We flew to Berlin on Saturday. We took the Blue Metro to the last stop and got on the airport bus so the trip was covered by our monthly pass. The only trouble was that our flight to Munich was delayed an hour and a half, which meant we would miss our connection from Munich to Berlin. Lufthansa gave no explanation at all, which was duly noted on the satisfaction survey we were given at the end of the flight. We were booked on the next flight to Berlin and had some time to spend in Munich. While at the airport we found a store that sold stuffed animals, including lambs. Our grandson is really into lambs like other kids are into blankets or teddy bears. Tari was looking around and found a wolf in sheep’s clothing. We bought it and plan to add “Wolfie” to our grandson’s flock.
We were a bit anxious about the delays since we desperately needed to exchange dollars for Euros in order to pay for the registration in cash. We had ‘gambled’ correctly that the Euro would fall. But the currency exchanges closed at 8pm on Saturday and would not open again until Monday morning. We got to Berlin, hopped on the TXL bus that wound its way through the city, but terminated at Alexanderplatz, where our hotel was. We got off and finally found the Park Inn hotel entrance. We went to the concierge who directed us to the currency exchange in the train station. We found it at 7:35 but it looked closed. We paced back and forth wondering what to do when suddenly someone else opened the door. We dashed in and got our dollars changed. We then went back to the hotel and up to the restaurant where Fulbright was sponsoring a dinner for early arrivals. It was almost 8pm and we asked if the Fulbright dinner was still on. Since it was a giant buffet they said no problem. So we found a table with the requisite green paper napkins, parked our luggage and took turns going to the buffet. After eating we finally checked in.
The Fulbright Seminar in Berlin brings together the American Fulbrighters in Germany and other European countries along with those German students selected to study in US academic year 2010-11. The number attending the seminar, including spouses and significant others was over 500. Our name tags had our name and Hungary, while the American Fulbrighters in Germany had the name of their German university or location. The German students going to the US in the fall had their names, their German University and then in very small letters, their US destination school.
Tari found one couple who had Romania on their nametags. We found out they were in Cluj where we were going next week. So we sat with Darius and Catherine Brubeck for dinner. He was teaching jazz music (being the son of Dave Brubeck), but we talked about a lot of things ranging from health care reform which was being voted on that day to grandchildren. On Tuesday night Darius played at a Fulbright music gala that included performances by several other Fulbright musicians and singers.
Tari and I “networked” with some students. One was going to visit Budapest next week and we talked about what she should see. She then added she was going to Poland; Tari mentioned that one of the Fulbrighters in Hungary was going to Poland. On our way out we met Lori and brought her back to the student’s table to introduce them.
German shops are closed from late Saturday afternoon until Monday morning. But for some reason, this Sunday was one of the handful of exceptions during the year. As a result the stores were open. We went to the Galeria department store across from the hotel. On the fifth floor in house wares we found an oven thermometer which we purchased on the spot. We can take it back to Budapest and then perhaps mark up the oven knob for major temperature settings.
The opening session was entitled “When will my money be safe?” The first speaker was a managing partner in a Frankfurt investing firm. As with most economists, he started with what I thought was an untenable assumption: that all market bubbles were not over until the downside bottomed out at the point where the bubble first started expanding. He was some sort of free market economist who firmly believed that the market was a zero sum game. That is, all market losses should be accounted for and the lost value transferred to someone else; in the current downturn he argued that the value transferred from the West to China. He was convinced that a second mortgage collapse in the US was imminent because too many middle class had taken out loans on second or even third homes about three years earlier (but of course no one I knew did that). Finally turning to the hot topic of the day, he thought that the EU should not try to bail out Greece, or possibly Ireland, Portugal and Spain (facetiously known as the PIGS), after all would the US bail out California or Illinois?
Some of the other seminar panels were better than expected. A set of project reports mostly by research students were well chosen and were more interesting than their narrow titles suggested. In another session seven Fulbrighters discussed their experiences and the challenges they faced. None of them, however, was a visiting lecturer like me and so I thought a perspective was missing. The Fulbright Alumni Association encouraged everyone to keep in touch when they returned. Perhaps the most interesting session featured a visiting political science professor who wrote a book on the Berlin wall and a German who was the former coordinator of German American relations and a former politician. His historical and political insights were fantastic. He said that Germany in particular believed that social democracy required keeping the lower classes involved politically and this meant providing social support and welfare programs as compared to the US where the lower classes were not encouraged to participate politically. In answer to a question he pointed out that denial and conspiracy theories are an indication of an anti-democratic mentality whether it was of the holocaust, the moon landing, 9-11 or Darwinian evolution.
I found Berlin frustrating in one respect. I cannot find things on the street that I see on the maps. The U and S Bahn (metros) are well marked on the map, but we had difficulty finding out where we were once we got to street level, as streets go off in at least five directions. We have been in cities lacking strict grid patterns like Paris or Vienna, but those have a ring and spoke pattern that is easy enough to follow. Many cities grew up around a castle with several defensive walls, but I was told that Berlin was a merger of two cities that expanded into each other and then grew out to absorb other nearby towns. Travel by conference or city buses were along broad avenues that gently twisted and turned through the city, giving a false impression of straight direction, but again once off the bus it took a few minutes to figure out which of several streets we wanted to go down. Several times we were intently studying our maps when we heard a bell because we were in the middle of the bicycle lane and had to move out of the way.
