
Today I met Doge, somebody’s Shiba Inu on the street outside my home, no idea what its name really is but the friendly dog came and gave me a handshake!
Today I met Doge, somebody’s Shiba Inu on the street outside my home, no idea what its name really is but the friendly dog came and gave me a handshake!
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Monday was a public holiday, so we went hiking following this route through the Buda hills from Hármashatár Hegy to Solymár. Here are some photos of the scenery:
I joined the International Christian Fellowship of Budapest (ICFB) not knowing what to expect. Admittedly, having never been part of any kind of “Christian Group” before, initially I had my doubts. I was more of a quiet Christian, striving to show kindness but rarely talking to another person about Christianity. So it was with hesitation that I told Berni I’d join her to visit a group for Christians, which her friend Eszter had invited her to.
On the way home that Friday, chatting about plans for the weekend, my friend Attis told me the reason he’s got his guitar with him is because he’s on the way to an international Christian meet-up for students and young professionals, and asked me if I’d like to come along. This sounded cool and I like spontaneity but I’d already set plans for the evening with Berni. Of course it didn’t take long before we figured out we’d both been invited to the same event; I laughed all the way there.
I’ve been participating in ICFB’s Friday meet ups for almost three years now. I love the group and I’ve made some good friends there. My favourite part is singing together, so I always bring a guitar with me. I’d say even among other IFES groups in Hungary we’ve made a name for being lively and singing with spirit.
Árpád’s map
However, we don’t just sing and we don’t just meet on Fridays. People often come sharing verses, insights or personal questions that make for good discussion. In good weather we might meet in parks on weekends and sometimes I bring my rugby ball to share a bit of my culture through touch-rugby.
That’s just me though; everyone has their own personal part in ICFB that makes it special for them and even though we’re all so different we all have one thing in common.
This was originally written as a guest post for mekdsz, the Hungarian evangelical Christian student fellowship. You can read their Hungarian translation here:
A nemzetközi helyzet tovább fokozódik.
We didn’t dress up and go trick-or-treating for Halloween in Namibia, but Jack-o-Lanterns and spooky costume parties are what come to mind when I think of the time around the transition from October to November. In Hungary –and it turns out many countries in this area– it’s celebrated a bit differently and spooky costume Halloween parties have only started to become popular in the 21st century.
On 1 November, Hungarians travel to the countryside for All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day on 2 November. They visit the cemeteries where their ancestors are buried and decorate the graves with flowers and candles. It looks really beautiful at night and I took some photos when we were in Vaszar on the weekend. It was a dark night and the pictures are mostly out of focus, but I think they’re still pretty.
It turns out Halloween is a combination of the words Hallow (meaning holy or saint) and e’en (a contraction of even, which is the Scots spelling of eve or evening), and the celebration has a long Christian and Celtic folk history.
Very strange. On Thursday, on my way to work I saw a cat in the park being harassed by a crow so I recorded it. Unfortunately the video isn’t very sharp because the animals were far away and I was recording them with my phone. I thought it was really funny, as if the crow had a big problem with the cat being there, meanwhile the cat completely ignores the bird.
Funniest of all, I walked the same route the next day and they were there again doing the exact same thing!