Eagerly Unanticipated

Friday, September 30, 2005

on passports, sweden, slovakia, etc.

Today's big news: I fly out of Ferihegy (the BP airport) at 7 tonight for Sweden(!!!). I'm meeting up in Stockholm with my friend Ashley, from Pomona, since we both have a friday with no class. As a lucky coincidence, this is also the first of three nights of the Swedish Beer, Whiskey, and Cider festival... it will definitely be a fun trip.

I'm also a little excited (more than I should be, at any rate) about getting another passport stamp. Admittedly, the ones I do have aren't nearly as exciting as I expected (it should be made clear at this point that prior to this semester, I'd never been anywhere you needed a passport to go). For whatever reason, I just always assumed that passport stamps would be colorful, like postage stamps or something (actually, my roommate and some friends are going to Egypt, for which they needed visas, and the visas contained what looked like postage stamps, so go figure), when in fact, they're pretty boring--indistinguishable across national borders, they have a little letter for the country of origin instead of a seal or something, etc.

Despite this small disillusionment, I'd still like to accumulate some stamps while I'm here. I had the first opportunity to do so last Sunday, when we went to Esztergom in northern Hungary. Admittedly, "northern Hungary" is a little bit ridiculous when the train trip took a total of an hour and a half (considering BP is right in the center of the country... although I haven't checked, I have a feeling Colorado is significantly larger). True to the mentality we've seen of Hungarian culture, Esztergom boasts Europe's second largest church (let's just say this country has a bit of a problem with the old inferiority complex about how cool stuff is... the postal museum also boasts the world's third largest collection of postcards).

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because Esztergom also has a bridge across the Danube into Slovakia. Also interesting is that the bridge was blown up by the fleeing German army in 1944 (45?), and was only rebuilt in 2001 or so. But again, I digress. My friends and I, being passport stamp-whores, decided that we would cross the bridge and ask the Slovakian border guards for a stamp. We walked over, held out our passports, and the guy took them from us. He walked back to his guard station, scanned them, held them up to the light to look at the holograms, stamped them... and then handed them to the guard we had thought was Hungarian (frankly, their respective uniforms aren't particularly distinguishable) but was actually Slovakian--we had just been stamped out of Hungary, and we had to get scanned, etc. again to enter Slovakia. Afterwards, they gave us our passports back, and my friend Kelly turned to go back.
"Where do you think you're going?" asked the guard.
"Home?" she said.
As it turned out, we had to walk down to the next intersection, cross the street, and go through the whole thing over again, during which our student visas received particularly close scrutiny, before they let us back in. And I'd say we all learned something that day: don't be a passport stamp-whore. Have at least something in mind to do while in the other country, so you don't feel like such an idiot, taking fifteen minutes and picking up four stamps when you only really wanted one. On the plus side, I don't feel nearly as naked taking the Esztergom-Sturovo-stamped thing with me to Stockholm.

Szia!
sam

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

a welcome change

I've always felt that American construction crews have a reputation for not doing much while on the job. For every guy digging a hole in the street, you have two people holding signs, for every hour paving, there are two hours spent laying out cones in the road, etc. Well, I have to tell you: we could stand to learn something from BP's construction industry.

For one thing, they don't bother with all those extra people standing around for "safety"'s sake. If somebody's in the street, they have a jackhammer (and it's running). Further, they approach the opportunity to tear up a street with the same enthusiasm that I would--when we lived in Buda, I saw people working at all times of day, from 7am until like after sunset... seven days a week. And this is in a country where grocery stores close on sundays. Needless to say, they tear up a hell of a lot of road pretty quick. This is probably good, because it seems like there's no shortage of work--there's always another block getting razed and they have a fourth metro line under construction indefinitely.

Another thing: half the cars here park on the sidewalk, and it's not clear why.

