On the Town
The normal high temperature in Budapest for mid to late January is just above freezing. But its only been above freezing one or two days since we’ve got here. So it’s a real cold snap. Last week Tari had to buy a hat. It is a sort of tam but can be pulled down over her ears. This week she bought a scarf. It’s a good thing we brought our long johns to keep our legs warm!
On Wednesday we went to scout out a set of apartments that my college friends were interested in staying at when they come to visit in late May. It was in the Jewish Quarter next to a café restaurant. They had found out about these apartments from a friend of a friend. The landlady took us up to see the apartments. She was very nice and spoke good English. The rooms were very nice and clean. We ate lunch at the Spinoza café—the cream of carrot soup was delicious and the bagels and lox very good as well. We emailed our friends and they made the reservations. On the way back we discovered some recycling bins that were fairly close to our apartment.
What to you do if it’s a rainy, or in this case, snowy Saturday? You go to the Muzeum of Fine Arts. We first went on an English docent tour of the Spanish collection. Apparently the Muzeum has one of the largest collections this side of the Prado in Madrid. Then we went to see the special exhibit “Botticelli to Titian.” It was very extensive—130 paintings—and took over two hours to go through. The central painting in the exhibit, and the one featured on the subway posters and tourist magazines, is da Vinci’s “Lady with the Ermine,” on loan from the museum in Krakow, Poland.
On Friday Tari took a bus up to the hills of Budapest to attend a monthly meeting of the North American Women’s Association. She found out about this group before we left. The speaker was Marion Merrick, a teacher who wrote two books, Now You See It, Now You Don't (Hungary 1982-1989) and House of Cards about living in Hungary over a 28 year period. Tari met several of the women, and found out about a once a month happy hour that would include spouses and friends. Before we left the US, she bought and has now read Julia Child’s My Life in France which will be discussed at a book club meeting in February. At the meeting she bought the Merrick books and Surviving & Thriving: A Guide to Living in Budapest, a booklet the group puts out that has all kinds of information. That night we tried a recommended Thai restaurant and it was very good.
Academic Matters
On Monday morning I went to meet with Helga about helping her with the history of the English Public Health Act of 1848 and giving some lectures. But the minute I walked in I was introduced to Professor Gyorgy Mémeth, Helga's doctoral professor, and his wife, Edina Gradvohl, a colleague of Helga’s. He had seen my Social Epidemiology syllabus which covered the Great Athenian Plague of 429 BC. As the head of the Dept of Ancient History at ELTE (Eötvös Loránd University), the oldest in Budapest, he was all excited. He promptly whisked me away to his office which was located several blocks away. We talked for a short time and I agreed to give a talk in late February or early March on Plagues in Antiquity. He said he could offer nothing, but I said "no problem, since I was over on a Fulbright."
We then walked back to Helga’s office. She introduced me to Attila, her office mate, who is a cultural anthropologist. She had a copy of my US Health Care Policy and Politics syllabus and had highlighted my proposed lecture on the Hill-Burton Act and on the Legal System—Costs of Practice in US. She teaches Social Norms in Health Care which covers legal and ethical issues. The first half of the course dealt with theoretical issues whiles the second half with practical issues. She thought I might give a talk on Power and Administration in health Care—Public Health Regulation from the first half and on Patients’ rights and liabilities from the second. Later I was not sure if the students would get much out of US Public Health regulations. But I did have a lecture on provider-patient relationships which included power differentials between providers and patients, compliance, informed consent with two US legal cases, and malpractice. This would fit with patients’ rights and liabilities. I could also talk on the ethics of social behavioral research and the US ethics review boards, and on minorities and US health disparities.
