Rina’s 6th month

​So this time I will just start where I just left off. So the beginning of 2026 was with my beloved friends from my homecity. We continued with sightseeing like going on the cruise and going out at night. The magical snow was becoming very annoying because it was so cold and there was almost no sun. When I was getting water for the shop the sun shined for the first time in a while and just couldn’t stop myself just standing for a second and enjoying the sun. I couldn’t wait for spring to come. 

Middle of January the second round of sightseeing seeing has begun. A Colombian friend I made in Bratislava in the hostel came to visit me and we spend a lot of time together checking the typical tourist spots out. He’s a very kind and patient person and enjoyed the together and we even met a bigger group of volunteers and we hung out at their flat. 

 Before I went to the midterm in Visegrád I spent time together with Kriszti and Barbi at the ice rink and drank some hot chocolate afterwards. It was fun and a nice way to spend time together before Kriszti moved out. 

In the last week of January I went as mentioned to Visegrad. Sadly the weather was not keeping up with us but it was nice to meet the people from the on arrival training and also a few new people. As a long sleeper I even managed to wake up at 5am one time to go on a hike with some to the castle. It was so cold and parts of the way were frozen so it was actually kind of dangerous. I would like to say that the view was worth it but well…it was too foggy. But still it was a nice time bonding with people. The Programm of the midterm was very nice and I felt really comfortable with the facilitators. The medieval evening was really fun and the food at the restaurant was nice and it was nice holding a torch and trying medieval clothes. 

On the last day of January I went to a comedy show with Manal for the first time. It was not necessarily my humor but the vibes were good. 

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Rina’s 5th month

 

So December has been pretty eventful looking back, so let me tell you how the last month of 2025 went. It started with my Highschool classmate visiting me again and even though we had an argument we managed to have fun. For instance we visited the lantern exhibition at the Zoo and we played board games for hours in the board game bar and especially the WW2 board game took so long (& I lost sadly twice).

Also in the middle of the month I got a haircut which was needed. Zsuzsa introduced me to her hairdresser which I’m super grateful for.

With Christmas approaching we decorated Store matching to the festive to the vibe with decorations like ornaments. Also the Christmas break being very soon I planned for the holiday to travel with Manal, my Moroccan friend, to Bratislava and Vienna. So this month I experienced a lot of firsts, first time spending Christmas without my family, going to a hostel and visiting those cities. 

 

We spent a lot of the sightseeing but also had night outs like joining pub crawls and so on. But my highlight of the trip was meeting a lot of different people who are living in different circumstances and countries. My favourite night out was when we went to karaoke bar with people we met in the hostel. One of the guys we met put requested a song and he tried to convince us to come and perform with him. Normally I wouldn’t sing in front of strangers and it gave me a lot of anxiety. But somehow I just said yes and it was the best decision. I haven’t felt alive in a such time and it was such a nice time. And the whole bar was singing with us and it was a really overwhelming atmosphere. From now on “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay will be connected to that specific experience.

Close of the end of the year my closest friends from my hometown visited me and we spend new years together. We spent a lot of quality time together and for new years we went to the Füge because it was too cold with the snow. Still the snow was magical. We lit up the sparklers I had prepared and it was such a nice way of celebrating the start of 2026. Looking back 2025 has been a really really long year with a lot of ups but also little downs. Let’s hope that the year 2026 will be the year for everyone. 

 

 

 

 

 

I am grateful for my friends and the feeling of having a sleepover like children was really nice. It reminded me of the lyrics of Lorde’s “Ribs”.  So as last for December I will add this here, even though I’m pretty sure you know this:

“You're the only friend I need 

Sharing beds like little kids 

And laughing 'til our ribs get tough

But that will never be enough”

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Rina’s 4th month

​Rina’s 4th month

My November started in Frankfurt where I spent time with my family and friends. If I start to think back this month was kind of quick but also really slow. This month was full of surprises and new type of work. Obviously the most of the work stayed the same as the previous months, the rhythm itself wasn’t disrupted much. Waking up, make food and go to work and start to get cleaning etc. But for the 28th of November the 10th anniversary of the charity shop the preparation was a but hectic. The little stress and tension was kind of new with me but also the excitement because I never attended a big event before. The workshop was fun and spending time with Dana, Barbi , Manal and all the people made me very happy.

This month has been also really cold and dark, which I’m quite used to but the littleness of experiencing daylight is quite exhausting. But still the cold times also brings something nice with it: the christmas market. Generally I would say I am not a big fan of Christmas but I am really fond of Christmas Markets. There is light food and happy people and good vibes. The prices are as high as in Germany which is quite a lot. But I still enjoyed the light projection at the basilica. One thing for sure I will miss is eating Raclette with my Family, even though we don’t necessarily celebrate Christmas, we also use the Christmas Holidays for spending time together.

