Getting There is Half the Fun!

We’ve been slowly preparing for our trip.

Airfares. We will receive what we thought was a reasonable reimbursement for our travel expenses to and from Budapest. A round trip was between $900 and $1,000, but then I got emails from Fulbrighters going in August who were aghast at the prices. When we tried to book more than three months out, we found that the price doubled. The university travel office explained that airlines are very reluctant to book more than three months ahead given fuel prices, uncertain demand and expected scheduling changes. We thought of flying to Amsterdam or Pairs and then taking a train, but that was equally expensive and required some transfers as well. We could have bought two round trips and not used the return portion, but that saved only a little bit. Finally we bit the bullet and used our frequent flyer miles which we had been accumulating over the years. So we fly first class from JFK to Budapest overnight but then coach on the way back. We have separate tickets from Detroit to Newark (which even six months out was much cheaper than flying from Detroit to JFK or LaGuardia.) Fortunately we have family in New York we can crash with and the taxi fare from Newark to NYC and NYC to JFK is still less expensive than the difference of flying from Detroit to JFK

.

Health. We looked up Hungary on the CDC travel website and got an idea of what inoculations we needed. We then went to the University Health Center’s travel office. We met with a nurse for almost an hour who filled us in many things from rabies to ticks to water and food precautions. We received Hep A and B shots, were given a set of four pills for preventing Typhoid (which we had to take every other day and it really did something to our intestines), and got some anti diarrheal prescriptions. The day before we had received our seasonal flu shots before they ran out. Since we were around in 1958, 1969 and 1975 we figured we were exposed to the H1N1. We still have to petition our drug insurance authorities to grant us vacation extensions so we can take purchase and take more than a 90 days supply.

Housing We were given a housing rental allowance of approximately $475 from Fulbright plus a bit for utilities which are always extra. We asked around and found a faculty couple who went to Budapest fairly regularly. They knew of a nice apartment but it turned out to be more of a medium stay hotel and more expensive than our housing allowance and what we were willing to put in on top of that. We found a number of websites offering rentals in Budapest and spent some time looking at them. We finally asked the Fulbright people in Hungary if they had a list of apartments that previous Fulbrighters had used. The list proved very useful. We currently are following up on two possibilities.

Visas We have started to work through the visa process. Since we are staying for more than 90 days we have to apply for a residence permit. In addition being a Fulbright lecturer means we are in the “other reasons” category. We wanted to get most of the paper work done before we left. The residence visa requires not only passports but original wedding licenses, documents including the Fulbright appointment, our health insurance, savings accounts to show we would not be a burden on the Hungarian state, and of course the roundtrip airline tickets. We cannot complete the local address and landlord information at this time. Fulbright strongly recommended we work with the Hungarian Embassy in Washington DC since they handle a lot of Fulbright paperwork. But since Tari was going to visit her mother and sister in New York anyway, she made contact with the Consulate in Manhattan. They said she didn’t have to come, but they finally agreed to see her if she showed up during the visa office hours. We filled out as much as we could and signed them. Tari will meet with them and get the answers on how to fill out the rest.

Leave of Absence I have applied for a leave of absence without pay from the University. I did this for two reasons. First the University is in dire economic straits and I wanted to be a good citizen and free up some salary money. Second, since it was a Fulbright, the University was willing to cover its share of my health insurance during the leave.