In the afternoon I was back at the Public Health Institute. I had sent Peter a list of 11 topics from the 15 on my US Health Care Policy and Politics syllabus. We met and paired it down to the eight lectures by combining several of them like history of US Health Care Professions and History of US Hospitals. It will be a challenge to squeeze this into one 45 minute lecture. He also invited me to give a presentation to the faculty on the general topic of US Health Care Policy and Politics. I decided to compare and contrast the Clinton and Obama health care reform efforts, and that this would become my “stump” lecture to be repeated in different venues during my stay.
I had to put together two complete 15 week syllabi as part of my Fulbright application. It now appears that I will not be giving two complete classes, but a selection of lectures across two Universities and three departments.
On Tuesday I attended a conference for all instructors in the Public Health Institute program. I was sent a power point for the first lecture on General Epidemiology—Communicable Diseases. I originally looked it over for “accuracy.” But before the meeting, Peter explained to me they also wanted me to look at the English and actual wording. On John Snow’s 1854 map of water pumps and cholera cases in the Broad Street area, they had inserted the label “penitentiary institution” on the work house. I knew that a work house did not house convicts. One slide stated that they had “unsetted” the pump on Broad street, where as most English versions say they “took the handle off the pump.” I presented these and a few other comments at the meeting. Afterwards Peter invited me to the next meeting of the group which is held every other week.
On the Home Front.
The dollar has gained seven cents against the forint since we arrived. As we were running out of cash, we went to a nearby ATM. After the standard 3% change fee, we were only charged $1 for the transaction. The rate at the ATM was two cents better than the best rate we saw on the street, and after the fees, it was in the middle of the street rates. So we felt pretty good.
The apartment has a large living room between the kitchen area and the bedroom. We had been keeping the living room at very low heat and it was always cold going between the kitchen and bedroom. Tari convinced me that a lot of the cold air in that room was seeping into the bedroom. So I turned up the heat a bit and it seems to have worked. But the door in the kitchen opening on a small balcony had major drafts. On Monday morning we went to the Oktogon area in search of a hardware store that Annamaria at the Fulbright Office had told us about. We found it and “draft prevention” (weather) stripping. We put it up on Wednesday. The drafts have been reduced considerably and the kitchen stays much warmer.
The other main issue is the influx of household bills. We thought it would be a simple matter of getting some coupons and going to the post office to pay them at the beginning of each month, when we get our Fulbright housing allowance in forints. In addition to the costs of restarting the cable and wireless, we think one bill was for the installation of the building’s new heating system. But several of the Nov-Dec bills were not paid. The bills, of course, are all in Hungarian and Tari tried valiantly to translate them using a large dictionary we found in the apartment. In the end we asked Kristin to come over and help us sort them out. She figured out most of them. Then her husband stopped by on his way home from work. He also thought the billings were somewhat confusing. He did, however, discover that each heating element/radiator had a meter that automatically sent usage readings to somewhere in the building. In the end we scanned in all the bills we had and emailed them to the landlord to let them puzzle it all out.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The First Full Week
Getting Plugged In
One wonders how we ever got along without the internet and TV. When we first moved in the cable TV, internet and wifi were all disconnected. It took the usual 24-48 hours to get it up and working. I managed to sporadically get on an unsecured wifi but the MSU email system is very slow and I would be timed out before I could really go through all the emails. On Saturday I saw several emails I had to read but could not, so we went to a nearby internet café. We got an email telling us the system should be up and running. All we had to do was just reboot. We figured out that to reboot the system, we simply flipped the on/off switch off and then on. David our landlord had sent us the codes for his wifi and we successfully got on. We get several TV stations in English—CNN, Animal Planet, Discovery, Disney and the BBC. Most of the others are either Hungarian or dubbed in Hungarian. A few are in French or Italian.
On Sunday we set up a skype call with our daughter Emily from St. Louis. She called in and it worked very nicely. We both could see and hear each other. We plan to set up a call next weekend with our son Roger and his family including the two grandsons.
