You might be wondering why, after so long, there have been so few posting about what I've been up to since my arrival in Hungary. I could come up with excuses of all sorts, and I'm sure some of them might even sound almost legitimate.
I could try to explain how I arrived after so many hours of flying, leaving me in an odd state of travelling fatigue from being crammed into a tiny space, with no leg room, and essentially all of it taken by the seat in front of me falling back to take it all away, and left with no feeling below my waist for several hours left me a little drained. Though, on arrived on the plane after a layover in Germany, I found myself overly excited to be looking down onto a river, the Danube, and realizing, kind of for the first time, that I really was going to Hungary. Sitting in the plane the entire time left me uncertain if that was where I would end up, or if I would simply be left in perpetual aircraft storage for the rest of my life...nothing says "Waiting for Godot" like a plane ride. But I did arrive, and then changed some of my dollars into a curreny that once again lets me think in more than three digits.
I could explain that with this new money I spend so much time looking at the strange faces and their mustaches and trying to figure out how much it's worth, knowing 1000 is not the same as in Ugandan shillings, and cleary not dollars. (It's approximately 200 Forints (not to be mistaken with Florence, which is a city, not a currency) to the dollar, just in case you were wondering). And having so many oppurtunities to explore and spend these colorful pieces of papers for food.
Food! With such a distraction in my mist is there any wonder I've been torn away from writing blog posts? I'm glad to discover there is enough of varity to maintain being a veggetarian and not having to reaquaint my stomache to meat, which at this point could result in embarrising situations. There is so much bread. So much cheap bread. So much good, cheap, wheat, bread that makes me realize the bread I've been living off of must have been a mistake.
Would you accept my confusion toward signs? They seem to be covered with words and phrases that mean very little to me at the moment, but surely bear some special meaning that I need to know about. Like, "this food product is here", "the bathroom is there" and "please be sure catch the right tram leaving for your destination at this time and place to get there on time" (surely, with the complexity of these words, they must be saying something with such specificity).
Trams run just about all over the place. And they're wonderful. They get you from point A to point B, and then you're no longer at point A. This is helpful because it means there are other points to get to, other things to see, and all of it so much worthy of ones time, and most importantly there is a means for this process to happen. With this open to allow for adventure, getting to the computer seemed like an unsubstantial use of ones time. While you can be out exploring in the day to find the market to do more shopping, in the evening one can go with Hungarian students to places that have plants growing from the ceiling, cars become seats, and chair trees grow along the wall, in order to drink and drip wax on ones hands. Though not everyone seemed as excited to drip wax on their hands, not even the hungarians. Then it might start raining just when it seems like a good time to go to another place that sells cheaper drinks, but this isn't a problem, because rain is mostly just water (and we just don't think about what else at such times), so we found another alley pub full of smokers and cheaper drinks. Yay!
Smoking! It's everwhere here. Everyone seems to do it. It such a shunned activity in the US, where if anyone pulls out a cigarette they get stared at, frowned at, and judged. Here no one seems to care, most resteraunts seem to be absolute fine with someone walking in, pulling out a cigarette and toasting their lungs with no concern of baffling or offending anyone; there seems to be no one to offend. The consistancy of this, signs that aren't in English, and an odd amount of public displays of affection are probably the three more surprising discoverys of central Europe.
Public display of affection (pda, as I shall call hence forth) seems to have little limits. The trams at two in the afternoon present themselves as suitable places for some very intimate moments between couples, as well as parks, walk ways, resteraunts (particularly this tea house "teahaz") and well, just about anywhere. And of course there's never any worry about other people being there, it's perfectly acceptable.
Computers.... these alone are intimidating to keep one from attempting to blog. An entire two letters are switched!!! TWO LETTERS AND THEY CONFUSE ME TO NO END!!!! The z is where the y is supposed to be, and vice versa. How can one approach a computer knowing these two letter aren't where one expects them? Likewise, the punctuation is all over the place. I keep searching to find out how to do something simple, like quotations.
And today, I finally have managed to come out and make a blog post. I hope my excuses give me some forgiveness from my thousands of readers (or rather, probably more like four or five of you). I will try to become more consistant in my postings and keep you updated.
I like tea.
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