 

Also the guy that I’m currently dating has visited me so I took a day off and we tried to do a lot of sightseeing together and it was nice spending time together. We were lucky in the unfortunate weather to experience a little moment of snow. When my mother made me go on saturdays to the Japanese school I really hated it as a kid and we had a lot of lessons about specific Japanese words that captures seasons and nature. Not much of it actually remained but one of the words is Hatsuyuki (初雪), which literally means first snow, which marks the beauty and the seasonal change. Even though I’m not really the romantic type (that’s what I believe), the thought of experiencing the first snowfall of the year next to him made me smile and so grateful . I didn’t tell him, so please keep it for you… 

Next month will be probably very busy and it’s exciting thinking about the Christmas Holidays

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Rinas 3rd month

​So update from the last blog:

The weather was unfortunately not really good as I hoped, but I had enough plans and encounters to not become gloomy in the grey city.

I spent every weekend differently in October, so let me give you a recap of what I did.

The first weekend, I went clubbing with friends and visited Szimpla Kert. This was the first time enjoying night life in Budapest. It was crazy to see how big the Szimpla Kert was, like a huge labyrinth or a jungle you could get easily lost in. 

The weekend after I visited my aunts place. I enjoyed there the slow paced life there and my highlight as a cat person is the cat that comes by everyday. It’s really friendly and its fur is really soft and it purred a lot, which made me really excited.

The third week was the elongated weekend Anett and me visited Debrecen

and Hortobágy. My bias was that Debrecen has a really similar look to Budapest because it is the second biggest city after Budapest in Hungary. But it’s really more like a small city. It’s less grey and more greener and there are more big streets that aren’t so narrow. Since it was a national holiday, we visited the Déri Museum for free and on the other day we visited a cat cafe in Debrecen. The cat’s name on the picture is Oskar. He was really calm and wasn’t bothered by anything, which really impressed me.

We visited Abdu, an Egyptian friend I made on the On-arrival-training, in Hortobágy. On one day we visited the Animal Park, we saw a lot of animals like pigs,horses,a donkey and a lot of other ones. On the other day we visited we saw a festival (I already forgot what kind…memories of a goldfish), I tried at a food stall the Debrecen sausage and palacsinta with cottage cheese and it was really good. The weather has been really windy but the festive vibes and the warm food lightened up my mood. Thank you Abdu for hosting us!

  

Not to forget to mention the very short visit of my Highschool classmate. Even though it was just 4 month not seeing each other, it felt like ages. It is really incredible how time flies. When we reminisced about “old times“, it felt like the thing happens years ago, but in reality it was just half a year ago. It was nice to show him some spots in Budapest and we went to new places as well. The feeling of having some familiar face in ESC experience has been new and also very nice. (If you’re reading this: Danke Mika!) 

So back to my weekends. The last weekend I flew back to Frankfurt and spend time with family and friends. I really missed the food of my mother and sleeping in my own bed. It was nice to catch up with friends and hearing about how they are doing in university. Hope I will meet them soon! 

Now that Christmas season is starting I’m really looking forward to the christmassy activities for November and December!

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Rina's 2nd month

So, it’s been a month since the last entry — time really flew!

In the past few weeks, the season change was quite harsh on us. With it, we put out new seasonal clothes, and the colder weather got me too. I ended up getting sick right at the end of my on-arrival training.

At the training, I met a lot of interesting volunteers and learned about other projects. My favourite program was the Hungarian dance night, where we danced and sang to Hungarian folk music. We also got to see both modern and traditional clothing of Roma people. The dancing was such big fun!

 

 

Another highlight was our visit to Szentendre — it honestly looks like you’ve stepped into a fairytale. We were blessed with beautiful weather, so I treated myself to some fancy ice cream they sold there, and it was sooo good!

(If you’re ever there, try the Szentendre krém and the matcha!)

 

 

One weekend, I visited my aunt and uncle, who live about 1.5 hours away from Budapest. They took me to their friend’s countryside party. The place had a big lake with fish, lots of sheep, and five cats! I completely fell in love with the scenery.

 

 

There, I tried sheep and deer gulyás — honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of the meat, but playing with the cats and petting them made up for it. It was such a fun time.

Also, Anett and I tried a hotpot place where we ate malatang, and it was absolutely delicious.

My friends surprised me with a package full of cute and thoughtful things — and most importantly, yummy snacks! They didn’t tell me about it, so when I got a notification from the post office to pick something up, I was completely surprised. It really warmed my heart and made me feel loved. ❤️

(Thank you, Lotte & Anna!)

I’m really curious to see what October will bring —

(except obviously Halloween, haha).

I hope for lots of fun in the shop and plenty of sunshine!