We got two local cell phones with Budapest numbers so that we can call each other locally and locals can contact us easily. Through Kristie Foley, who had been at Semmelweis two years ago we made contact with Kristen, a grad student living in Budapest and married to a Hungarian—social networking works! She helped us find a reasonably inexpensive set of phones and a pre-paid plan. They are plain non-flip phones, no cameras, and most important, no side buttons! On my regular cell phone I am constantly either turning off the ringer or taking a picture of the inside of my pocket or the floor.
Kristen also took us to WestEnd, a humongous shopping mall to find some electronic plug adapters for our computers etc. We also purchased a printer/scanner/copier for a very reasonable price, but the black and color cartridges together cost more than the printer. The unit works just fine. We scanned in some bills and receipts, saved them in pdf to the lap top and then emailed them to the landlords so we would know what to pay and when.
Academic Matters
Peter met me Monday morning and showed me how to get to the Public Health Institute. From our apartment it is four metro stops on the Blue line. The Institute is in a 30 story building. I was shown around the Institute and introduced to a number of faculty and staff. I will undoubtedly get to know them better in the coming weeks. My office is on the 21st floor. I will bring my laptop and plug into an ether net for web access. I am not plugged into the local server, which is all in Hungarian. It took another two days but I finally got a magnetic card that lets me into the building and elevators after hours and weekends, and at any time into the office hallways without having to ring a bell to get buzzed into the hallways like the students do.
The most interesting and intensive part of Monday morning involved oral examinations for several students in the English language program who had not passed the written exam. The students were at a table in Peter’s office. A younger professor handed out three slips of paper each with a question to each of the students. They were then given about a half hour to write down notes for their oral answers to the questions. Each in turn discussed their three questions. Peter listened attentively and would interrupt to ask a “why” question or “what is the most important aspect of ____.” His questions were aimed at eliciting a key point the students should have known.
One student did not pass and was very upset. The student could have had a second retry three days later, but had already booked an air flight home. After that another student indicated that it might be best if the oral part was taken next semester. I was aware from my trips to Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj Romania that the examination period extended over almost four weeks. This time is allocated to the oral retesting if the written test was failed—repechage (second-chance round). It is a lot more formal and public than the US practice of having individual students come and petition to find a few more points to raise their grade.
Afterwards, Peter and I sat down and I told him of the dates when I had Fulbright obligations—orientation the whole first week of February, the first Fridays of Feb, Mar, Apr and May when all the Fulbrighters in Hungary come to Budapest for an all day meeting and get together, and the third week in March when we will be in Berlin for the German Fulbright spring seminar. He told me that spring break was the last week in March just before Easter. He will finalize my teaching program at the Institute and also inquire about some possible lectures at the Health Services Management Training Center.
On Tuesday Tari and I went to the Fulbright office to meet with Annamaria Sas. She made sure we were settled in with respect to the transit cards, shopping etc. She filled us in a bit on what to expect during the Fulbright orientation week. But the best thing was that my two boxes of books had arrived. The Fulbright grant provided money to purchase books and educational materials that would remain in Hungary. In the fall I had asked Peter if he and his colleagues wanted any books. He emailed back a list of seven. I then went on Amazon and ordered the seven plus another seven that I had listed in the two syllabi I had submitted as part of my application. I added two or three other books on public health and medical sociology I had in my office that were either duplicates or the previous edition. Just before Christmas we put them in two large US post office priority mail flat rate boxes that had been advertised on TV. We shipped them to DC where they were put in a diplomatic pouch and sent to Budapest. Since the Fulbright office was half way between our apartment and my Semmelweis office, we took them directly to the office. One of the books order by a faculty member was of interest to me, so I am taking some notes from it before handing out the books.
