This week marked the beginning of our spring/Easter break, and it has been much needed.

This past Saturday, I traveled with my friends from Australia, Spain and Puerto Rico to the port city of Genova overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. I’ve only ever been to an ocean one time (not counting the times I’ve flown over them) and it was astounding to look and see nothing but water and the shadowy figures of freighters taking off into the unknown.

Afterward, my roommate invited me to spend the week with him at his home in Budapest, Hungary. Budapest is one of the most fascinating cities I have seen. Having once been the capital of a major empire, the entire city is full of historical remnants.

Budapest has castles and other structures dating back to the 14^th century, as well as remnants and ruins of buildings built during the Soviet eras. Bullet holes still remain in the wall of the Parliament building from the 1956 rebellion. Statues and monuments of historical leaders and politicians litter the streets, a majority of them depicted on horseback in reference to their days as horse lords and genealogy tracking back to Attila the Hun.

I am very fortunate to be in the country with a native as well because the Hungarian language is incredibly difficult to pick up. When spoken, it sounds like a mixture of German and Russian, but it is spoken much softer.

However, because the language is agglutinative, you end up with words like Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért, which I could not begin to pronounce. While the language is difficult, the Hungarians have all been very kind, very soft spoken and very quiet, which is quite the change from Italy.

While I don’t think hiding eggs is common, I’m interested to celebrate the resurrection of Christ in another culture.