelands, splitting ancient mountains, beautiful valleys, even right through some cities, and most importantly, the borders do not take into consideration racial/ethnic distinctions, and often split cultural groups up unnaturally.

There is also an economic factor that must be considered. While Europeans live between the borders set by kings and conquerors, they also earn their bread inside them. They are husbands and wives, sons and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren, all struggling to survive in this world. Central and Eastern Europe is still struggling to pull themselves up from the physical and economic destruction caused by their former rulers. They want their countries to succeed, to flourish, and show the world what they were once and will be once again capable of.

It is therefore not a surprise that Human Rights is such a large and complex issue here in Europe. The continent is making great strides in moving forward, peace and prosperity is on the march, moving eastward, now well into Central Europe and continuing eastward, into the Balkans. Kosovo’s new Constitution shows great promise. Human Rights organizations like the one I am interning at are getting more and more organized, and winning more and more cases in the European Court of Human Rights. I am confident before I grow old I will see a peaceful, prosperous, unified Europe.

Top 5 Reasons Budapest Is Better

1. A Long and Colourful History
2. All The Monuments, Church’s, and Buda Castle
3. More Pubs, Clubs, Cafes, and Restaraunts
4. Easy access to the rest of Europe
5. Significantly better Arts & Culture Scene

Top 5 Reasons Vancouver Is Better

1. My Own Long and Colourful History
2. The Pacific Ocean
3. The White Rock “Strip”, Stanley Park, Granville Island
4. Easy access to Canadian & American TV, Movies, etc.
5. Home to my Family and Friends

I’ve been corrected twice now on separate occasions that I was shaking hands with people wrong.

1.) I often shake hands with my gloves on, which is rude, apparently.

2.) I often don’t give eye contact to the person I’m shaking hands with, which is also rude, apparently.

Well live and learn I guess?

A joke about Canada as told to me by my Turkish friend:

“At the founding of the nation, they decided to draw letters out of a hat to make the name of country, a ‘Newfie’ was chosen to draw the letters, he read out: C eh? N eh? D eh? And thus Canada was born.”