On Wednesday Peter took me to the Faculty of Health Science to meet a young colleague of his. Helga is an assistant professor in the Department of History of Health Culture with an interest in history and sociology. The Faculty of Health Science is an undergraduate bachelor’s degree program added to Semmelweis University a few years ago. It is located in an old hospital building that has been nicely refurbished. The courtyard has become a covered atrium and is very open and airy. We discussed the possibility of my giving some lectures to the students in the program and also a lecture at a University in Eger. Helga teaches Social Norms. She is doing research comparing the English Public Health Act of 1848 and the first Hungarian Health Act of 1876. I said I would be happy to help her out by reading the English Act and discussing it with her. She talked with her faculty and it looks like I will be asked to give a few lectures in April and May.
On Thursday I found out I would be giving eight lectures on Wednesday afternoons. I would have given three more but the first Wednesday was in the Fulbright orientation week, and then two in March were taken up with a lecture in Szeged that Peter had arranged, and the German Fulbright Spring Seminar that I wanted to attend in Berlin. I had to condense two 15 week syllabi. I proposed a list of 11 topics. Peter and I will meet next week with the coordinator of the English language program at Semmelweis to finalize the eight topics I will present.
On the Home Front
When we are at the WestEnd Mall we looked at the new washing machines. We found several that were like the one in the apartment. The door opens on the top but the drum stands on its side just like a front loader. To put clothes in the washer you slide open a panel and two panels in the drum flip up. The drum is very small, about 16" in diameter by 9" wide. Tari felt much better about using the one in the apartment. It was big enough for eight shirts or eight sets of men’s underwear. In a way it's a good thing the washer is so small because the drying rack would not hold much more. Kristin warned us that it might take two days for a load of laundry to dry but the underwear only took one afternoon and night.
And yes I finally found a jar of peanut butter at the Match in the basement of the Central Market. It was the last one on a shelf between the canned salted peanuts and the beer!
One wonders how we ever got along without the internet and TV. When we first moved in the cable TV, internet and wifi were all disconnected. It took the usual 24-48 hours to get it up and working. I managed to sporadically get on an unsecured wifi but the MSU email system is very slow and I would be timed out before I could really go through all the emails. On Saturday I saw several emails I had to read but could not, so we went to a nearby internet café. We got an email telling us the system should be up and running. All we had to do was just reboot. We figured out that to reboot the system, we simply flipped the on/off switch off and then on. David our landlord had sent us the codes for his wifi and we successfully got on. We get several TV stations in English—CNN, Animal Planet, Discovery, Disney and the BBC. Most of the others are either Hungarian or dubbed in Hungarian. A few are in French or Italian.
On Sunday we set up a skype call with our daughter Emily from St. Louis. She called in and it worked very nicely. We both could see and hear each other. We plan to set up a call next weekend with our son Roger and his family including the two grandsons.
We got two local cell phones with Budapest numbers so that we can call each other locally and locals can contact us easily. Through Kristie Foley, who had been at Semmelweis two years ago we made contact with Kristen, a grad student living in Budapest and married to a Hungarian—social networking works! She helped us find a reasonably inexpensive set of phones and a pre-paid plan. They are plain non-flip phones, no cameras, and most important, no side buttons! On my regular cell phone I am constantly either turning off the ringer or taking a picture of the inside of my pocket or the floor.
Kristen also took us to WestEnd, a humongous shopping mall to find some electronic plug adapters for our computers etc. We also purchased a printer/scanner/copier for a very reasonable price, but the black and color cartridges together cost more than the printer. The unit works just fine. We scanned in some bills and receipts, saved them in pdf to the lap top and then emailed them to the landlords so we would know what to pay and when.
Academic Matters
Peter met me Monday morning and showed me how to get to the Public Health Institute. From our apartment it is four metro stops on the Blue line. The Institute is in a 30 story building. I was shown around the Institute and introduced to a number of faculty and staff. I will undoubtedly get to know them better in the coming weeks. My office is on the 21st floor. I will bring my laptop and plug into an ether net for web access. I am not plugged into the local server, which is all in Hungarian. It took another two days but I finally got a magnetic card that lets me into the building and elevators after hours and weekends, and at any time into the office hallways without having to ring a bell to get buzzed into the hallways like the students do.
