I haven’t written a blog post in almost 2 months, and for those of you who keep up with my blog, I apologize. A handful of things have happened and I am happy to finally have the time and brain-space to write it out to you. This blog post will serve as a quick catch-up of the things I am done, seen, or learned in the past couple of months.

To start, November. November was kicked off with a visit from my fellow YAGM Central Europe volunteers here in Budapest. The reason for the visit was primarily to visit with Bishop Tamás Fabiny over lunch to learn more about the Lutheran Church in Hungary, but also to share with him a bit of our stories and how they are continuing in our placement sites. Aside from this visit, we also had time carved out to tour the Great Synagogue as well as intentional time to talk through our experiences thus far. It was so good to be able to see my friends again and have time to unpack thoughts with each other.

Later in November, I was invited by my colleagues at Phiren Amenca to join them in Florence, Italy for their Annual Networking Meeting! The trip in total (including long travel days) was 5 days, which consisted of 3 busy days of the meeting itself, talking through future plans for Phiren Amenca. One of the main things I got to help with was facilitating conversations regarding a guide we have been writing on volunteerism. We have been working on this project for some time now and had a rough draft to present and receive feedback on, in addition to adding new notes and ideas. There was some free time outside from the conference that were spent exploring the beautiful city of Florence with some good friends of mine.

Aside from these two exciting events, the rest of my time was spent working in the PA office, working in different classrooms at the school, hiking with (host) family friends, and celebrating Thanksgiving. As can be expected, Thanksgiving looked a little bit different this year. We celebrated by making homemade pizza together instead of a traditional meal. “We really don’t need to do anything special for Thanksgiving” is something I said a few times that week and I truly don’t regret it. I have been feeling very thankful for the overwhelming love and welcome I’ve experienced through my host family and community in my time here thus far.

To close out November and ring in December, I went with my host family to Balatonszárszó for a weekend marking the start of Advent. Balatonszárszó is a village on the shore of the Lake Balaton that has a sort of “Lutheran retreat center”. They host this “adventi hétvége” (advent weekend) every year and my family almost always goes. Many members of the family were there as well as other strangers. We worshiped, sang, made gingerbread cookies, crafted advent wreaths, took walks, and enjoyed time together. I will leave the remainder of December to another blog post as the holiday season contained a lot of new memories that I want to share with you. Sziasztok!