A Trip to the City of Sunshine.

"Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot

Disclaimer: I can't promise that all of my blog entries will always be the most entertaining or even the most inspirational; all I can say is that all of my blog entries will be honest. They will be my uncensored, unfiltered thoughts as I journey to lands unknown this summer. Read at your own risk.

Seven--the number of days in a week, the neutral pH state between acids and bases, the number of deadly sins, and now, the amount of times AIESEC (that non-profit organization I'm involved with filled with young people hellbent on changing the world) has taken me to different places in the world. 

• Georgia
• Washington, D.C.
• New York/New Jersey
• Indiana
• Texas
• Panama
• Hungary

Well, here goes nothing. 

The Basics:

For the next 7 weeks, I will be in Szeged, Hungary working on a national project called Summer for Youth. It's a camp for high school students in the area to hone in on their soft skills and to instill an entrepreneurial outlook and a global mindset in them before they enter college (sound familiar, AIESECers?). I, alongside three other interns and a handful of facilitators, will be delivering sessions based on certain topics (innovation, culutural awareness, public speaking, etc) to these high school students in two two-week spans. 

  

The Details:

Szeged, Hungary wasn't exactly the place that I saw myself this summer. I could barely point Hungary out on a map, let alone be intimate enough with the country to know of any of its cities (apart from the famed Budapest). Sure, I knew an internship was in my future (it's poor street cred for the VPOGX, the person who sends people on exchange, to have not been on exchange), but the "when"s and "where"s of the whole ordeal were still to be determined. 

Since I'm being honest, I can say that I really just managed to fall into the internship in Szeged. I was looking for a way to get a discount on my exchange and to also be heavily involved with the L(ocal)C(ommittee) while I was there. Szeged offered me that opportunity, so of course, I jumped at the chance. 

I've been here for less than 72 hours, but I could not agree more with the naming of the city; You see, Szeged, means "the city of sunshine." (If you don't believe me, check out this video.) Not only is the city filled with sunlight, it seems to radiate in the people as well. Szeged is a European college town, a Euro-twist on Athens, if you will, but there are various generations of people that I run into every day. And after the initial two second double take (cause lesbihonest, how many black people do YOU know in Szeged?), it's not uncommon to get a smile, a wave, and a hello from people as me and my fellow interns walk the (not so) mean streets of Hungary. 

I'm falling in love with the eccentricities of the place that I will call "home" for the next 7 weeks, and I long to discover more and more of Hungary's little secrets. This AIESEC inspired wanderlust will surely be the main reason for many of my adventures this summer and is undoubtedly the cause for my intense interest, fascination, and comfort in smaller cities. 

If you're still here, and you're still reading, I invite you to travel with me (not physically of course, this is my rumspringa, and you can't have it) as I discover a little bit more about the world and a little bit more about myself. 

I suppose I should introduce myself. You may name me whatever you choose, but I'm typically called Kiandra.