Hello All!!! Praised be Jesus Christ, for I am a blessed woman of God!! I hope you all are doing well, many of you have been on my heart and mind. This last weekend I went to Budapest, Hungary and it was amazing. Not because the city itself is so grand, but because of the people I went with. I went with a group of nine, two men, seven women and it was a beautiful thing to get to know each one just a little bit better and learn something from each of them. I was really edified by the men on the trip, who just very deliberately and consciously were looking out for us. It was also really edifying to see in those moments, where there were conflicting ideas, one person or another graciously sacrifice their own plan for the sake of another.

I was there for a weekend, getting out there and back for under 20 us dollars and paying about 27 us dollars for two nights ; ) The first night we went out to the warm mineral springs as well as seeing various monuments and an ice skating rink on the ice. I calculated and we walked a total of 4 hours that day between train stops, bus stops, also the city was more spread out then others. We ate at a cafe/restaurant called Cafe Bistro and tried the traditional hungarian dish - gulays (said gu-lash). I also tried a baked pumpkin dish with cinnamon and spice, delicious. On the same block as us was a Franciscan Church where we were able to go to mass Saturday morning. We guessed that it'd be at nine, but it was at ten so we decided to just stay and pray. The Lord blessed us because at 9:30 there was adoration : )

Then we made our way to the market (personally my favorite part of any city) where we found some more typical food, lots of sausage, cabbage, pasta, cheese, and other goodness. I found myself a beautiful bag (yellows, pinks, and oranges) that is reversible. I treated myself to it because I forgot to bring an everyday book bag so this one works great. We then made our way up the citadel to find a 360 view of the city. We then sat at the cafe at the top of the citadel for a good two hours enjoying each other well (and the warmth of the room and our coffee). Then we made our way to the dance theater where we thought we had bought tickets for the ballet of Sleeping Beauty. As it turns out it was a modern interpretation that honestly was very degrading of anything beautiful in dance, showed women being used as purely sexual objects, men as passive sexualizers and very animalistic, and the music was minimalistic if one can call that music at all, needless to say it was horrible and not at all showing the beauty that dance is. I lasted oh about, 5 minutes and then walked out. The best part was that all nine of us had so excitedly bought tickets in the front row. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to walk out of that theater for all to see. As I walked out I found myself with someone else from my group and we sat down in the lobby. It was truly a beautiful thing to see each of my friends come out as well, one by one as the show progressed. That nine people would recognize that the performers as well as the audience deserved more, deserved truth about the human person, and that we are more than the baseness portrayed in that dance. If one person in that theater seeing nine people walk out at different times were to ask themselves why, or why such a show might prompt one to walk out, then it was worth it and I praise God for that evening. As you might imagine we all thought it was hilarious that we had bought these tickets in a foreign country, so naive, hehe, well it is a great story to tell and our classmates back at school got a great kick out of it.

That night we went out to a nice Italian restaurant that gave us a private room. The next morning we made it to the Basilica for Sunday mass where the hand of St. Stephen is buried. We ate breakfast at a cafe and then made our way back to the bus. It was a wonderful weekend : ) This weekend I am off to Poland on a school trip, it is more of a pilgrimage to the Divine Mercy Shrine, Auschwitz, hometown of John Paul the Great, and the image of our Lady of Czetehowa (I think that is spelled wrong). You all are blessed, I hope you have a wonderful weekend. A shout out to Tanya who is auditioning today - good luck my sister!!!