VACATION!

I feel as if everyone has to start their blogging career with the same blog. In fact, I even thought about copying someone else's first blog. You know, the one that says, 'hey everybody. I am terrible at keeping everyone up to date about what's going on with me so I'm going to try this blogging thing so that everyone could be kept up to date'. So, since I'm sparing you that boring blog, what I will tell you about is that I am on vacation...

This past Wednesday I was supposed to go to Berlin to hang out with the family I lived with last year. It's the first officall day off I've taken since I started work. And it's the first time I've been outside of the city of Budapest since I got here so I was ready to leave (minus the day I went with my pastor's family to Vienna to go Christmas shopping....NOT FUN b/c I got sick!). Well, I was housesitting for a family in our church on Tuesday night and came back to my apartment to get my bags to go to the airport. When I got to my flat on Wednesday morning, I found it broken into. Mind you, I live in an apartment building with a courtyard in the middle and all doors leading into the courtyard area, so I figured someone would have to see, or hear, the people break in as they had to ram my door to get in. No one knew anything. I searched my place up and down to see what they had taken, and most everything was there still....my Nintendo Wii, my projector, guitar, external hard drive, digital camera, etc. But, they had taken some money from me and most importantly, my passport. Yes, the idiots stole my passport. They rummage through my whole place and only took my passport and about 45€.

So, instead of going to the airport, I spent all day waiting for the Hungarian police, then the Crime Scene Investigators, then had to go to the police station and get my final written report. It all started at about 10am and I finished my last process with them at 9pm. What a long first day of vacation.....

Here's what happened yesterday (Thurs) then: The door was broken as the people barged into my house, so yesterday the carpenter came to put a deadbolt that locks completely across both doors. Then, while I am gone they are going to put up a gate infront of my door for extra protection (I already have all the windows gated).

Once the carpenter came and my landlord came to be with him while he was there, I was able to go get pictures for my passport and then go to the embassy. My embassy connections from the church came up HUGE yesterday. I gave them a couple calls to see what I should do and then they 'hooked' me up. When I arrived at the security area, I gave my name to the Hungarian security guards and they said, "Hi Mr. Varner, I'm sorry to hear that you were broken into. Please do not wait in any lines and go to the metal detectors." The next person did the same thing and the next the same thing as well. It was like I was a rockstar or something b/c they ALL knew who I was and I skipped EVERYBODY (in a very crowded waiting room...people actually were waiting outside too). Anyway, after about 1.5 hours of filling out apps, going to different windows, paying 100€, I walked out with my temporary passport.

I made it home to pick up my bags and called a taxi to get to the airport. The airline said that they could not reimburse me for my ticket the previous day so I was going to have to buy a whole new ticket. I called their main offices in London and there's a slight chance that they will reimburse me, but I'm not holding my breath. It cost about 200€ for the new 1-way plane ticket (on top of the 120€ I've already paid to get to/from Berlin) so this trip is not as cheap as I had originally planned. But it's okay....

To be honest with you, I didn't care how much it cost. I wanted to get out of Budapest more than anything. I wanted to escape it all....to run away! It wasn't a great way to start vacation, but now I"m on vacation, I'll have a new passport when I get back, and I'll have a more secure house.

Sorry for the long first post....not all will be like this I promise