I gotta run, actually, and sign the foreign resident for more than 90 days lease contract on my apartment, but I wish you all the best! szia!

sam

some tags around town

It may just be because we spend most of our time in what could be called downtown Budapest, but it seems like most available surfaces are to some extent covered in graffiti. Some of it is fairly artistic and well-rendered (like the pedestrian underpass in Szentendre, which is almost like a collaborative mural), while some of it is pretty badass-looking, and could go up against most of the tagging i've seen back home. The best graffiti, though, is that which is written relatively legibly in english, because, for whatever reason, usage errors are magnified when something is spraypainted onto a wall (or sharpied on to a church dome, as i'll get to in a minute).

I went ahead and chose some favorites that we've seen so far (Peter has been compliling a similar mental list for english language t-shirts):

-"RAINMAN..." -- really, who wants to be Rain Man? have they seen this movie? i mean, really. This one is visible off the tram by Oktogon (the most appropriately named landmark intersection ever, as it turns out)

-"I love techno!" -- this was the one written on the dome of the Basilica of Esztergom, unsigned (i have a picture, for when i figure out how to post pictures). did we really need to find that out? Also, is a church roof really the most appropriate place for it?

-"punk is not dead" -- um, my mistake. i just see the author saying it with sort of that whiny tone, like 'punk is not dead, okay?', which really takes away from the anger and social force that signified the time when punk was actually not dead. The effect was magnified since the tag was on a building on a street where it didn't seem like anything was happening at all, let alone punk.

-"The Cure" -- I like the Cure, but... as graffiti, it's kind of funny. What's next, 'the Smiths'?

-"WIZARD - LIZARD" -- this one is visible off the trolleybus on the way to school. We can't figure out whether the person saw how similar the words were without knowing what they meant and assumed a common root (hungarian is a pre-and suffix-oriented language), or if they did know what the words meant and just liked the way they rhymed.

-"Helvetica nevergoesoutofstyle" -- this one was in a pedestrian tunnel by the varhegy (Castle Hill) on the Buda side. Although the tunnel was covered with graffiti, this one really stood out for some reason. It made me realize how stylish Helvetica looks, and how disappointed I am that it's not available for me to post in.

-there's also some good mural-type graffiti near the Millenium Park in Buda, where we saw the concert of American show tunes played by a youth orchestra from Israel, and also near the tram stop on the bridge to Margitsziget (Margaret Island), supposedly the sketchiest place in the city after dark.

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On an unrelated note, I've been seeing these bumper stickers around. They have a big "H" on them, superimposed over the outline of a country colored like a Hungarian flag, only the shape of the country definitely doesn't look anything like Hungary. I found this mildly confusing until I found out last week that that was, in fact, the shape of the Hungarian bit of the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to WWI and the Treaty of Versailles, back when Hungary included an outlet to the sea (about where Croatia is now) and large chunks of most of its present-day neighbors. So, rather than a fairly benign (or at least typical) declaration of national pride, these bumper stickers are a statement of protest and Hungarian irridentism (the desire for the return of territory to which a nation feels entitled). And as a history major, I'm not down with that. Who knew?

Alright, that's all I have (time for) right now. We'll work on making updates shorter and more frequent, but next time, next time. For now, szia!

Thursday, September 22, 2005

some facts (but not too many)

So i went out and bought a new monthly transit pass yesterday, alerting me to the scary fact that i've already been here a month. In that time, i've learned a surprising amount about europe, math, and me, i managed to update people about what was going on about two and a half times, and i'm still not sleeping through the night for some reason. I blame either the weird pseudobeds that they furnish in apartments or stress (most likely stress). Anyway, I feel bad for giving everyone so little concrete information about where I am. Thus, Magyarorszag:

- I live in central Pest (the downtown side) with Peter, who goes to Arizona, and Tomas, who is from Slovakia and currently not enrolled in Lawrence. Peter and I originally lived like forty minutes from anything, but moved a couple weeks ago. The old place was nice, but our current place is genuinely european: high ceilings, a fridge with a temperature gauge in cyrillic, no central heating, and obscenely cheap rent.

