Winter in Budapest

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.