After almost two weeks in Vienna, I had to face up to the fact that it was time to move on. This morning I took the train from Vienna to Budapest, where my friends from home who teach at the International Christian School of Budapest picked me up from the train station.
It was really hard to leave Vienna. It feels so much like my home away from home, and staying with my host family from my study abroad program was so wonderful. They are certainly my european family, and being with them made the initial wave of homesickness bearable. Bucharest is still a city of unknowns for me, and I will have to work hard at not comparing it to Vienna all the time. It will be an adventure of an entirely different sort, and I know I will feel at home there before my six months is up.
In a way I am glad to make a 2-day stop in Budapest before I get on the train for another 14 hours. Seeing the Whites and MacLamores is always a taste of home, and it gave me something to look forward to when I boarded the train in Vienna. But at the same time, I feel like all these stops as I make my way east is just prolonging the inevitable. Like peeling off a bandaid agonizingly slowly instead of just getting it over with in one quick rip. I can go as slowly as I want, and make plenty of stops along the way. But eventually I am going to end up in Bucharest, where I am going to be unprotected and alone, forced to start anew and be more independent than I've ever had to be in my life.
The thought alone is daunting, but these are the kinds of challanges that make my life the spectacular adventure that it is. This is my version of life to the fullest, and I remind myself of that whenever I start to wonder what in the world I am really getting myself into! :)