It’s Friday evening. Almost 10 p.m.

I’m listening to The Four Seasons performed by Gil Shaham & Orpheus Chamber Orchestra . Every time I hear it I am immediately transferred back to high school days when I would listen to a cd of this with my headphones on while trying to write a paper.

I’ve started this post a few times today and nothing has felt right enough to stay just yet. I don’t know if this one will or not.

Sure, let’s go with it. I don’t want to be here all night. :)

Well, the time is almost here… Monday I make the “rewind trip” from Budapest back to Virginia.

It’s definitely time. I’ve enjoyed my time here, seen a lot of interesting things, and eaten some good food, but I am also looking forward to getting back to “real life.”

No matter where I am in the world, there are things that have to be put on pause until I get home, or things that just don’t work as well from a half a world away. It’s time to get back to those things.

But first, let’s talk a bit about this past week in Budapest!

Welp, it’s time for the week three “Budapest 2019” wrap up post.

This post will summarize what I did during the past week, and I’ll also talk through an issue that I had while videoing the Hungarian Parliament at night and what I did about it.

I’m late writing this post again, lately I’ve struggled to write throughout the week, even though that is the way that I would like the process to go. It is much more relaxing when a blog post can evolve over a couple of days. My inability to focus on writing may also have something to do with not having a good cup of coffee in over three weeks now.

At any rate, let’s go ahead and get into things. Here is what I did over the past week.

So... I was going to come up with something pithy and beautiful to write about this week, but alas I have entered the eleventh hour once again, and I don’t have such a post ready. That means that this post will once again be a summary of my week here in Budapest.

Let’s start right after the blog post published last week.

Saturday actually turned into a “do all the things I skipped for a week” kind of day. Because I flew Friday and arrived and crashed on Saturday the week before and wasn’t sleeping properly the rest of the first week, I had a bunch of little things that needed to be done last Saturday. I decided instead of heading out early I would instead stay here at the apartment, finish my chores, and then head out.

Well, this past week has gone by fairly quickly. Seems like just yesterday I was packing my bags, and soon after was climbing off the airplane and trying to find my way around in the muddled London Heathrow airport.

It’s been a bit of a strange week. I mean, not too strange, but definitely different than my normal week at home.

Since I can’t seem to come up with anything more interesting to write about, and since I thought it might be interesting to read this myself in 50 years... this weeks post is going to be a little summary of my first week here in Budapest.

If that doesn’t sound overly interesting to you I don’t blame you. I apologize, kind of. :)

If I set everything up correctly this blog post should go live while I’m somewhere between home and Budapest Hungary.

A few weeks ago I posted about some of the reasons I decided to spend a month in Budapest, and now that the trip is almost here I need to make a packing list. Why make a packing list? Because there is nothing worse than getting where you’re going and realizing you forgot your phone charging cable.

Call me a nosy person, but I’m always fascinated by “what’s in my bag” articles or videos from photographers and digital nomads. Getting a single idea of something that can make travel easier or less stressful from someone who travels full time is always a good thing.

So... I guess this post will be an overview of the things that I’ll be taking with me as I head to Budapest.

Clothes and Personal

Clothes are the first thing I pack for a trip. They are the most basic things needed, so I make sure they get in the suitcase first.

My philosophy on the amount of clothes to pack has changed some over several trips. I used to try to take 7 pairs of everything, but that ends up getting pretty bulky. The nice thing about having seven sets of clothes is that I only have to do laundry once a week.

But... I have discovered an alternative that has worked well. Science says that underclothes should be worn once and then washed, outer clothes on the other hand can be worn twice or so before washing. The exception being when a person sweats profusely.

Last week I published an overview of how January went. I was pretty happy with how I had done working towards a number of my goals.

Perhaps I set myself up for a bit of a regression with that post… whatever the reason, this week came along and had a couple of major frustrations and derailments in the goals areas.

Before we go on… I’m not giving up on all of these goals I’m working on, but I sure thought about giving up on at least a few of them this week. This blog post was almost titled “why I decided to give up on all of my goals.” (That isn’t entirely true, but it was discouraging.)

Since the things I write here are basically a “look into the thoughts inside my head” a generally scary place to look, I thought I would practice some honesty and tell you how things went this week.

Nothing Seemed To Work

I don’t think I’m alone in this, but from time to time I’ll have a week (or even just a day) where it seems like nothing is working. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong.

At least that’s how it seems.