After several meals in the Park Inn restaurant/buffet, I jokingly said to Tari, “Let’s eat at a real German restaurant." So she went though a handout Berlin guide and found a small list of regional restaurants, one was on Grosse Hamburger only a few blocks from Alexanderplatz. But of course we walked several block out of our way before we figured out how to get there. Another night I wanted wiener schnitzel and found an Austrian restaurant on Bergmann Str. But what seemed like a few short blocks from the U-Bahn station turned out to be several very long ones. When we got to the restaurant we found the first opening for two would be in an hour and a half. We retraced our steps and found another Austrian restaurant. The food at both restaurants we ate at was very good.
During free time on Tuesday Tari and I walked down Unter den Linden (although it was too early for the trees to have leaves.) to the Brandenburg gate. We went over to the holocaust memorial, an interesting array of stone slabs of different heights on a somewhat rolling surface. You could walk down and be overwhelmed as if lost in a maze except for the precise grid pattern that allowed you to get out straight ahead or to either side. We continued on to Checkpoint Charlie, a shack in the middle of the street, a symbolic memento of the cold war. Several of the senior people attending the Seminar had been to Berlin while the wall was up and more had travelled to Berlin when the wall came down in 1989. I suspect the city had an enthralling tension that appealed to them that I didn’t feel. It turns out that several years after the wall was torn down, people wanted to know where it had been, so a double row of bricks now marks its former encirclement of West Berlin. Nevertheless a few days later in Potsdamer Platz I swuccumbed. I paid 2,50 Euro to have the last page of my passport stamped with the official 1960’s border crossing visas and Tari took a picture of me in front of one of the wall segments.
On Thursday we went with fellow Hungarian Fulbrighters the Kellems to Schloss Charlotte, and saw the private rooms. On Friday Tari and I spent almost five hours in the Pergamon Museum looking at the Greek edifices and sculptures and the Gates of Ishtar along with other Mesopotamian statues and artifacts.
The Fulbright Seminar ended on Thursday and I thought I would save a few Euros by moving to a slightly cheaper hotel for the extra two nights. But I hadn’t noticed that the breakfast was not included and that brought it back up to the price at the Park Inn. The Fulbright must have gotten a fantastic rate at the Park Inn for taking several hundred rooms. Our new lodgings were more minimalist than hotels we have stayed at in Japan—no dressers or closets, or bars of soap (only small containers of body shampoo wash), and only one wall plug in the whole room.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Life in Budapest
On the Town
Monday Mar 15th was a national holiday commemorating the 1848 revolution. We decided to go out that afternoon for a walk. But when we got to the street, it was crowded with people coming up from the metro and off the busses carrying signs for Fidesz, a centre-right political party that is expected to win the Apr 11th elections and take over from the Hungarian Socialist Party. It was cold and blustery so we walked down to the Danube and decided to ride the trams. We ended up on Tram #1 which makes an outer ring around central Pest and then ends up on the Buda side. We then took Tram #17 down Bécsi útca with its restaurants to the metro and home. As we came out of the metro we saw all the Fidesz supporters on their way home from their rally, probably at Petofi Ter.
One of the guide books reported that Hungarians are not into queuing to which I can add they don’t shove but will cut lines at grocery stores, or movie theatres if you’re not watching. They also do not stick to one side or the other on metro stairs. Of course when fifty or more get off a metro train they take over the whole staircase leading to the street. It is best to wait until the pack has come up and then go down sticking to one side or the other as the stairs are often a bit slippery in rainy or snowy weather. I’ve learned it’s best to go up the middle of the staircase behind someone else, although about half way up they inevitably begin veering towards one side where they want to exit to the street, while I want to go off to the other.
I thought I was making headway on at least reading signs and advertisements in the subway. I already knew that a “k” at the end made the word (noun or verb) plural, like adding an “s” in English. Then I learned that “bb” at the end of a word made in comparative, equivalent to “er” [nagy = big; nagyobb = bigger]. So I thought I could concentrate on finding the root word in the first few letters. No such luck. I discovered that putting “leg” at the very front of a word that ended in “bb” makes it superlative [legnagyobb = biggest]
When we first got here Tari got some info on the North American Women’s Association leaders, including things they missed here in Budapest. We laughed when one wrote all she wanted was to be able to do grocery shopping at one store. But we’ve learned it is oh so true. Not only do different chains carry different types of products, store size also makes a difference. Packaging is not big here, so many things come sealed in plastic rather than placed in boxes or canisters we are used to. We really missed plastic wrap in a box with a cutting edge, and this week we finally found what may be the one store that carries it. We also discovered one store that imports salmon fillets and shrimp though they are very expensive. We plan to try the salmon offered at the Central Market to see if it is as good.
You can’t get a dozen eggs in Budapest. Eggs come in cases of ten. All are brown shelled which is not a problem except the shells are very tough and don’t crack easily. Similarly, finding low fat milk is difficult as well. Only a few stores carry a small quantity of the 0.5% “Lite.” The most prevalent, at least in shelf display, is 2.8% (which is less than the 3.5% of whole milk) and 1.5% (which is less than the 2% that is common in the US.)
The Home Front
We have been in the apartment for two months and it has slowly become home. But we have had to make a few adjustments beyond the European shower system which consists of a hand held shower sprayer. The kitchen sink has a very small water heater and the hot water comes out scalding. That makes it dangerous to simply run a little hot water on your hands or a utensil to get rid of some grease. But the amount of hot water is very limited. So I’ve leaned to fill a big pot or bowl with the scalding water, add some cold water and wait a few minutes before washing the other pots, pans and bowls that will not fit in the dishwasher.
