Hola Budapest!!

Halo!!! (Is that Hungarian? Probably not…oh well!)

So! After a bazillion hours of time change, jet lag, etc etc, I am here in the beautiful city of Budapest. But before I start talking about the city, I have to recount my lovely journey that got me here. So at the early (late?) hour of 4:30 am on Saturday I got up with my padres and headed to LAX to catch my 7am flight to JFK. I was so lucky to be seated one row behind the most obnoxious baby and family ever. This baby was the biggest screamer/crier/whiner ever. When a girl across the aisle asked the parents if they give the baby some kind of drowsy medicine they responded with “Oh. We don’t do that.” Great. So, as soon as we got on the air I popped on my ipod shuffle (thanks mom!) and my lovely eye mask (thanks LAN random upgrade to business on the way to Easter Island!) and dozed off a bit. I slept a good 2ish hours and then woke up and ate some of the lunch my mom packed me. I pulled out my new book, Dry by Augusten Burroughs (author of Running with Scissors) and read that until we landed at JFK. I then went to the gate where I would take my plane to Budapest. AHH! I had an aisle seat neat to a nice U.S. Military man from Florida. He told me lots of stories from his job and told me about himself but I think it’s probably confidential-ish, and even if it isn’t, I feel more special pretending it is, so no details for you! Anyways, as soon as we got in the air, I popped on the shuffle and the eye mask and slept until the meal was served. I picked at the meal a bit but then fell back asleep realizing my eyes were hungrier for sleep than my stomach was for food. I promptly woke up at breakfast and had a warm croissant and cup of orange juice. I tried to have a crash Hungarian lesson with the dude next to me, who had bought an itunes learn Hungarian audiobook, but unfortunately I caught on to nothing. So that was good. I watched the big map and watched all the different countries and cities we were passing over, and before I knew it, we were hovering over Budapest. We landed and I had the easiest immigration experience ever. Not even an immigration form to be filled out. Just a passport stamp! Then I got my two bags, got some cash, and was met by a lovely driver named Bela! Bela was a large Hungarian man, who on a scale of 1 to 10 on a speaking English scale was between a 5 and a 7. As he drove through the city he would make dryish jokes, I’d laugh, he wouldn’t respond, and then I’d make little jokes and get no response from him. So that was fun. He gave me various pieces of info and advice and then we arrived at my flat. I’m staying in this flat only until July 1st, and then I am moving into my real apartment with a roommate or 2, so this is just temporary. A nice young Hungarian Gabor came and met me outside the building and brought me (& my two suitcases up the two flights of stairs! YAY GABOR!) up to my flat. It’s a small cute guy’s flat. It has a desk, chair, couch, kitchenette etc, and has an upstairs loft with the bed. My flat is also Internet equipped, but not until tomorrow when the Internet guy is going to come set it up. He showed me the apartment, we signed some papers and Gabor was off. Once I was alone I decided I was tired, so I laid in bed and read some of my book and dozed off. But, I set an alarm because I want to adapt quickly to the NINE-HOUR time change, so I only slept a bit. I woke up, showered, made a wet mess because there is no shower curtain, got dressed, and decided to venture out! The flat I’m in right no is on Ráday utca.(?) which is a semi pedestrian street filled with bars, restaurants and a couple of shops. But as Bela told me, all stores close at 1pm Saturday and don’t reopen till Monday. So, I walked around looking for either a public phone or Internet café, and found a kind of odd but functional Internet café. Odd why? Because I kind think the Internet café was also some guy’s apartment where all his friends were there playing computer games and what not, but functional because I could use it and it wasn’t too expensive. So, I wrote an email to my padres, checked the necessary gossip blogs, CNN, Facebook, etc etc and realized all that puttering on the internet had made me hungry! (Or it could have been the fact that I hadn’t eaten since like 6 am.) So, I searched the street for a restaurant that would have familiar food and I found Pink Cadillac, which while it sounds like it would be a diner, had Italian food and English translations on the menu! So Pink Cadillac it was! I got a ham and mushroom personal pizza and some sparkling water. I ate about half and boxed up the rest because I wanted to make it to the grocery store before it closed. I got the check and did some math on paper trying to figure out a 15% tip on 1860 Hungarian Forints. I gave up and left what I hope was an okay tip, because I’m sure I’ll return to the P.C. before my week is over and don’t want the waiter to hate me. I went to the grocery store and tried to get out a shopping cart, but failed because they are all attached to each other, and I couldn’t figure out how to detach them. Awesome. So I got a hand basket. I grabbed some cereal, fruit, coffee, juice, snacks and Refrigerated MILK!! After drinking milk for the past year that could survive years in a hot desert, the fact that I was able to buy milk that was cold and WOULD expire was an occasion to celebrate! So how did I celebrate?! By buying Ropp Corn!! What’s Ropp Corn!? CORN NUTS! I haven’t eaten corn nuts in forever but apparently Hungarians like dried things, because there were aisles filled with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pop corn, and ROPP Corn. So I got a bag of those and made my way to the check out aisle, and proceeded to have a panic attack. I forgot that I had read that when people go grocery shopping, they bring their own canvas grocery bag, and no one uses grocery bags. I panicked because all I had with me was my purse and a pizza box and I didn’t know how I would manage. But, luckily I spotted plastic grocery bags that I could pay for. When the checkout lady saw the bags, she held one up and said something to me, and I gave her the best quizzical look I had, smiled and she sighed and rang up the bags and the rest of my groceries. I walked back to the flat so I could unload my groceries before doing the rest of my errands. As I walked up the 2 flights of stairs to my flat, I realized this apartment building must be one of those places where the people have lived there for YEARS because all the old gossipy women were looking at me and talking loudly to each other across the courtyard. Luckily, I don’t speak Hungarian so I’m sure they were just welcoming me! I dropped off and unloaded my groceries and decided to head out a bit more. The days here seem to be really long with a lot of light, and I didn’t want to waste it. I left the flat and walked and got some gelato. Apparently gelato/ice cream is a thing here, which is good cuz its already hot and probably gonna get way hotter…
Once I got my gelato I walked around and started exploring. I saw some nice parks and pretty buildings. There seems to be a lot of construction in the city, which I read about, because its apparently been going on for years and people often are heard saying “Budapest is going to look so good when it’s done” etc etc. One thing I noticed that bothered me a lot was the tons of trash and litter on the ground. I’m hoping it’s just because it’s the weekend, and not always like that. I continued to walk around and I think I found where my office is. It started to get a bit dark, so I walked to a public phone so I could talk to my parents before I headed back the flat. Then I went and bought some water. I bought two bottles, 1 gas water and 1 plain. I got back to my flat and when I tried them, I realized they were both gassy. So, new mission is to figure out what water is flat here. Not that I don’t love gassy water, because I do. But, 2 gassy water liters is a bit much.
So now, I’m back in my flat and finishing this post.

A couple other observations:
I realized that now when I try to speak English to people here like waiters, I find myself kind of whisper English. I wonder if it’s because I don’t want to be seen as the obnoxious American expecting people to speak/know English, or because I’m embarrassed I don’t speak Hungarian, or both? Also, I’ve had about 2 or 3 completely silent transactions with people. It’s weird. Like someone says something to me in Hungarian, I don’t respond, and then we just continue to gesture and smile for the rest of the transaction. I think this may be one of the first times I can remember where I’m in a country and don’t speak an ounce of the language. This will definitely be an experience.