The most interesting and intensive part of Monday morning involved oral examinations for several students in the English language program who had not passed the written exam. The students were at a table in Peter’s office. A younger professor handed out three slips of paper each with a question to each of the students. They were then given about a half hour to write down notes for their oral answers to the questions. Each in turn discussed their three questions. Peter listened attentively and would interrupt to ask a “why” question or “what is the most important aspect of ____.” His questions were aimed at eliciting a key point the students should have known.
One student did not pass and was very upset. The student could have had a second retry three days later, but had already booked an air flight home. After that another student indicated that it might be best if the oral part was taken next semester. I was aware from my trips to Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj Romania that the examination period extended over almost four weeks. This time is allocated to the oral retesting if the written test was failed—repechage (second-chance round). It is a lot more formal and public than the US practice of having individual students come and petition to find a few more points to raise their grade.
Afterwards, Peter and I sat down and I told him of the dates when I had Fulbright obligations—orientation the whole first week of February, the first Fridays of Feb, Mar, Apr and May when all the Fulbrighters in Hungary come to Budapest for an all day meeting and get together, and the third week in March when we will be in Berlin for the German Fulbright spring seminar. He told me that spring break was the last week in March just before Easter. He will finalize my teaching program at the Institute and also inquire about some possible lectures at the Health Services Management Training Center.
On Tuesday Tari and I went to the Fulbright office to meet with Annamaria Sas. She made sure we were settled in with respect to the transit cards, shopping etc. She filled us in a bit on what to expect during the Fulbright orientation week. But the best thing was that my two boxes of books had arrived. The Fulbright grant provided money to purchase books and educational materials that would remain in Hungary. In the fall I had asked Peter if he and his colleagues wanted any books. He emailed back a list of seven. I then went on Amazon and ordered the seven plus another seven that I had listed in the two syllabi I had submitted as part of my application. I added two or three other books on public health and medical sociology I had in my office that were either duplicates or the previous edition. Just before Christmas we put them in two large US post office priority mail flat rate boxes that had been advertised on TV. We shipped them to DC where they were put in a diplomatic pouch and sent to Budapest. Since the Fulbright office was half way between our apartment and my Semmelweis office, we took them directly to the office. One of the books order by a faculty member was of interest to me, so I am taking some notes from it before handing out the books.
On Wednesday Peter took me to the Faculty of Health Science to meet a young colleague of his. Helga is an assistant professor in the Department of History of Health Culture with an interest in history and sociology. The Faculty of Health Science is an undergraduate bachelor’s degree program added to Semmelweis University a few years ago. It is located in an old hospital building that has been nicely refurbished. The courtyard has become a covered atrium and is very open and airy. We discussed the possibility of my giving some lectures to the students in the program and also a lecture at a University in Eger. Helga teaches Social Norms. She is doing research comparing the English Public Health Act of 1848 and the first Hungarian Health Act of 1876. I said I would be happy to help her out by reading the English Act and discussing it with her. She talked with her faculty and it looks like I will be asked to give a few lectures in April and May.
On Thursday I found out I would be giving eight lectures on Wednesday afternoons. I would have given three more but the first Wednesday was in the Fulbright orientation week, and then two in March were taken up with a lecture in Szeged that Peter had arranged, and the German Fulbright Spring Seminar that I wanted to attend in Berlin. I had to condense two 15 week syllabi. I proposed a list of 11 topics. Peter and I will meet next week with the coordinator of the English language program at Semmelweis to finalize the eight topics I will present.
On the Home Front
When we are at the WestEnd Mall we looked at the new washing machines. We found several that were like the one in the apartment. The door opens on the top but the drum stands on its side just like a front loader. To put clothes in the washer you slide open a panel and two panels in the drum flip up. The drum is very small, about 16" in diameter by 9" wide. Tari felt much better about using the one in the apartment. It was big enough for eight shirts or eight sets of men’s underwear. In a way it's a good thing the washer is so small because the drying rack would not hold much more. Kristin warned us that it might take two days for a load of laundry to dry but the underwear only took one afternoon and night.