I am convinced we have a Communist era stove. It has no burner pilot lights so every time we want to boil water or cook something, we need to use a match and hold the burner knob in for at least 30 seconds until the gas really starts flowing. The oven has no broiler and no thermostat to control the level of heat. We have yet to find an over thermometer. As a result we are left with either pan frying or microwaving. Apparently Hungarians are not into grilling or barbequing, so we are now into pastas with chopped chicken or ground beef which yields at least one day of leftovers. I don’t know how long I can hold out before I need a steak fix at the Argentine steak house no matter how expensive it is.
Academic Matter
On Tuesday I met with a few faculty and a senior graduate student from the Health Economics and Technology Assessment Research Centre at Corvinus. I had sent them my slide presentation on health policy—Clinton and Obama. They asked some good questions and realized that part of the US problem rested more in American values and politics than on economics and rational choice. They will have me present this to their students and other faculty in April. I told them I had read on the internet that the House was going to vote on health care by the end of the week and I would have to hold off on sending them a final abstract for the announcement until I knew what had happened.
On Wednesday Peter and I went to Szeged, a University town about two hours southeast of Budapest. We arrived a bit early and went into the Dom (Catholic Church) that occupied part of the square that the public health and medical school was on. The Dom was large but the transept only had pillars in front rather than the four as I have seen in other churches. In contrast to the four intellectuals depicted in Esztergom, the Szeged Dom depicted “Justice” representing the virtue of temperance and “Fortuna” as a warning against the sin of envy.
I gave two lectures. The morning lecture dealt with US Health Care Policy, which I updated given the developing events, and the afternoon lecture presented an overview of the US health care system.
In-between we were taken to the standard fish restaurant near the Tisza river (which was very wide and fast flowing), to have the standard Szeged fish soup—some river fish, perhaps carp, and plenty of paprika. I was assured by the department chair, an expert in toxicology, that all the fish came from a nearby lake and not the Tisza itself. I liked it and also had the perch-pike as the main course. As we were leaving the restaurant another group came in. I looked at one of the men and finally recognized Huba, that is Dr. Bruckner, who is the executive director of the Hungarian Fulbright Commission. I thought he was in Washington DC for some meeting, so I tentatively said “Huba?’ and he gave me a big smile and nod. I then tried to introduce him to my lunch companions, but since I couldn’t bring up everyone’s name and only knew Dr. Bruckner as Huba, I just said this is Huba, head of the Hungarian Fulbright Commission. Huba took over and introduced himself as I am sure he has done many times in his career.
Calvin and Hobbes
As a final aside, I found that the newspaper handed out in the Metro carried the cartoon. Kázmér és Huba, that is Calvin and Hobbes. But I think the Hungarians are missing the innuendoes of the conflict between (John) Calvin a leader of the Protestant Reformation and (Thomas) Hobbes the British political philosopher. I noted this because one of the metro stops on my way to my office (and a major inner ring tram stop) is Kálvin tér which was named for the early 19th century Hungarian Reformed Church that still stands on one corner.
Monday Mar 15th was a national holiday commemorating the 1848 revolution. We decided to go out that afternoon for a walk. But when we got to the street, it was crowded with people coming up from the metro and off the busses carrying signs for Fidesz, a centre-right political party that is expected to win the Apr 11th elections and take over from the Hungarian Socialist Party. It was cold and blustery so we walked down to the Danube and decided to ride the trams. We ended up on Tram #1 which makes an outer ring around central Pest and then ends up on the Buda side. We then took Tram #17 down Bécsi útca with its restaurants to the metro and home. As we came out of the metro we saw all the Fidesz supporters on their way home from their rally, probably at Petofi Ter.
One of the guide books reported that Hungarians are not into queuing to which I can add they don’t shove but will cut lines at grocery stores, or movie theatres if you’re not watching. They also do not stick to one side or the other on metro stairs. Of course when fifty or more get off a metro train they take over the whole staircase leading to the street. It is best to wait until the pack has come up and then go down sticking to one side or the other as the stairs are often a bit slippery in rainy or snowy weather. I’ve learned it’s best to go up the middle of the staircase behind someone else, although about half way up they inevitably begin veering towards one side where they want to exit to the street, while I want to go off to the other.
I thought I was making headway on at least reading signs and advertisements in the subway. I already knew that a “k” at the end made the word (noun or verb) plural, like adding an “s” in English. Then I learned that “bb” at the end of a word made in comparative, equivalent to “er” [nagy = big; nagyobb = bigger]. So I thought I could concentrate on finding the root word in the first few letters. No such luck. I discovered that putting “leg” at the very front of a word that ended in “bb” makes it superlative [legnagyobb = biggest]
When we first got here Tari got some info on the North American Women’s Association leaders, including things they missed here in Budapest. We laughed when one wrote all she wanted was to be able to do grocery shopping at one store. But we’ve learned it is oh so true. Not only do different chains carry different types of products, store size also makes a difference. Packaging is not big here, so many things come sealed in plastic rather than placed in boxes or canisters we are used to. We really missed plastic wrap in a box with a cutting edge, and this week we finally found what may be the one store that carries it. We also discovered one store that imports salmon fillets and shrimp though they are very expensive. We plan to try the salmon offered at the Central Market to see if it is as good.
