From
the Midwest to
Budapest
Ball State alumna likes living in Budapest
Julia’s story starts out as a Ball State University student studying public relations. After her years at Ball State University, she wasn’t sure what to do after school. So, she decided to participate in a program called BUNAC, a program offering recent university graduates temporary work visas and reasonably priced health insurance in foreign countries. With BUNAC, she settled temporarily in Ireland where she gained valuable work experiences, including learning how to relax.
Then her mother became very ill. Julia moved back home to nurse her mother who eventually passed away. For the next year, she didn’t live abroad or focus on her dream: to live her life the way she wanted.
After receiving an offer from a Budapest-based PR firm, she asked her father if she should take the job or not, and he told her to wait for a sign. That’s when he opened her Ball State Alumnus magazine to find an article about Attilla Schillinger, who baby sat her when he was a graduate public relations student at Ball State and the same person who extended her the offer to come work in Budapest. The next day Attila called Julia to confirm her final decision to transition to Budapest, Hungary.
Julia bought a ticket and moved to Budapest to work for Attilla. There, she worked for Attilla’s public relations agency, Avantegarde, for two and a half years.
In Budapest, she realized that the atmosphere was calmer than in the U.S. More people in Europe were found outside reading a book, relaxing in the park and doing things that made them happy.
Then another sign came to Julia. She read an article about her written by a group of Ball State journalism students who visited Budapest 2011. The Ball State journalism students asked her, “If you had a month to do whatever you wanted, what would you do?” Reading the students' story reinforced her dream to go to South America. She started planning her exit from Hungary bought a plane ticket.
In South America, Julia did something called WWOOF-ing. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.
Story by Abbey Venable
“They just take volunteers," Sabatine said. "Everywhere in the world is like 20 bucks; you pay for the country, and you get this list of hundreds of farms of people who accept volunteers to work on the farm in exchange for food and room. So I did that, and this is what started my free life.”
Julia’s free life started to bloom – no pun intended. She realized that not enough people did things to make themselves happy. That’s not the way she wanted to live. So she learned to live the happy, stress-free and healthy life that she envisioned.
Julia even had advice for college students, “Follow the signs; listen to the voice inside.” Julia believes that the university enriches the lives of students and students should take full advantage of the opportunities that are presented to them.
In high school and college, Julia found happiness at the local YMCA. There, she would work with children that didn’t exactly have the best home life, but they could go to the YMCA and find happiness, whether it be by playing sports with friends or just keeping an active lifestyle. She recalled when she would walk into the Y, the children would be so happy to see someone there who genuinely cared about them and wanted to share that happiness with them.
Sabatine has lived in Ireland, Argentina, the Netherlands, France, and Hungary. Julia has helped out at YMCA, Avantgarde, Deltec Solutions and is now a freelancer in Budapest, Hungary, working most days for a research company in Germany.
Julia now lives, in what she hopes to be a permanent residence in Budapest, Hungary, with her boyfriend Rick, who is from the Netherlands. Her beautiful apartment looks over the hills of Buda.
In the future, she hopes to make a sustainability garden in her backyard complete with arugula, tomatoes, chives, lavender, onions, basil, kale, oregano, dill and cilantro. Julia has found her passions, and they shine through every aspect of her life in ways that inspire people to do this seemingly simple task: make themselves happy.
Julia Sabatine grew up in Muncie, Indiana. In the little town where she went to high school and college, she never really felt like her outgoing personality and stress-free lifestyle were welcome.
“Growing up in Muncie was hard,” Julia says when asked about her life in America. Julia’s family was like the average family compared to the other families that lived in Muncie. Julia was very expressive and active, which made her feel like she couldn’t be herself in Muncie.
Julia wanted to live a life with lots of diversity and where people were happy and lived to their full potential. So she did what any other person would want to do when they are looking for a new place to call home. She traveled the world.