And yes I finally found a jar of peanut butter at the Match in the basement of the Central Market. It was the last one on a shelf between the canned salted peanuts and the beer!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Settling In
Arrival
My sponsor Péter Balázs from the Public Health Institute at Semmelweis University was kind enough to meet us at the airport. I recognized him from his website picture. I emailed him to look for two people pushing luggage carts piled high; I in a green parka and Tari in a purple coat. You will be unmistakable, he emailed back. He got us a large taxi and then followed us into the city in his own car.
The taxi left us and our luggage on the curb at Ferenciek Tere in front of Parisi Udvar, (a turn of the 20th Century arcade that has not done well in the current recession.). Péter arrived and we lugged the luggage through the arcade to the gate in front of the entrance to the apartment elevator. We rang the bell but no one was in. Then just before noon Bobby arrived and let us in. Aunt Klara showed up a few minutes later. They showed us the apartment and how the heat and appliances worked, with Bobby and Péter doing the translating. Péter told us it was an apartment typical for middle class people in the pre World War II era. It has high ceilings, a large bedroom with a side room containing a sink, bath and small ancient European washing machine; a nice sized parlor/sitting room; a kitchen, with a small side room that may have been either a pantry or maid’s room now converted into a study; a balcony off the kitchen that overlooks an inner court, a small second bedroom with a bunk bed, and the one toilet just off the front door.
We have a set of five keys which we have on a ring in the following order: the first key is to the outer gate to the Parisi Udvar which is lowered at 20:00 (8pm); the second is to the gate in front of the entrance to the apartment elevator; the third is to the gate in front of the apartment; the fourth to the front door bolt; and the fifth to the front door latch handle. In European fashion, one must use the keys to lock up the apartment gate and door from the inside at night. We don’t expect to get out in case of fire—too many locks and gates to negotiate!
Shopping
Gyöngy, our landlord, told us that the Match grocery store was a short walk from the apartment. We crossed the street and walked straight head for quite some distance. We eventually came to the large Central Market Hall at the foot of Szabadság hid (bridge) that crosses the Danube. The market was very large, filled with many stalls teeming with meats, veggies, fruits and folk crafts. In size, it reminded me of the Reading Terminal Market in downtown Philadelphia. We wandered through the first floor but didn’t find the Match. Since it was already early afternoon (we had slept in much later than we expected –jet lag!), we decided to go to the lower level to get something to eat. At the foot of the escalator was the Match. We ate gyros in a büfé (lunch place) and then went shopping. (a few days later we crossed the street, turned left and found our local Match a block away)
We had made a shopping list and copied some key food words in Hungarian. Fortunately most food packages have pictures or have words like parboiled for rice. But Tari wanted to know the sodium content on packaged sandwich meats and we had no idea what the Hungarian word for sodium was. We found most of what we wanted. We looked for ½ percent milk but only found it at 2 and 1½ percent. Worst of all, we could not find that universal staple-peanut butter. The equivalent was either a hazelnut or walnut spread with cocoa. Apparently this is now entering the US market as a high protein food kids will like.
The Match’s small shopping baskets had two handles and wheels. One handle was for carrying in your hand, but the other was a long handle that lowered the wheels and allowed you to pull the basket on the floor once heavy items were put in. Pretty clever!
Tari had the foresight to bring some shopping tote bags from the US so we were in good shape carrying our purchases back to the apartment. When we got home we discovered a wheeled, folding shopping cart in one of the closets.
