My alarm went off at 4 AM, and, uncharacteristically, I didn't hit the snooze button. Instead, I bounced out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweats and a hoodie suited for a budget-airline flight. I opened the door of my shoebox-sized room in Madrid and was greeted by fellow WASBies Riley Sarsany and Mihika Shivakumar, who had crashed on the two deeply sunken couches in my living room. They, too, were fast awake, giddy for the weekend ahead.
While we stuffed the last of our necessities into backpacks with approved dimensions (and, for some of us, hid a separate bag under a large leather jacket), my phone buzzed with an arrival message from our Uber driver. The drive to the airport marked the official commencement to our Abroadbies (nickname coined for WASBies studying abroad) meet-up weekend in Budapest!
Fast forward to our touchdown in beautiful Hungary, where Riley, Mihika, and I had our first wonderful rekindling with Elliot Richer, Jaclyn Copeland, and Abby Grabowski – our designated Copenhagen Abroadbies! We immediately made our way to the city shuttle pickup, which took us from the outskirts to the city center, where we had booked our accommodation. One thing I felt going abroad forced me to get comfortable with is navigating public transportation. It’s a great way to immerse yourself in any place you travel, and it is often much more affordable!
Once we settled into the apartments we had booked on the Pest side of the city (fun fact: Budapest is split by the Danube River into Buda on the west and Pest on the east!), and as more and more Abroadbies arrived, we set off to explore the city. This was my first time in Eastern Europe, and I was struck by how prominently the city’s history showed up in its architecture. The stark contrast between the large Soviet-era concrete housing complexes and the shiny, elaborate neo-Romanesque and neo-Gothic monuments made it one of the most interesting cities I’d ever been to.
Many of us hiked up to Fisherman’s Bastion, a terrace that looks straight out of a fairytale, and admired the panoramic views of the river and all the bustle happening below. To tide us over from all our walking, we bought a popular Hungarian street food called chimney cakes, which are, in essence, a cone of dough caked with cinnamon-sugar, and filled with whatever your heart desires.
After taking our much-needed snack break, we headed back towards the apartments to meet our later-arriving Abroadbies and call it a night. We had big plans for the following day!
Saturday morning started with stumbling across a vintage flea market where we parsed through hanger after hanger of cool pieces. The rest of the day was spent enjoying the city’s different parks by way of the oldest underground railway in Europe. At almost all viewpoints from the city, one can see a giant red-and-white blimp floating in the sky, and when we needed to rest, we could lay in the grass and look up, imagining them looking down at us.
As the evening approached, so did the grand finale of our trip: a sunset cruise down the Danube River. When we stepped onto the ship, we quickly congregated at the stern, which gave us an incredible view of the city trailing behind us. As the sun went down, we all exchanged endless stories from our respective abroad experiences. Laughs, hugs and songs marked the night, like with all WASB gatherings, and after deboarding the boat, we were physically exhausted but spiritually reenergized by each other’s presence.
Almost six months later, I’ve reflected that, apart from a weekend together in Budapest being inherently so fun, it also symbolized a broader theme within this organization: we find the time, and go the lengths, to come together. Senior year, of course, brings with it a multitude of anxieties regarding life post-grad. Mulling over where you’d like to live, thinking about how you’d like to start your career, or even preparing for another set of schooling all contribute to a feeling of uncertainty. But, in the midst of an unknown future, there is one thing I can have certainty about, and it’s that WASBies are a part of your life long after we’ve gone our separate ways. What's significant is that WASB is what helped us become friends, but it’s not what maintains those relationships. Far into the future, even though our reunions may not be in places as glamorous as Budapest, what matters is that we get together at all. Because that’s special in and of itself.