- The currency in Hungary is the forint. The exchange rate is about 196/dollar, but we all mentally convert prices at a rate of 200/dollar, which means we'll all run out of money about a week early. ATMs all give out 10000 or 20000 forint bills, which are about like $50 or $100, which sucks, because you feel like an ass buying 1000 forint worth of groceries with a huge bill. On the flipside, they have change denominated down to a 1 forint coin, which is essentially completely useless; most businesses shortchange you, sometimes down to the next 5 forint increment, but it's hard to blame them.

- Hungarian (Magyar) is the fiftieth most commonly-spoken language in the world, at least according to the reader they gave us on the first day of language school. Someone in my class counted the number of other languages available from the publisher (52), and notified everyone that Magyar "just barely made the cut."

- Lots of businesses are open 24 hours a day, which we attribute to the relatively recent introduction of capitalism. These businesses have signs up that say "0-24", a tribute to the hour system that is only used here when referring to train timetables or 24-hour businesses. Further, in conversation, such a business is called a "non-stop", which is pronounced exactly like it is in english. Thus, the 24-hour starbucks back home is actually a "non-stop kavehaz", not that we have starbucks here (and not that i particularly miss them). Best non-stop? The non-stop dentist just a couple blocks off the main thoroughfare Andrassy ut.

- My favorite non-stop actually sells the most common fast food in Hungary: gyros. I'm not sure who brought them over, but they sell them all over the place (with wide variations in quality), with such great variety that everyone has a different favorite gyros place. Further, no matter where you go, they're never more than 500 or so forint, making them an amazing snack. The place I love is now just a few blocks from my apartment, which made moving particularly awesome.

I gotta run, but for now, szia!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Budapest: Diva of the Duna (danube)

... So goes the subtitle of the Lonely Planet guide to the city. The question that came first to my mind was, "How long did it take them to come up with that one?" Closely followed by, "Did whoever think of it get paid? And if so, how much?" And even though Lonely Planet writes in English, I feel like this sort of slogan is emblematic of the Hungarian tourism information our program saw the need to send us over the summer. As well-intentioned as all of it was, the grammar and syntax was, um, hard to take.

Actually, it seems like most Hungarian signs, plaques, and museum displays translated into English follow the same pattern:
1. the first sentence is very well put together; it's been thoroughly thought out, and it's easy to know exactly what they mean.
2. the second and third sentences are clearly translated, with some obvious errors and stuff that just doesn't sound right, but the meaning is still understandable.
3. everything beyond that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There is no hope of gleaning any further information whatsoever.

As a result, you know, for example, that you're at the famed Szechenyi Baths. Unfortunately, you don't know where the hell the locker room is and these guys just keep pointing you farther and farther from the entrance and you get totally lost. Fortunately, that example turned out ok; those baths are really nice, fairly reasonably-priced, and clean. But I digress.

The following just occurred to me yesterday evening. Since I got here, I haven't felt at all intimidated by the police... that may not be the right word, but they're definitely hard to take seriously. Anyway, the revelation I had yesterday: the reason I don't think of the police as like real police is because their uniform includes baseball caps. That, more than their silly compact cars, their baggy uniforms, or anything else, makes me immediately think of fake cops (like subdivision security or something) every time I see them.

Speaking of baggy uniforms, Budapest may be a little farther ahead of the cutting edge of fashion than I'm comfortable with. Most men wear awkwardly cut pants that hit them around mid-calf, women wear jeans tucked into those high-top sneakers that are really more like boots that languish on shelves throughout north america, and, worst of all, everyone I've seen wearing a suit has worn a suit that just doesn't fit them. Now, granted, we don't exactly go to school in the financial district (or near Parliament), so it's possible that well-tailored suits exist here somewhere. And actually, we're going to the Opera on thursday, so that should give me a chance to revise my assessment (which I hope to be able to do), although we've definitely heard that people don't wear ties to the Opera, let alone suits, so we'll have to see.

