A Day in the Life of Jen Vos

            One day in 1992, my mother decided to film my siblings and I for the majority of a day. It's called "A Day in the Life of Elliot, Laura, and Jennifer. It is one of the only home videos we ever made, but it is by far the best home video I have ever seen. In the spirit of this home video, I have decided to present to you, dear reader, a day in the life of Jen Vos.

Tuesday, 27 September 2011 Day 39

            Woke up around 9:30. My first class was at 1:10, so I was pleased to have a leisurely morning. I groped without looking beside my bed to find my laptop. Every day I tell myself that I’ll get right up—no wasting time on the Internet, but everyday I fail. Today is no exception. Finally I drag myself out of bed. Today is bath day. Since we share one shower between 14 girls, and that shower is not particularly luxurious, I’ve decided to limit my showering to every other day. In Europe, the toilet and the shower are in two different rooms. I guess people here feel weird about defecating in the same room you get clean—just one of the small things to get used to. The shower itself can only be described as “janky.” Two stalls, one curtain, hand held faucet, constantly dirty and wet floor.

By the time I am dressed and ready for breakfast, it is about 11:30. So I make myself a large brunch: fried potatoes, onions, peppers, and tomato with scrambled egg: the breakfast of champions. Cooking is tricky here. All 18 of us share one kitchen. We have two and a half refrigerators, two countertop hot plates, a microwave, coffee pot, electric kettle, and a sink that has broken twice. All this, plus a small mountain of dirty, semi-clean, and soaking dishes. Ah, the joys of a community kitchen. Today the sink works, so I am able to cook, eat, and clean up with relative ease. My first class is at 1:10, so I have plenty of time. Before I leave, I do some reading for my night class: Italian Renaissance Art History. But soon it is time to leave for History of Modern Europe.

I take the tram to class everyday. There’s a stop close to our dorm. Three trams run through every few minutes: the 18, 41, and 47. They’ve been doing work on the 18 for a while, so that one will only take you as far as the large farmer’s market and Interspar, the grocery store by the market. The 41 and the 47 both take you down town, making a stop right in front of Corvinus University, where my class is. So I’m at the tram stop by 12:40 –it’s about a 15 minute ride, so plenty of time. I catch the 41 with a relatively short wait, and I’m off. The now familiar stops fly by as I calculate my progress. We make a stop at St. Gellert ter, right in front of the famous Gellert hotel and spa. It’s a beautiful hotel, right next to Gellert hill, the highest hill in Buda, and right by the Liberty Bridge that takes you across the Danube to Pest. Corvinus is just on the other side of the bridge. At this particular stop, the conductor says something in Hungarian, that I of course do not understand. Some nearby passengers react by getting off the tram. I, not knowing what just happened, and confident in my ability to get to class, stay on. The tram lurches forward, and we are moving again. I look at the side of Gellert hill as we pass along it, taking time to notice how pretty it is. I think to myself, “wow, I seem to rarely notice this beautiful part of my tram ride. How have I not seen this before?” Realization dawns slowly. I don’t usually notice the side of Gellert Hill because I don’t usually ride past Gellert Hill. Instead of turning to go across the Liberty Bridge as usual, the tram has continued on straight, and we are now speeding along the Danube in the opposite direction of where I need to go. Now I know what the tram conductor said, and why my fellow passengers were so quick to disembark. The tram has changed routes. I have 15 minutes to get to class. Our next stop is on the other side of Elizabeth Bridge, almost to the Chain Bridge. In other words, quite a ways from where I need to go. I quickly get off, and look with some desperation at the distance between my current location, and my desired location. I have two choices: wait for a tram to take me back the way I need to go, or walk. I chose the latter; setting off at a brisk pace that I’m sure could compete with Olympic speed walkers. I hurtle pass old women with their shopping bags, huffing and puffing, with sweat dripping down my temples. Less than ten minutes until class. Well, my professor has been at least five minutes late for the past two classes; maybe he’ll be late today. I’m going to be late—at least… five-ish minutes, hopefully that’s okay. Should I run? …nope. Not going to run. Aaaargh I still have to climb three flights of stairs! Curse you tram 41! (a sample of my thoughts during this time) Finally, I reach the bridge and cross it with the purposeful stride of a woman who will run you over if you get in her way. I make it to Corvinus, decide to take the elevator, and speed walk down the hall to my class. Open the door quietly, sit down beside my Dutch classmate, Marit, and exhale a sigh of relief. Then my professor says,

“We’re going to have class outside today, since it’s such a nice day. We’ll walk across the bridge and up Gellert Hill.”

Are you #$%@ing kidding me? I just walked about a mile to get here, and now I have to walk back, and up the largest hill in Budapest?! Answer: yes. So we walked down three flights of stairs, back across the bridge I had just crossed, and about halfway up Gellert Hill. We sat on a grassy knoll and had class. Topic: the interwar years—the effect of different WWI treaties on their respective countries. I chatted with some fellow students, two from the Netherlands, two from Dublin, one from Switzerland.

After class, I made my way back to the Gellert tram stop. I waited for a few minutes, when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Kati, our Hungarian teacher. I greeted her in my loudest American voice: “Kaaaati! How are you?” We got on the tram together and she interrogated me about my use of the Hungarian language since our lessons have ended. I exaggerated the truth. Then we talked about Italy, the places we’ve seen, where we would like to go. Two stops later she got off to transfer to another line. I continued on my way. I stopped at Spar to pick up a few things, bread, tomatoes, and peppers. Got back on the tram, rode it one stop, got off and walked home.

Back at the dorm, I had about an hour and a half to finish my Italian Renaissance homework: (read page 27 to 42, and prepare a short presentation on the subject: “presentation drawing”) and cook dinner for myself. I think I made spaghetti with vegetable marinara sauce and shredded Gouda on top.

At 6:30, the few of us taking the Italian Renaissance Art class (only Calvin students) gathered in the upstairs room of our dorm. The same room we had Hungarian lessons, and our Monday evening classes with Jeff (we’re all a little sick of that room). Class was very enjoyable though. Our professor, Dora Sallay is a curator at the museum of fine art in Budapest. She actually studied Art History at Calvin from Prof Luttikhuizen, one of my professors. She specializes in Sienese painting from the Renaissance, and basically has the coolest job ever. She told us that she had to go look at a painting in a few days and determine whether or not it was a fake. (it was) In class, we learned about different methods of making art during the Renaissance: frescos, tempera on panel painting, oil on canvas painting, sculpture out of marble, wood, terra cotta, and bronze, drawing, and architecture. We planned an outing to the Museum of Fine Art that Thursday. It was an awesome class. Afterwards, Prof Sallay called me aside. She had seen that I had already taken an Italian Renaissance art class—from Prof. Luttikhuizen, no less. She asked if the class was challenging enough for me, I replied that it was a very interesting class, and I was learning a lot. It’s my favorite class this semester! I asked to sit down and talk to her about being an Art Historian sometime, she said she would let me use the museum library for my research paper—a great privilege. I was very excited to have met someone who is as deeply connected to the art world as she is. It was great to connect with someone who is living out one of my dream jobs.

After class, I read a chapter of a book for Jeff’s class: How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, a book about women who lived in the Soviet Bock. I watched an old episode of “America’s Next Top Model” –an interesting juxtaposition with the book. And even got to chat with my boyfriend David for the third night in a row; a rare occurrence. I was asleep by 1:30.

Thank you to the two* of you who actually read the whole thing!

*hi Mom, hi Dad