From Budapest With Love [Study Ablog]

Today’s Study Ablog is written by Kate Kozak, a junior currently studying abroad in Hungary!
I love doing things differently, stepping just a tiny bit outside my comfort zone, and being just a tiny bit unconventional. And I found no better way to do that than to spend this semester in Central European University’s Gender Studies Master’s program here in Budapest, Hungary.
CEU was founded after the fall of communism to encourage the free exchange of ideas. My particular department, Gender Studies, is all about deconstructing our ideas about society and norms, but does so with a very critical eye towards Western (and particularly American) ways of thinking.
Some differences on the “other side of the Iron Curtain” are significant: I spent a day in Memento Park, an open-air museum which houses the remaining statues and monuments from the Communist era. I was there on October 23^rd, the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, in which Hungarians made the first significant threat against the Soviet government; our program coordinator wanted us to spend our day off outside the city, where violent nationalist demonstrations were planned. But some differences are very subtle, to be caught in an offhand remark about “before the transition,” or, as a Hungarian classmate explained, manifested in the sometimes self-deprecating attitudes of the Hungarian people.
Being far, far away from the US has allowed me to jump, leap, and fly outside my comfort zone in ways I hadn’t expected. I’ve made more friends here than in any other period of my life (I am outgoing, but bad at the whole “friend” thing). I’ve engaged more with challenging texts than ever before (and I took Prof. Winstead’s class on Nietzsche last semester, so that’s really saying something!). I’ve attempted to communicate in one of the most complicated languages in the world: Hungarian is such that just learning a few phrases really doesn’t do you much good (but I can order a coffee in Hungarian now!). I spent a weekend with my grandfather’s cousin, someone I’d never met but who was family and treated me as such. And, most importantly, for the first time since graduating high school, I have not angst-ed over being home. I’m homesick, absolutely. I can’t wait to be home, to see my family, to eat mac and cheese. But I’ve achieved an unanticipated level of autonomy in my two months here.
My comfort zone, Grinch-style, has grown three sizes. At least. And I’ve still got a month to go.