I’m definitely not ready for winter yet…

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Emlékek, amiket magammal viszek

Hello kedves olvasók! 

Ez lesz az utolsó bejegyzésem, és furcsa ezt leírni. Őszintén szólva még mindig nem igazán dolgoztam fel a gondolatot, hogy vége ennek az évnek. Összességében boldog vagyok, mert egy nagyon jó időszakot zártam le. Élveztem a munkát a boltban – mindig izgalmas volt átnézni az adományokat, hátha akad valami érdekes kincs a halomban. Néha a törzsvásárlók is kihívást jelentettek, de voltak napok, amikor ez már szinte komikusnak hatott: mintha csak egy álomban lennénk, ahol egymás után érkeznek a legnehezebben kezelhető emberek. Mégis, ezek a pillanatok is hozzátartoztak az élményhez, és most már inkább mosolyogva gondolok vissza rájuk.

 Amit igazán különlegessé tett az egész évet, azok a munkatársaim voltak. Mindig sikerült valahogy jobbá tenniük a napot, és sokat tanultam tőlük. A képzések is sokat adtak – segítettek rájönni, hogy talán mégsem vagyok annyira ügyetlen társas helyzetekben, mint korábban hittem. Ráadásul remek barátokat is szereztem, akikkel később sok közös élményünk lett: kirándulások, városi séták, nevetések és hosszú beszélgetések. Hálás vagyok, hogy megismerhettem őket, és nagyon szeretném, ha a kapcsolatunk a jövőben is megmaradna.

 Az év során rengeteg szórakoztató programban vettem részt, amik segítettek abban, hogy magabiztosabb legyek és jobban élvezzem az új helyzeteket. Most épp azon dolgozom, hogy megtanuljak pozitívan előre tekinteni, és ne félelemmel, hanem kíváncsisággal várjam, mi jön ezután. Remélem, a következő években is lesznek ehhez hasonlóan tartalmas, vidám és tanulságos időszakok az életemben.

 Köszönöm, hogy eddig olvastátok a blogjaimat, és hogy velem tartottatok ezen az úton. Sok szép emléket viszek magammal, és bízom benne, hogy ezek az élmények még sokáig inspirálni fognak. 

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Kis kirándulások

Lassan véget ér az önkéntes évem, és sokat gondolkodom azokon a pillanatokon, amik különlegessé tették ezt az időszakot.

A nyár igazán emlékezetes volt. Néha elviselhetetlen volt a hőség, de a fagyik mindig kisegítettek minket. A kedvencem a sós mogyorós íz volt a szomszéd fagyizóból – szinte minden nap ezt választottam. Egyszer még a gorgonzolás fagyit is kipróbáltam, ami elsőre furcsán hangzik, de meglepően finom volt.

 

 

Augusztus közepén hazautaztam. Előtte el kellett vinnünk a cicámat egy kisállathotelbe, ami elég nehéz volt, mert láttam rajta, mennyire nem tetszik neki – sajnos nem volt más lehetőség. Innen indultunk autóval Bulgáriába. Az út hosszú volt, de végül megérkeztünk egy gyönyörű szállodába. Kicsit sok volt ott az ember (és a gyerek is), több, mint ami nekem kényelmes, de összességében nagyon kellemes, pihentető nyaralás volt. Rengeteget úsztam, a parton pihentem, sétáltam Nessebar óvárosában, és vettem pár cuki ékszert is.

 

 

Egy rövid otthoni pihenő után augusztus 20-án visszautaztam Budapestre az ünnepi tűzijátékra. Délután érkeztem, elég fáradtan, így a barátaink egy része előbb indult helyet keresni, én pedig a gyerekkori barátnőmmel később csatlakoztam volna. Szerettünk volna átjutni a budai oldalra a hídhoz, de a metróban annyian voltak, hogy nem sikerült, és mire kijutottunk, lezárták az összes hidat. Végül a pesti oldalon maradtunk, leültünk a fűbe, beszélgettünk, nosztalgiáztunk, és úgy vártuk a tűzijátékot. Gyönyörű volt, de a hangulat közben és utána tényleg kicsit apokaliptikus volt – elképesztő tömeg hömpölygött az utcákon. A barátaink a budai oldalon ragadtak egy darabig, mert a hidakat csak akkor nyitották meg, amikor már eltakarították a tűzijáték maradványait.

 

 Ahogy visszagondolok erre a nyárra, sokféle élmény jut eszembe - a hőség és a fagyik, az utazások és a tűzijáték forgataga. Bár gyorsan elszaladt, tele volt emlékezetes pillanatokkal,amik biztosan velem maradnak. Hamarosan jövök egy évzáró kis összegzéssel, addig is szép ősz kezdetét mindenkinek!

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