Some facts about the main building of Hungary

A newer postcard arrived to its place, so I'm here again. this time I feel that I'm sending too many postcards about Budapest, but anyway, I'm sending this one:

TO Germany

The woman likes getting postcard about famous buildings. When I see requests like this, I always think about sending cards about Budapest, as I can find touristic cards easily, while the normal postcards are harder to find. However, if I send pictures about Budapest all the time, I won't be able to write anything special in my blog :D I won't start writing about my school again, like I did for the woman. But, I'm going to introduce the life of the Hungarian Parliament, which is the largest and highest building in Hungary.

Its construction started in 1885 according to the plans of Imre Steindl; and completed in 1904. About 1000 people were involved in the construction. They used 40 million bricks, half million precious stones and 40 kilogramm gold. It's in the gothic revival style, the dome has renaissance revival architecture. 

The Parliament has two halls out of which one is used for the politics, the other one is used for guided tours. It is 268 meters long and 123 meters wide. Its interior includes 10 courtyards, 13 passenger and freight elevators, 27 gates, 29 staircases and 691 rooms. Its height of 96 meters refers to the nation's millennium, 1896, and the conquest of the later Kingdom of Hungary in 896.

The facade displays statues of Hungarian rulers, Transylvanian leaders and famous military figures. The coats of arms of kings and dukes are depicted over the windows. The east stairs is flanked by two lions.

One of the famous parts of the building is the hexadecagonal (sixteen-sided) central hall, with huge chambers adjoining it: the Lower House and the Upper House. The modern National Assembly is unicameral and meets in the Lower House, while the Upper House is used as a conference and meeting room. The Holy Crown of Hungary, which is also depicted in the coat of arms of Hungary, has been displayed in the central hall since 2000.

Due to its extensive surface and its detailed handiwork, the building is almost always under renovation.

Some Hungarian art lesson

Nowadays my postcards are really slow, though one of them arrived to its place during the last week. I asked for a new address, and I got one from the Netherlands.

TO the Netherlands

The woman is an art teacher, so I wanted to send her a postcard with an art. My first idea was to go to the Buda Castle, which has the National Gallery, where last time I saw some postcard on sale. They were really cheap in that time, so I have no idea why I didn't buy some of them. However, unfortunately I didn't have the chance to go there, mainly because I'm out of money, and because of some other factors. I wanted to buy a postcard with my favourite Hungarian painter - Pál Merse Szirnyei . Instead of him I decided to send one card from Tivadar  Kosztka Csontváry, who is my 2nd favourite. 

Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry was part of avant-garde movement of the early 20th century. He was more popular among foreigners than Hungarians in his time, but nowadays of course he is really popular in Hungary too. Most of his art were made in abroad. He made more than hundred works, which are connected with post-impressionism and expressionism. His most popular art is "The Lonely Cedar", but personally I really like the "Pilgrimage to the Cedars of Lebanon". The card shows the paint called "Waterfall at Jajce".

Going to the USA in 1 month!

I'm getting more and more postcards :) Today I got 2, one from Taiwan and 1 from the USA. 

FROM Taiwan

FROM the USA - Arkansas

Maybe this was a sign... I'm going to the USA in exactly 1 month! :D I'm so excited about it! Yesterday the camp director wrote to me and asked when I'm planning to go to the camp, and I can even go there earlier if I want, as she will be there. As I have the appointment to the World Trade Observatory for 7th, I cannot go to the camp on Sunday, only on Monday. I asked her whether there will be a 4th Hungarian, as a few months ago she asked us whether we know anyone who would go to the camp. I found a girl to the kitchen, but we didn't suggest anyone to maintainance  position. The director told me that we will be 3 only, but there will be 4 other people from Camp Leaders (2 from England and 2 from Austria), and the French girl will be back also from last year. I'm really curious, though none of them will be in the kitchen - the kitchen crew will be the old one, except for Petra, my friend.

Petra and me are going on 8th June already though the camp starts only in the end of June. The camp will be so empty then, not even 10 people will stay there in the last 2 weeks! 1 week before the camp more people will arrive, so probably there will be more people, around 15 in my opinion. 

By the way, I'm flying with LOT Polish Airline, which is not as good as the airlines in the last years... it has only 3 starts instead of 4, but hopefully there will be no problems. One of my friends travelled with them last year and she didn't like them. Anyway, the ticket was pretty cheap, so maybe the hospitality will be less good as well... lets see! :)

Lets go to St. Petersburg!

Nono, I'm not going to St. Petersburg... unfortunately! But I would like to guide you there, as I had the chance to go there last year, and now I got a postcard from there! 

FROM Russia

So yeah, I went to St. Petersburg in last March from Helsinki. By ferry we could go to Russia without visa for 3 days only. So why shouldn't I go to St. Petersburg? Not like always, this time I took a tour and I didn't plan anything - just some programmes which we could choose from. The package included the room on the ferry, the accommodation, the entrance to the Hermitage, a bus tour around the city... However, I chose more activities, like visiting the cathedrals, going to St. Catherine's Palace and... going with limusine :D All of them were good! In the beginning I regret buying a ticket to the limusin, I thought that my friend is going there too, so I booked a place, then she told me that she was not going there. Anyway, but eventually I found there others, so I enjoyed it really much. We drank a Russian champagne (it was free), and visited some cathedrals in the night time. I also experienced running in the central to find a toilet in a shirt only (commoon, it was March, around 0 Degrees). We laughed a lot and sang a lot. After the limusine tour we were dropped off at a night club, which was pretty good, they played even Evanescence :D And the bartenders (who were girls) were in short skirt and when they didn't need to fill any drink, they stood up onto the bar and started dancing - almost erotically. When we finished, we caught a private car, who offered to be a taxi driver for only us :D Okay, lets go, we were 4, he was alone, so nothing can happen with us hopefully :D And nothing happened. 

