So last night me and my roommate headed out to try and meet up with several people at a church, that we supposedly wouldn't be able to miss, in one of the most central areas of Budapest, Deák ter. From there, the plan was to head to Gödör, a club that features Hungarian rock and pop bands, in order to see what that would be like. On the subway on the way there, we ran into another group of BSM students heading to the same area, but looking for a bar (which they couldn't remember the name of) instead. We parted ways with them, and proceeded to try and find the church. In the area of Deák ter is the cathedral of Szent Istvan (Saint Stephen I, the first Christian King of Hungary), a magnificent and incredibly large old cathedral. Thinking this was the obvious church, we headed towards it. Upon reaching it, we found no one and so proceeded to wander around the area trying to find the club instead, figuring we had shown up too late. Turns out, it was the wrong church, but I didn't realize that until this morning when I looked up the area and found a completely separate, much smaller Lutheran church two blocks south of Szent Istvan.
After wandering around in circles for about 30 minutes, we eventually discovered the club. It took so long to find because it was actually underground and the signs pointing out the location of the club were very discrete. The large groups of people around it were not, but for some reason it never clicked with us. However, we still couldn't find anyone near the club and, as the club required a ticket that cost more money than we were willing to part with at the moment, we left and tried to find another group of people who were currently at Bobek, a ruin pub several blocks away. After even more lost wandering, we found them and I finally got to try pálinka, the Hungarian brandy. I tried a bit of plum pálinka and some black cherry pálinka. They were both rather strong, and tasted like it, but were interestingly flavored and pretty tasty. Brandy is definitely a misnomer, however, as they share no resemblance to distilled wine, neither in the process it is made or in the taste that results. It's not a sweet liqueur either, though there is some mild fruitiness going on. All in all, definitely an interesting and bracing drink.
A note: there was much lost wandering because most people still do not have phones and, even if phones are had, it is very difficult to get the right number in because you need a code that goes before it. It's either +36, Hungary's country code, or 006, the mobile number code, and seems to change depending on the phone. Also, I discovered that my phone stopped working randomly about halfway through the night, only allowing me to place 'emergency calls,' for whatever reason. Restarting it fixed that, but I am very confused by how mobile phones work in this country...
The rest of the evening was spent wandering around Budapest, heading to another bar, where we met up with the people we had found on the subway, and a different club, where we were the some of the only people there for quite some time. Everything is cheaper though, so entrance to the club was not outrageous, and beer was affordable. It was a nice evening, and I was able to talk with a group of people I hadn't really interacted with that much. I ended up heading home after the metro had stopped, so I had to walk back. However, the walk was only around 30 minutes, and there was a guy who lived in the same area, so it was not too bad.
Today, I took the opportunity to relax. I slept in, waking up in the afternoon only because I had shopping I wanted to do. I finally went grocery shopping, picking up many different things, including sour cream (since it's fundamental to Hungarian cuisine) and caviar (because it cost a dollar), as well as more good looking bread. I've been very impressed with the milk here, it's very tasty and creamy; I think I'm drinking milk with 1.5% milkfat (there's a giant 1.5% on the carton), slightly more than American low-fat milk, and it tastes much richer. Afterwards, I finally, due to the phone my landlord gave me, managed to get in touch with a contact I received through my aunt of a graduate student living in Budapest. I made tentative plans to meet up with him in the coming week, and, more importantly, he told me I could buy a pillow and comforter at the Ikea in Budapest, only three stops away on the metro.
So, I went to Ikea, and was incredibly confused by the layout. While I was, I tried to use a real Hungarian keyboard, and they're pretty confusing.

Lots of extra buttons are needed for all the various accented vowels. Anyways, I eventually managed to find everything I needed and left, having spent more at the Ikea than at any other place so far in Budapest.
On the way back, I bought some roasted chestnuts off a guy on the street near the metro stop, and they turned out to be delicious. I also took the following pictures of my neighborhood, because it never ceases to amuse me. This is the beautiful old train station one block from my house:

And this is the view from the same location, facing the other side of the street:

The contrast between the old and the new is always fascinating, but here it's also kind of amusing because, unlike most of what I saw in China, the new is not the tall glistening sky scrapers of business, but the cheap shops and crass signs that represent the more distasteful side of capitalism. I'll take more photos as I notice it, but it's something I was talking to a friend about. The example above is a little different, because it's of local tacky shops, but he called it corporate graffiti, where a beautiful old building is covered in a sign or advertisement. It happens everywhere I suppose, definitely in America, but it's really noticeable here, where most of the buildings are very 19th century and so seem really out of place with the advertisements.
Anyways, I returned home and then made myself a dinner of the pork knuckle from last night, turning it into a sandwich with mustard, sour cream, fried onions, and arugula. It was tasty but, of course, very rich. I thought putting it on the sandwich would make it more manageable; it did, but only barely.
Anyways, that's it for my relaxing day. Tomorrow I'm off to tour Buda castle, on the other side of the River Danube. It's apparently a beautiful and interesting castle, and I'm looking forward to actually seeing the river.

And a quick addendum to this post. Hungary has a very strong drinking culture. Home brewing your own pálinka, as I think I mentioned before, is very common, wine making has been happening in the country for ages, and alcohol is exceedingly cheap everywhere. Cheers is Egészségedre,which means literally, to your health.And I believe there's a more formal version, which isn't only used when drinking (it can also be a polite way to say goodbye or something similar). However, clinking your glasses together as you toast is (supposedly) frowned upon, as that's how the Habsburgs celebrated their consolidation of power over Hungary in the mid 1800s. Whether the story is true or not I don't know. And whether this is a custom or just an urban legend, I'm not sure. We have been told that it's so, but I haven't been observant enough while I'm out to be able to weigh in.