You can’t get a dozen eggs in Budapest. Eggs come in cases of ten. All are brown shelled which is not a problem except the shells are very tough and don’t crack easily. Similarly, finding low fat milk is difficult as well. Only a few stores carry a small quantity of the 0.5% “Lite.” The most prevalent, at least in shelf display, is 2.8% (which is less than the 3.5% of whole milk) and 1.5% (which is less than the 2% that is common in the US.)
The Home Front
We have been in the apartment for two months and it has slowly become home. But we have had to make a few adjustments beyond the European shower system which consists of a hand held shower sprayer. The kitchen sink has a very small water heater and the hot water comes out scalding. That makes it dangerous to simply run a little hot water on your hands or a utensil to get rid of some grease. But the amount of hot water is very limited. So I’ve leaned to fill a big pot or bowl with the scalding water, add some cold water and wait a few minutes before washing the other pots, pans and bowls that will not fit in the dishwasher.
I am convinced we have a Communist era stove. It has no burner pilot lights so every time we want to boil water or cook something, we need to use a match and hold the burner knob in for at least 30 seconds until the gas really starts flowing. The oven has no broiler and no thermostat to control the level of heat. We have yet to find an over thermometer. As a result we are left with either pan frying or microwaving. Apparently Hungarians are not into grilling or barbequing, so we are now into pastas with chopped chicken or ground beef which yields at least one day of leftovers. I don’t know how long I can hold out before I need a steak fix at the Argentine steak house no matter how expensive it is.
Academic Matter
On Tuesday I met with a few faculty and a senior graduate student from the Health Economics and Technology Assessment Research Centre at Corvinus. I had sent them my slide presentation on health policy—Clinton and Obama. They asked some good questions and realized that part of the US problem rested more in American values and politics than on economics and rational choice. They will have me present this to their students and other faculty in April. I told them I had read on the internet that the House was going to vote on health care by the end of the week and I would have to hold off on sending them a final abstract for the announcement until I knew what had happened.
On Wednesday Peter and I went to Szeged, a University town about two hours southeast of Budapest. We arrived a bit early and went into the Dom (Catholic Church) that occupied part of the square that the public health and medical school was on. The Dom was large but the transept only had pillars in front rather than the four as I have seen in other churches. In contrast to the four intellectuals depicted in Esztergom, the Szeged Dom depicted “Justice” representing the virtue of temperance and “Fortuna” as a warning against the sin of envy.
I gave two lectures. The morning lecture dealt with US Health Care Policy, which I updated given the developing events, and the afternoon lecture presented an overview of the US health care system.
In-between we were taken to the standard fish restaurant near the Tisza river (which was very wide and fast flowing), to have the standard Szeged fish soup—some river fish, perhaps carp, and plenty of paprika. I was assured by the department chair, an expert in toxicology, that all the fish came from a nearby lake and not the Tisza itself. I liked it and also had the perch-pike as the main course. As we were leaving the restaurant another group came in. I looked at one of the men and finally recognized Huba, that is Dr. Bruckner, who is the executive director of the Hungarian Fulbright Commission. I thought he was in Washington DC for some meeting, so I tentatively said “Huba?’ and he gave me a big smile and nod. I then tried to introduce him to my lunch companions, but since I couldn’t bring up everyone’s name and only knew Dr. Bruckner as Huba, I just said this is Huba, head of the Hungarian Fulbright Commission. Huba took over and introduced himself as I am sure he has done many times in his career.
Calvin and Hobbes
As a final aside, I found that the newspaper handed out in the Metro carried the cartoon. Kázmér és Huba, that is Calvin and Hobbes. But I think the Hungarians are missing the innuendoes of the conflict between (John) Calvin a leader of the Protestant Reformation and (Thomas) Hobbes the British political philosopher. I noted this because one of the metro stops on my way to my office (and a major inner ring tram stop) is Kálvin tér which was named for the early 19th century Hungarian Reformed Church that still stands on one corner.
Monday, March 15, 2010
like déjà vu
Phone calls in the Night
We were woken up twice by our US cell phone in the wee hours of Sunday morning. But the caller phone number was blocked, and at a dollar a minute we decided not to answer it. Then in the wee hours of Monday morning we received another call, but this time a caller phone number appeared. Tari answered and found it was from the fraud squad from one of our credit cards. Somehow the number had been used on the US west coast although we had both cards in our possession and had not used it very often in Budapest. We denied the charges and had a temporary block put on the card. We used the secure online email system to verify the situation. We were told to download an affidavit concerning the rejected charges and then go to the US Embassy to have it notarized. The Embassy has an online reservation system and the first opening was Tuesday of next week. We then made arrangements to have the new credit cards sent to us. We have been exchanging emails, and received a phone call confirming our intention to have the affidavit notarized and saying they would remove the unauthorized charge.
Academic Matters
I have been eating lunch by myself in the building bufe (cafeteria). Once or twice I have seen another faculty member come down but they didn’t sit with me. Wednesday that changed. I was eating and concentrating on some Hungarian words to learn when two of the younger faculty came up and asked if they could join me. I said of course. One of them had been to Chicago. He knew I was originally from Chicago, and then went on about the Cubs, baseball being a very slow game which allowed for plenty of hotdogs, beer and conversation. He mentioned the people watching the game from the roofs of apartment buildings that overlook Wrigley Field.