We stayed in Hotel Moscow and I enjoyed it quite much, mainly the all you can eat breakfast :D We ate a lot every morning, I wish I could do it again *.* They had everything, really everything. 

Unfortunately the additional activities weren't so cheap, so I didn't attend to all of them. There were possibilities to go to a Russian dinner, where they played music, games, and had Russian food, and there was ballet as well. They were quite expensive, the dinner was 30 Euros and the ballet was around 70 Euros if I remember right. 

The ferry was also pretty cool. In the evenings we played card games, and there were parties as well. To St. Petersburg I went to the party and an Italian guy stucked onto me :D The problem was his height, he was much shorter than me, so I didn't really want to be with him :D He was pretty drunk, so fortunately on the next day he didn't even remember me :D 

I really hope to get to St. Petersburg again in the future, as in my opinion 3 days are totally not enough for that city. It's really big and there are a lot to see. I loved the buildings quite much, it's not so expensive (comparing to Helsinki), though people are really bad at talking in English. For example I went to McDonald's and wanted to buy 2 cheese burgers, 1 big Cola and 1 middle French fries, then the girl took 2 McBurgers, 2 big French fries and 1 middle Cola :D Fortunately my friends knew some Russian, so they could explain what I want to get :D

School stuffs

So here is the postcard which I forgot to take home from Budapest. And lets see an additional, which is going to Poland, as my Disney postcard arrived to Germany. 

TO the USA

TO Poland

Both girls were interested in touristic postcards. For me this is the easiest I can send, as I realized that in Hungary there aren't so many places where we can buy normal postcards. When I went to Germany there were a lot of postcards on the streets, not only touristic, and cards for various events, but general, random postcards. I'm sure next time I'll buy a lot from there, though the price is quite high for me :/

I wrote both the girls that I'm really proud of Budapest because of these sights. My school is pretty close to them, actually, it's behind the Parliament, so I can see it every time when I go to school. At this moment school gives me a lot of stress, as during the last 3 months teachers didn't do anything with us, but now they started asking for presentations, assignments and there are a lot of exams to write. Fortunately I'm almost over. I have 6 courses in this semester, and I had exams in the previous week and... today :D Now I have to write an assignment for Thursday, then I'm off for a few weeks, when I need to do 2 exams - probably the hardest ones, as at one of the courses the teacher taught nothing, and the other one asked us to learn additional materials, as she didn't have time to talk about that. If I take everything, I'm done for this semester, and I can fly to the USA, yaay! In addition, this is my last semester (in BA) in the school, as my next step is to do a mandatory internship. Because of my American summer I cannot start it on time (July), so I decided to be a passive student. However, I would like to find an internship from September already and do it till June, and have it signed with school between February and June only. I would like to work in abroad again, so I applied for AIESEC organization, which helps me to find an internship abroad. I paid the programme fee last week, but my profile is not active yet. I saw quite many positions already where I would like to apply to, like Japan (6 positions), Malaysia, Ireland, Germany and Kenya. I feel that I'll need to apply for more positions than 10, last year I applied for 70 vacancies before I got my placement to India. I was also thinking about returning to India and do my internship there, but as my friend broke his promise and we don't talk anymore, I don't think that I should go back... :/ I'd rather experience something new :)    

Please cross your fingers for me. If you know a company which is looking for an intern and accept internationals, don't hesitate to write to me! :)

More cards than I expected!

I spent approximately a week away from home, and I got so many postcards! I though that I would get postcard after mine arrive to their places, but it seems not, as 8 of my postcards arrived to their destinations, but I have received 10 cards already. I guess for a while I won't get so many cards :( 

My Taiwanese card arrived, which was quite weird, as I sent it with cards to Belarus and Germany, and they haven't arrived yet... but the Taiwanese one did. Anyway, maybe during next week. So lets see the cards I got from abroad:

FROM the Netherlands

I really like this postcard. Amsterdam was never on my bucket list, though I was planning to go there in September or October with my Indian friend. It seems that he's not coming anymore, or at least not visiting me, so now I cancel this plan. However, after I saw this card I realized that I should visit it, at least because of the buildings. I really adore buildings and making pictures about them, so... One more destination added in Europe :)

FROM Hong Kong - Wong Tai Sin Temple

FROM Russia

The girl who sent to me the card taught a word to me too in Russian. She told me what spring is - vesna. She sent this postcard to me because this palace reminds her about tales from her childhood. Unfortunately she didn't mention the name of this place, there are only Russian charachters on the card :(

FROM Ukraine - Lviw

FROM Germany

Haha, I just love this owl! <3 The girl taught me the Bayerish goodbye, "Pfiat Di". 

I also have a postcard to send, but I forgot it in Budapest, and I haven't made a picture about it. So I'll write the post with that postcard a little bit later, maybe after Monday, as I'm having an exam then, so I won't spend so much time here on Sunday evening, when I'm back to Budapest. So Pfiat Di, see you later!