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!
- 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!
posted by sam at
10:36 AM
1 Comments:
hahaha
um, it's funny. in hungarian, 's' is pronounced like 'sh' while 'sz' is pronounced like 's' and 'gy' is still impossible for me to pronounce correctly, so you'd think it would be "ghyearosh". it's not. because it's a foreign word, it's actually "ghyearos". i have a feeling, though, that as long as you point to the slowly turning spit of meat and don't say "jyro" they'll know what you're talking about.
sam
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sam, at 9/22/05, 4:00 PM
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