I gave my Wednesday afternoon lecture on private health insurance in US which raised much less discussion than the previous week’s on Medicare and Medicaid. In my preparation I did learn about company and union benefit societies that existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so that Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance just didn’t emerge suddenly during the depression and commercial insurance after World War II. On Friday I gave my delayed presentation to the faculty on Clinton and Obama Health Reform efforts. I apologized for missing the previously scheduled meeting, but told them that things had progressed in the ensuing two weeks including the President’s televised meeting at Blair House with Congressional leaders, the President’s own proposal (at long last), and the official decision to pass Health Care Reform under the reconciliation process requiring only 51 votes in the Senate for the corrective bill if the bill already passed by the Senate was approved without amendment by the House. Because of a special convocation that morning I was told to limit my talk to an hour. I cut a bit but still felt rushed. In the end I think the details of the Clinton and the current House and Senate bills along with the cutthroat politics must have seemed Byzantine to the faculty. The department chair did comment that lobbies like tobacco had great influence in Hungary as in the US. I did learn that in 1993 staff for Senate minority leader Robert Dole told Republican Senators not to talk with Mrs. Clinton and then Rep. Newt Gingrich vowed that no House Republican would vote for the Clinton legislation. Clearly in 2009 and2010 Republicans are following the same strategy. As the great philosopher Yogi Berra put it, “This is like déjà vu all over again!”
Ceremony
The Semmelweis University convocation on Friday began with the singing of Gaudeamus Igitur, the alma mater, for which everyone stood. One verse reads, “Long live academia, Long live the professors, long live the male and female students.” Another verse goes … "Long live the state and those who rule it. Long live our city, and the charity of benefactors," which tied into the March 15th national holiday on Monday. During the song, a color guard led the speakers, with green, white and red cockades (circular paper badges) into the hall and to their seats in front. This was followed by the playing of the Hungarian National Anthem, Himnusz (literally Hymn) which begins “O Lord, bless the nation of Hungary with your grace and bounty” but goes on in a vein similar to the Star Spangled Banner, on the perseverance of Hungary in the face of Mongol and Turkish invasions as well as the victories of King Mátyás Corvinus. It ends with a prayer for relief for those who have suffered for all sins of the past and of the future.
The awards ceremony itself took about an hour and recognized faculty, staff and students for their contributions and activities to the University. It ended with the playing of the other major anthem (perhaps akin to God Bless America although though much more fatalistic) Szózat (literally Summons) which calls on Hungarians to be ever faithful to your homeland because in the great world outside of here there is no place for you, and a thousand years of suffering would enliven you or bring death. The speakers were then escorted out by the color guard again to Gaudeamus Igitur.
March 15th is a national holiday celebrating the 1848 revolution. Following similar “revolutions” in France, Germany and Italy, a large demonstration of ten thousand people was held in Pest on March 15th. Petõfi Sándor read his poem, National Song, which begins “On your feet, Magyar, the homeland calls!
The time is here, now or never! Shall we be slaves or free?” The writer Jókai Mór read the Twelve Points for change which the Mayor of Pest and the Imperial Governing Council in Buda were forced to sign. An independent government was established and passed a series of legal reforms and then in July 1849 the Hungarian Parliament enacted a law giving ethnic and minorities rights. But it was too late: Emperor Franz Joseph (who had deposed his ailing uncle) called on Nicholas I of Russia to help suppress the Hungarians, who were no match for the Russian army. Shades of 1956 or as Yogi Berra put it…
On Saturday morning we went to services at the Dohany Utca Great Synagogue. I wanted to say the memorial prayers (yartzeit) for my parents. We passed through security and into a small chapel, not the large main sanctuary with its balconies. We estimated thirty people attended about two-thirds men and one-third women. We received English prayer books from the Conservative United Synagogues (mine was a gift from a couple in Cleveland, OH). I alos picked up the Hungarian prayer book and a small thin volume containing the Book of Exodus in Hebrew and Hungarian without the numerous rabbinical commentaries. I asked what the reading for the week was and was told it was a double parshat of Vayekhel/Pekudei that come at the end of Exodus. I only later realized it was in Hebrew on signs on either side of the ark.
The Chapel, in the mid nineteenth century German liberal tradition, had an organ and choir that accompanied the Cantor. The Cantor had a very Ashkenazi accent, but not as slurred as I have heard in Orthodox services in Detroit and Chicago. Every once in a while the tunes were familiar and I recognized the call to the amidah and stood up for it. At the end I think they said the Kadish, the memorial prayer, twice, perhaps the first time for the holocaust victims and the second for individual mourners. I stood and said both.
Although the trappings were “liberal” or “modern”, the atmosphere was very orthodox. Tari sat with the women on one side and I with the men on the other. The men who arrived late would stand and begin their personal opening prayers while the services moved on. The men conversed with each other and several of the women talked almost the whole time. Except for the Cantor, the prayer leaders were at a prayer niche against the wall next to the ark or at the prayer table facing the ark and could barely be heard. As far as I could tell, no page numbers were announced as the service, as in most congregations, skipped along through the prayer book. At one point the man who handed out the prayer books went to the front and encouraged everyone to stand for the Hazak that is said when a Torah book is completed. When the services were over, everyone left and went home, no Kiddush or greeting of strangers.