On a closing note, it rained for the entire first week I was here, and it rains depressing here. I was assured that such weather is unusual for Budapest, and the assurances were backed up by a couple weeks on sunshine and 70s, like winter in LA. As of this weekend though, the temperature dropped 20 degrees and it's cloudy. I'm reminded of a Steve Martin essay in which he discusses the contrast in writing styles between being in SoCal and being in "some depressing place like Central Europe", and my faith that it will get sunny again has been shaken.

That's it for now. Szia! (a common Hungarian greeting/farewell that, actually, is derived from and pronounced almost exactly like "see ya")

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Getting around in Budapest

... hopefully, a sparklingly witty examination of it, but I'll settle for interesting.

First, I have to say that, in general, I've been enjoying things here. A lot of stuff is cheaper, particularly food and drinks other than water, the people in the program are cool, and after an initial week of unseasonal rain, the weather has been warm and hazy, which reminds me, actually, of LA in winter (though I'm sure the pollutants are different, the pollution is definitely the same). At the same time, though, a lot of things have enough ridiculous to them that you have to take it in stride.

The example that comes to mind first is the public transportation. It's really convenient, runs throughout the city, comes at short intervals, and is really cheap (like $30 for a monthly pass). At any given time during the day, the city is crisscrossed with metro trains, trams, buses, and trolleybuses (basically buses that run on wires, like the trams). At 11:30, though, weekday and weekend alike, it all shuts down.

In lieu of daytime transport, Budapest has the night buses. These are all those long accordian buses, so imagine, if you will, a big bus totally packed with people. Now, since it's nighttime, at least half those people will be drunk. Since they are young people, there will be at least three couples on the bus making out, which is culturally acceptable here. Since there are no public container laws here either to the best of my knowledge, if you're lucky, people will be passing around champagne. To top it off, the drivers of night buses are clearly completely crazy; they drive with reckless abandon, particularly around curves, and I've definitely been in buses that have jumped a curb, swerved to avoid a pedestrian, almost been hit by cars, etc.

Some nights, this adds a coda of adventure and excitement to a night out. Others, it's irritating and a little embarrassing when you, the american, end up falling all over the place while everyone else seems impervious to even the most unexpected lurches. When you're a little sick, it's torture, and seems to last for hours. When you're on the verge of passing out, though, the motion of the vehicle can definitely lull you to sleep (as both my roommate Peter and I have discovered, though fortunately on separate occaisions and in each others' company). In all cases, though, I always wonder why they run the buses at all. Everything starts up again at like 4:30 in the morning, so they only have five hours of night bus service, but they're five hours that are definitely part of a night out, particularly on the weekends. I'm sure that the city has considered alternatives, but is it really that much cheaper/safer to run things this way?

Additionally, although everything here is really cheap, nothing is free. The pay toilets may be the most famous feature and common to all of europe, but we definitely went to a club last weekend with a fifty cent cover charge. They had turnstiles, into which you inserted one 100 forint coin, and they hired a cashier whose only job was to make change for people who had large bills so that they'd have coins to put in the turnstiles. In the same vein, many public parks here have large trampolines, but they cost about $2.50 for like five minutes, so nobody uses them, and they have hired attendents there to take people's money... it seems to me to barely be cost-effective, let alone a good use of the space.

This nothing-free thing brings me back to public transport. One-way tickets cost between $.60 and $1.10, depending on how far you go, and a monthly pass is only $30, which I find to be a really good value. Enforcement of these fares, though, is based on the honor system: there is supposedly always a risk of encountering transit authorities with red armbands, who will require you to show your ticket; otherwise, there is no way to tell if people paid or not. Most significantly, I have only ever seen transit cops at metro stations, never on trams, trolleys, or night buses, and, with only one or two exceptions after three weeks of being in town, my friends haven't either. In fact, some tram stops don't even appear to sell tickets. Even when there are metro cops, the enforcement is lax--I definitely didn't see them one time getting off the metro and walked right past them onto the escalator, and only found out they were checking passes later when the people I was with showed up a minute after I did. Although I'm sure they'd be less crowded and make more revenue if they just made sure people paid, I think we've all had moments when we've been glad turnstile-hopping is almost encouraged.

sam