In about 11 hours time I will be catching the shuttle to the airport with my life in Budapest all packed up. There has been a heavy snowstorm the entire weekend. I just checked the forecast and seems that tomorrow the sun will shine. I hope that the forecasters are accurate this time round. This has been the scene the whole weekend. Yesterday on the way to church I was actually trudging through calf high snowdrifts. Alot of hopping around like a rabbit coz of the mix of ice, slush and snow. Even last week, the mini icebergs have been floating around the Danube....
Someone asked me if I would be sad going. The answer is yes I'll miss the city, but I definitely will not miss winter and the bKV controllers... and I will miss miss miss miss the food for sure.... I'm still thinking of the chestnut cake that Gina made for my farewell dinner, as well as the pieces I stole from Nicole last night hehe :P. At church yesterday, after mass, I quietly whipped out my camera to take a picture of the place that I've been worshipping at for the past year. Hah, for rememberance sake.... It was a really wierd thing saying goodbye. Guess I'm not very good at them. Having people come forward and ask you the same question over and over again, "So! What are your plans next.". I think the best goodbyes are when you make pacts to meet each other again, even when it's in 3 years time or something like that... then it's not a goodbye. It's a see you later in a sense. Goodbye in English is such a conversation killer sometimes. Somehow I prefer saying goodbye in Chinese. Better to explain it in Chinese 再见的意思其实是可以再一次见到对方。所以我们用再见这个词的时候是在想我们会再见到批此的时候，而不是永远不见的意思。So in any case, that was that.
Playing around in the snow on route to Francis place for games and food. Us girls got into a snowball fight on the way there while the men just walked along... bleah...and we weren't exactly wearing snow friendly coats.... damp coats and gloves and wet boots followed when we finally stamped into the warm building...
In all, it's been a crazy crazy year. Hard to believe it's all coming to an end. And yet in some way, I'm glad it is. Packing up a year of stuff has brought that focus around. I had to throw so much stuff away that it's always a pity. I need to stop, be able to go out and buy things without having to worry about whether they'll be able to fit in the suitcase later on. I want to be able to buy a book and not have to deliberate about whether I can afford to stuff it into my bag or do I have to give it away to colleagues just because I can't take them back with me even though I loved them very much? The lugging of heavy bags by myself definitely needs to stop too....I wonder how long my back can take it haha.... I've pushed it several times already this year.
So I think effectively, this would be the last post. I may come again to update pictures from previous travels, as I still waiting on some from friends... but officially this blog has served its purpose and will close. Some have asked me whether I will continue to blog... So I'm wondering if a re-assimiliation experience back to my home country (after being away for 7 years) will be worth blogging. I'll have a think about it first. But till any updates are posted.... that's the end of girl in a foreign land :)
Someone asked me if I would be sad going. The answer is yes I'll miss the city, but I definitely will not miss winter and the bKV controllers... and I will miss miss miss miss the food for sure.... I'm still thinking of the chestnut cake that Gina made for my farewell dinner, as well as the pieces I stole from Nicole last night hehe :P. At church yesterday, after mass, I quietly whipped out my camera to take a picture of the place that I've been worshipping at for the past year. Hah, for rememberance sake.... It was a really wierd thing saying goodbye. Guess I'm not very good at them. Having people come forward and ask you the same question over and over again, "So! What are your plans next.". I think the best goodbyes are when you make pacts to meet each other again, even when it's in 3 years time or something like that... then it's not a goodbye. It's a see you later in a sense. Goodbye in English is such a conversation killer sometimes. Somehow I prefer saying goodbye in Chinese. Better to explain it in Chinese 再见的意思其实是可以再一次见到对方。所以我们用再见这个词的时候是在想我们会再见到批此的时候，而不是永远不见的意思。So in any case, that was that.
Playing around in the snow on route to Francis place for games and food. Us girls got into a snowball fight on the way there while the men just walked along... bleah...and we weren't exactly wearing snow friendly coats.... damp coats and gloves and wet boots followed when we finally stamped into the warm building...
In all, it's been a crazy crazy year. Hard to believe it's all coming to an end. And yet in some way, I'm glad it is. Packing up a year of stuff has brought that focus around. I had to throw so much stuff away that it's always a pity. I need to stop, be able to go out and buy things without having to worry about whether they'll be able to fit in the suitcase later on. I want to be able to buy a book and not have to deliberate about whether I can afford to stuff it into my bag or do I have to give it away to colleagues just because I can't take them back with me even though I loved them very much? The lugging of heavy bags by myself definitely needs to stop too....I wonder how long my back can take it haha.... I've pushed it several times already this year.
So I think effectively, this would be the last post. I may come again to update pictures from previous travels, as I still waiting on some from friends... but officially this blog has served its purpose and will close. Some have asked me whether I will continue to blog... So I'm wondering if a re-assimiliation experience back to my home country (after being away for 7 years) will be worth blogging. I'll have a think about it first. But till any updates are posted.... that's the end of girl in a foreign land :)