On the Town
Last Sunday we decided to take the 59 Tram in Buda that Constance described at the Fulbright orientation as going from birth (near the hospital) to death (near the cemetery). We caught it at Moszkva ter and took it north in the direction of the hospital. Nothing much, so we rode it all the way to the other end up the Buda hills to the Farkasréti cemetery. What had started as a few snowflakes was now a wet snow that was piling up at the top of the hill. At the end of the line is the original Auguszt pastry shop, so we stopped in for a four o’clock tea.. Started in the 1870s Auguszt has been a family business ever since surviving World War II and the Soviet imprisonment of some members during the 1950s. The pastry was good and the hot chocolate very rich, reminding us of Ghirardelli in San Francisco. When we got back to Pest, only a few flakes were on the ground.
We were woken up twice by our US cell phone in the wee hours of Sunday morning. But the caller phone number was blocked, and at a dollar a minute we decided not to answer it. Then in the wee hours of Monday morning we received another call, but this time a caller phone number appeared. Tari answered and found it was from the fraud squad from one of our credit cards. Somehow the number had been used on the US west coast although we had both cards in our possession and had not used it very often in Budapest. We denied the charges and had a temporary block put on the card. We used the secure online email system to verify the situation. We were told to download an affidavit concerning the rejected charges and then go to the US Embassy to have it notarized. The Embassy has an online reservation system and the first opening was Tuesday of next week. We then made arrangements to have the new credit cards sent to us. We have been exchanging emails, and received a phone call confirming our intention to have the affidavit notarized and saying they would remove the unauthorized charge.
Academic Matters
I have been eating lunch by myself in the building bufe (cafeteria). Once or twice I have seen another faculty member come down but they didn’t sit with me. Wednesday that changed. I was eating and concentrating on some Hungarian words to learn when two of the younger faculty came up and asked if they could join me. I said of course. One of them had been to Chicago. He knew I was originally from Chicago, and then went on about the Cubs, baseball being a very slow game which allowed for plenty of hotdogs, beer and conversation. He mentioned the people watching the game from the roofs of apartment buildings that overlook Wrigley Field.
I gave my Wednesday afternoon lecture on private health insurance in US which raised much less discussion than the previous week’s on Medicare and Medicaid. In my preparation I did learn about company and union benefit societies that existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so that Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance just didn’t emerge suddenly during the depression and commercial insurance after World War II. On Friday I gave my delayed presentation to the faculty on Clinton and Obama Health Reform efforts. I apologized for missing the previously scheduled meeting, but told them that things had progressed in the ensuing two weeks including the President’s televised meeting at Blair House with Congressional leaders, the President’s own proposal (at long last), and the official decision to pass Health Care Reform under the reconciliation process requiring only 51 votes in the Senate for the corrective bill if the bill already passed by the Senate was approved without amendment by the House. Because of a special convocation that morning I was told to limit my talk to an hour. I cut a bit but still felt rushed. In the end I think the details of the Clinton and the current House and Senate bills along with the cutthroat politics must have seemed Byzantine to the faculty. The department chair did comment that lobbies like tobacco had great influence in Hungary as in the US. I did learn that in 1993 staff for Senate minority leader Robert Dole told Republican Senators not to talk with Mrs. Clinton and then Rep. Newt Gingrich vowed that no House Republican would vote for the Clinton legislation. Clearly in 2009 and2010 Republicans are following the same strategy. As the great philosopher Yogi Berra put it, “This is like déjà vu all over again!”
Ceremony
The Semmelweis University convocation on Friday began with the singing of Gaudeamus Igitur, the alma mater, for which everyone stood. One verse reads, “Long live academia, Long live the professors, long live the male and female students.” Another verse goes … "Long live the state and those who rule it. Long live our city, and the charity of benefactors," which tied into the March 15th national holiday on Monday. During the song, a color guard led the speakers, with green, white and red cockades (circular paper badges) into the hall and to their seats in front. This was followed by the playing of the Hungarian National Anthem, Himnusz (literally Hymn) which begins “O Lord, bless the nation of Hungary with your grace and bounty” but goes on in a vein similar to the Star Spangled Banner, on the perseverance of Hungary in the face of Mongol and Turkish invasions as well as the victories of King Mátyás Corvinus. It ends with a prayer for relief for those who have suffered for all sins of the past and of the future.
The awards ceremony itself took about an hour and recognized faculty, staff and students for their contributions and activities to the University. It ended with the playing of the other major anthem (perhaps akin to God Bless America although though much more fatalistic) Szózat (literally Summons) which calls on Hungarians to be ever faithful to your homeland because in the great world outside of here there is no place for you, and a thousand years of suffering would enliven you or bring death. The speakers were then escorted out by the color guard again to Gaudeamus Igitur.
March 15th is a national holiday celebrating the 1848 revolution. Following similar “revolutions” in France, Germany and Italy, a large demonstration of ten thousand people was held in Pest on March 15th. Petõfi Sándor read his poem, National Song, which begins “On your feet, Magyar, the homeland calls!