Afterwards, Tari sat down with the food receipt. We can deduct food and living expenses from the Fulbright allowance before figuring taxes for 2010 (over a year from now). She had some difficulty identifying Q-tips (literally ear cleaner in Hungarian) and a box of tissues (it read: Reg.WB Doboz with Regina being the company, WB for Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny / Tasmanian Devil/ Daffy Duck design, and doboz for box).
My sponsor Péter Balázs from the Public Health Institute at Semmelweis University was kind enough to meet us at the airport. I recognized him from his website picture. I emailed him to look for two people pushing luggage carts piled high; I in a green parka and Tari in a purple coat. You will be unmistakable, he emailed back. He got us a large taxi and then followed us into the city in his own car.
The taxi left us and our luggage on the curb at Ferenciek Tere in front of Parisi Udvar, (a turn of the 20th Century arcade that has not done well in the current recession.). Péter arrived and we lugged the luggage through the arcade to the gate in front of the entrance to the apartment elevator. We rang the bell but no one was in. Then just before noon Bobby arrived and let us in. Aunt Klara showed up a few minutes later. They showed us the apartment and how the heat and appliances worked, with Bobby and Péter doing the translating. Péter told us it was an apartment typical for middle class people in the pre World War II era. It has high ceilings, a large bedroom with a side room containing a sink, bath and small ancient European washing machine; a nice sized parlor/sitting room; a kitchen, with a small side room that may have been either a pantry or maid’s room now converted into a study; a balcony off the kitchen that overlooks an inner court, a small second bedroom with a bunk bed, and the one toilet just off the front door.
We have a set of five keys which we have on a ring in the following order: the first key is to the outer gate to the Parisi Udvar which is lowered at 20:00 (8pm); the second is to the gate in front of the entrance to the apartment elevator; the third is to the gate in front of the apartment; the fourth to the front door bolt; and the fifth to the front door latch handle. In European fashion, one must use the keys to lock up the apartment gate and door from the inside at night. We don’t expect to get out in case of fire—too many locks and gates to negotiate!
Shopping
Gyöngy, our landlord, told us that the Match grocery store was a short walk from the apartment. We crossed the street and walked straight head for quite some distance. We eventually came to the large Central Market Hall at the foot of Szabadság hid (bridge) that crosses the Danube. The market was very large, filled with many stalls teeming with meats, veggies, fruits and folk crafts. In size, it reminded me of the Reading Terminal Market in downtown Philadelphia. We wandered through the first floor but didn’t find the Match. Since it was already early afternoon (we had slept in much later than we expected –jet lag!), we decided to go to the lower level to get something to eat. At the foot of the escalator was the Match. We ate gyros in a büfé (lunch place) and then went shopping. (a few days later we crossed the street, turned left and found our local Match a block away)
We had made a shopping list and copied some key food words in Hungarian. Fortunately most food packages have pictures or have words like parboiled for rice. But Tari wanted to know the sodium content on packaged sandwich meats and we had no idea what the Hungarian word for sodium was. We found most of what we wanted. We looked for ½ percent milk but only found it at 2 and 1½ percent. Worst of all, we could not find that universal staple-peanut butter. The equivalent was either a hazelnut or walnut spread with cocoa. Apparently this is now entering the US market as a high protein food kids will like.
The Match’s small shopping baskets had two handles and wheels. One handle was for carrying in your hand, but the other was a long handle that lowered the wheels and allowed you to pull the basket on the floor once heavy items were put in. Pretty clever!
Tari had the foresight to bring some shopping tote bags from the US so we were in good shape carrying our purchases back to the apartment. When we got home we discovered a wheeled, folding shopping cart in one of the closets.
Afterwards, Tari sat down with the food receipt. We can deduct food and living expenses from the Fulbright allowance before figuring taxes for 2010 (over a year from now). She had some difficulty identifying Q-tips (literally ear cleaner in Hungarian) and a box of tissues (it read: Reg.WB Doboz with Regina being the company, WB for Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny / Tasmanian Devil/ Daffy Duck design, and doboz for box).
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