October 12-13^th

 

Tuesday marked the end of my free-spirited three day weekend (2-day if you don’t count my sleepfest on Saturday…) and I am now officially past the 1 week mark of my internship. And as in most cases, seconds have felt like minutes, and minutes like hours. As I approach the end, though, it will all feel like it happened in the blink of an eye. I am really starting to warm up to the city, the people, and my fellow colleagues at work. The end of my internship is still a ways off, but my rotation in Consular is drawing to an end, and I can tell that I am going to miss these people I have spent so much time with and learned a great deal from. That is how life works however. You go along your merry way and you come across all kinds of people. Life is made up of meetings and partings. People come into your life every day. Some stay for a few minutes, some stay for a few months, or a year, others a whole lifetime. And I am really glad of the people I have had the pleasure of meeting so far in Budapest.

Work went great on Tuesday. I got started on a handful of projects and finished my last check-in appointment with the medical office. I even got my flu shot while I was there…not that I had much of a choice. It even comes with the H1N1 vaccination now.

After my check-in with medical, I went back to work. There had been a bit of commotion at the office because a famous Hungarian model and former Victoria’s secret angel had come in for consular services, and it had settled down by the time I returned. I worked on my projects until the end of the day and headed back home. I stopped by T-Mobile at the mall to get my internet USB stick’s firmware updated for use with Windows 7. No more McDonald’s for me! Yay!

  

After I got back home I played around with Microsoft office again in preparation for my management rotation. I even managed to cook myself a decent meal from scratch (salad and grilled chicken) before calling it a night.

October 13^th

When I arrived at work, I was informed that my help was greatly needed, and that I was going to perform an essential and beneficial task for the embassy. I thought, “Yes! They need me to be fill in for the ambassador while she is away on important business! This is my moment to shine!” I could already see the many important and critical issues that would need my attention, vital foreign policy that would need my stamp of approval or disapproval. Then I was led to the paper-shredding machine. As the stars started to fade from my eyes, I realized that I have never before in my life shredded paper. I had worked in an office setting before, but I had never needed to use one. Of course, I couldn’t tell them that. So I just started hitting buttons, and eventually got it to work. Someone asked me what I was doing and I told them that I knew this cool trick I learned to make the shredder run smoother, and that seemed to appease their curiosity… I am glad I finally got to perform that task however. I always imagine interns sitting in dark corners shredding papers for hours on end, so it had to happen eventually. I also only had to shred paper for a total of around 5 minutes, so it wasn’t bad at all.

After shredding paper I got back to working on a project where I comb over hundreds of files and records from 2008-2010 and scan them into our computer database, as consular sections all around the world make the shift from the old paperwork system to a completely digital system of archiving information.

I then had lunch at the embassy cafeteria with Jimmy from IT and Veronica who is a consular associate and wife to Eric S., one of our consular officers. We discussed things to do around Budapest, embassy work, and the Chilean miner’s rescue. Apparently, there is a very big Chinese market in Budapest that sells an assortment of items at cheap prices (and cheap quality), but they said it was worth checking out due to the assortment of oddities and eccentricities there. I think I will have to pay the market a visit this weekend.

After work I met up with President Chapman for our weekly dinner outing with the Bucks and Huntleys. This week: Hungarian cuisine. I had not yet eaten any traditional Hungarian plates, and I was anxious to try some. Hungary is famous for its paprika-seasoned dishes, so I decided to try their famous Paprikáscsirke (paprika chicken). “Menza” was the name of the restaurant we ate at, and it had a pretty weird seventies theme that felt really out of place. After the initial weirdness, we received our food and were delightfully surprised at its quality. The chicken and cream sauce that it was covered with was delicious, and we had lots to laugh and talk about as we recounted our adventures since our last dinner. Afterwards, we decided to go for a walk and grab some dessert somewhere. It was a beautiful night, and it felt nice relaxing after a semi-stressful day at work on the café-lit streets of Budapest. We found a quaint little pastry shop where president Chapman and the Bucks got some sweets to take home with them. We left the bakery and President Chapman and myself took off towards Moscow Square, and said goodbye to the Bucks and Huntleys.

Tomorrow I finally meet Paul Gilmer, Embassy Management Counselor, and the person who selected me as primary candidate for the internship this fall. I am excited and looking forward to thanking him in person for selecting me for the internship, and to hear about the management projects he has in store for me.