The time is here, now or never! Shall we be slaves or free?” The writer Jókai Mór read the Twelve Points for change which the Mayor of Pest and the Imperial Governing Council in Buda were forced to sign. An independent government was established and passed a series of legal reforms and then in July 1849 the Hungarian Parliament enacted a law giving ethnic and minorities rights. But it was too late: Emperor Franz Joseph (who had deposed his ailing uncle) called on Nicholas I of Russia to help suppress the Hungarians, who were no match for the Russian army. Shades of 1956 or as Yogi Berra put it…
On Saturday morning we went to services at the Dohany Utca Great Synagogue. I wanted to say the memorial prayers (yartzeit) for my parents. We passed through security and into a small chapel, not the large main sanctuary with its balconies. We estimated thirty people attended about two-thirds men and one-third women. We received English prayer books from the Conservative United Synagogues (mine was a gift from a couple in Cleveland, OH). I alos picked up the Hungarian prayer book and a small thin volume containing the Book of Exodus in Hebrew and Hungarian without the numerous rabbinical commentaries. I asked what the reading for the week was and was told it was a double parshat of Vayekhel/Pekudei that come at the end of Exodus. I only later realized it was in Hebrew on signs on either side of the ark.
The Chapel, in the mid nineteenth century German liberal tradition, had an organ and choir that accompanied the Cantor. The Cantor had a very Ashkenazi accent, but not as slurred as I have heard in Orthodox services in Detroit and Chicago. Every once in a while the tunes were familiar and I recognized the call to the amidah and stood up for it. At the end I think they said the Kadish, the memorial prayer, twice, perhaps the first time for the holocaust victims and the second for individual mourners. I stood and said both.
Although the trappings were “liberal” or “modern”, the atmosphere was very orthodox. Tari sat with the women on one side and I with the men on the other. The men who arrived late would stand and begin their personal opening prayers while the services moved on. The men conversed with each other and several of the women talked almost the whole time. Except for the Cantor, the prayer leaders were at a prayer niche against the wall next to the ark or at the prayer table facing the ark and could barely be heard. As far as I could tell, no page numbers were announced as the service, as in most congregations, skipped along through the prayer book. At one point the man who handed out the prayer books went to the front and encouraged everyone to stand for the Hazak that is said when a Torah book is completed. When the services were over, everyone left and went home, no Kiddush or greeting of strangers.
On the Town
Last Sunday we decided to take the 59 Tram in Buda that Constance described at the Fulbright orientation as going from birth (near the hospital) to death (near the cemetery). We caught it at Moszkva ter and took it north in the direction of the hospital. Nothing much, so we rode it all the way to the other end up the Buda hills to the Farkasréti cemetery. What had started as a few snowflakes was now a wet snow that was piling up at the top of the hill. At the end of the line is the original Auguszt pastry shop, so we stopped in for a four o’clock tea.. Started in the 1870s Auguszt has been a family business ever since surviving World War II and the Soviet imprisonment of some members during the 1950s. The pastry was good and the hot chocolate very rich, reminding us of Ghirardelli in San Francisco. When we got back to Pest, only a few flakes were on the ground.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
A Fulbright Week
Penitence
I was sent the power points to review for the Semmelweis English Language Medical Program late last week. I emailed back my comments over the weekend. When I arrived at the faculty meeting on Monday afternoon they were passing around the sign in sheet. I had not been asked to sign in at the previous faculty meetings, but today they said I should sign in. So I printed my name on a blank line and signed in. They then commented that I would now be eligible for continuing medical education credits from the Hungarian Medical Chamber. It may have been a bit of a joke but I was flattered and felt I had been accepted. Then they proceeded to hold the whole meeting in Hungarian, explaining that they had forgotten to bring the flash drive with the English overheads on it. I accepted this as perhaps penitence for my failure to show up the previous Friday for my talk. Actually earlier that morning the faculty member who arranged the seminars came up to see me. He apologized for not having reminded me of the seminar and I apologized that I had misunderstood about meetings and seminars. We agreed to try to hold it in two weeks, but needed approval from the dept chair.
Lecture on the Athenian Plague
I gave two lectures this week. The first was on the Athenian Plague of 429 BC. I had spent over a week gathering the information and putting it together in a power point. I personally learned a lot. The lecture was on Monday afternoon and it was pouring when I left for ELTE to give the talk. About twenty people attended including several faculty and graduate students in the Ancient History Dept. Things went pretty smoothly. When I was done I faced dead silence. This has only happened a few times in my over 40 years of teaching. I interpret as meaning I have presenting something that was not expected and brought a different perspective on the topic. One of the students did say it would take some time to digest what I had presented. George (check name) the chair of the dept who invited me to give the lecture then asked a question about typhus as the cause of the plague. I had come across a report of finding a mass burial grave in Athens during construction of a new subway for the 1996 Olympics.
One student then asked whether this could be applied to other eras in history. So I mentioned the Cholera epidemics of the 1840-70s and how they contributed to the building of sewers in major European cities, and then HIV AIDS. I argued that since modern science had been able to identify and then create a treatment for HIV AIDS within a very short time period—less than 20 years—the forces that could have led to a religious revival movement didn’t have a chance to take hold, although such reactions were most evident in South Africa. I also said that Asclepius represented a combination of the new Hippocratic medicine approach blended with the rise of a new healing god.
I then went to Corvinus and had an interesting hour discussion with Norbert Kiss who is in public administration and management. I mentioned my evaluation research and policy, and he told me about an HMO pilot study, his work on hospital quality assurance and some work of his colleagues on pharmaceutical purchasing. We agreed to exchange some papers and he would see about having me give a presentation in a class or two in April.
Classroom Challenges over Medicare and Medicaid
On Wednesday I presented a lecture on US Medicare and Medicaid to the 25 medical students. I worked my way through Medicare parts A B C and D. By the time I got to D the students were incensed. How could a first world country have such a disorganized and irresponsible health care system? I realized that they were assuming Medicare would cover everyone, not just those over 65. I also explained that if someone came in with a bleeding broken arm that they would be treated in the ER but not admitted to the hospital. The initial high deductible really bothered them. One of the students remarked that with all the deductibles, copays and other requirements it seemed as if the Medicare was designed to encourage old people to die. I told him that Sarah Palin had expressed similar thoughts (although I am not sure they knew who she was and they didn’t ask).
One student asked me what I thought of Michael Moore’s’ film Sicko. I said that much of it was true—for example, his Canadian relatives thought they had it much better than his relatives in Flint Michigan. I mentioned that he interviewed a very upper bourgeois young couple in Paris who had a fabulous apartment and had no problems with health insurance or health for that matter. I said I had looked more closely into how the French system worked and was paid for. The French merely show their insurance card and the system then takes care of everything for them—no visible paper work and no apparent difficulties in receiving treatment. While they do pay high taxes and premiums, these are automatically deducted and presented no real choices for them to make. The student from France supported me and said that the health system was adding to the national debt. Peter, my sponsor, pointed out that in France and Hungary the complexity of the system is behind the scenes while in the US it is all front stage.
Fulbright First Friday
Lori, one of the Fulbright faculty at Pecs, suggested that a group of us get together for dinner on Thursday evening before the First Friday trip to Piliscaba, Parkany-Struvo, and Esztergom. We ate at the small French restaurant and had a very nice time. Tom Burns, a specialist in Roman history and former chair at Emory. His wife had worked in the medical library. They had extensive travels and work in Europe. He had many interesting stories and the next day would comment on where the Roman camps and settlements were and what went on in them. His wife and I played small world and found some mutual acquaintances.
On Friday morning we boarded a bus and went to visit the Pazamany Peter Catholic University in Piliscaba. The university was founded in 1636, the same year as Harvard, although representing opposite ends of the Counter Reformation. The Pazamany acquired a new campus in Piliscaba when the Soviet army abandoned its barracks in the early 1990s. New buildings were designed and the outside of the barracks redone by the group of Imre Makovecz and it has become an architectural landmark. You can check them out at http://www.pbase.com/bauer/stephaneum_campus_in_piliscsaba_hungary Lazlo Muntrean, a former Fulbrighter at Univ of San Francisco who is teaching at Pazamany, presented a talk about the architecture and Makovecz.
We then went across the Danube into Solvakia to have lunch at the best Hungarian restaurant in the area. We were reminded that this part of Solvakia had been a part of the Hungary until the end of World War I and still had a very large Hungarian population. The food at the Casablanca was excellent, especially the chestnut puree (gesztenyepüré) dessert.
After lunch we crossed back to see the Basilica at Esztergom. Esztergom, originally a Roman outpost on the Danube, became the center of the Catholic Church in Hungary. Stephen was crowned king here in 1000, and a recently completed sculpture commemorates the event. After it was sacked by the Tartars, King Bela IV moved the crown to Buda which was more defensible, but the Church stayed and the current Basilica is the largest church in Hungary. The central vault features Saints Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine. Tom Burns pointed out that these were four intellectual leaders of the Church and stand in contrast to the usual four apostles.
A large side chapel in the Basilica was moved, stone by stone from its original sight on a near by hill that was named after St. Thomas Becket. While studying in Paris, Becket who became archbishop of Canterbury befriended Lukács Bánfy, who became archbishop of Esztergom. Both were advocates for church autonomy but after Becket was martyred the hill was named in his memory. So Becket not only helps Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims, he protects Esztergom The Basilica holds the remains of Cardinal Mindszenty who opposed the Communist takeover of Hungary in 1948, was imprisoned, released during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and then lived in the American embassy after the Russians retook Budapest.
On the Town
On Wednesday night we did BurgerKing and an opera. The opera starts at seven and I lecture until 5:30. So I rushed home, we took the metro to Oktogon, ate at the BurgerKing and then went to the Opera. At BK we sat at a small table near which was a sign that explained the charge for using the bathroom could be waived on showing a meal receipt from that day or getting a receipt in the bathroom and having it deducted from the meal purchase.
We saw Turondot, Tari’s favorite opera, which she knows very well. The opera really carries and has a lot of good music and arias. The staging encouraged the singers to move around. The scene of Ping, Pang and Pong talking with Calaf was done in front of the curtain with the three ministers first removing their ceremonial make up and then putting it back on. At one point they briefly opened their portfolios to allow Calaf to see the Chinese character each contained. Turned out these were the answers to the three riddles.
I was sent the power points to review for the Semmelweis English Language Medical Program late last week. I emailed back my comments over the weekend. When I arrived at the faculty meeting on Monday afternoon they were passing around the sign in sheet. I had not been asked to sign in at the previous faculty meetings, but today they said I should sign in. So I printed my name on a blank line and signed in. They then commented that I would now be eligible for continuing medical education credits from the Hungarian Medical Chamber. It may have been a bit of a joke but I was flattered and felt I had been accepted. Then they proceeded to hold the whole meeting in Hungarian, explaining that they had forgotten to bring the flash drive with the English overheads on it. I accepted this as perhaps penitence for my failure to show up the previous Friday for my talk. Actually earlier that morning the faculty member who arranged the seminars came up to see me. He apologized for not having reminded me of the seminar and I apologized that I had misunderstood about meetings and seminars. We agreed to try to hold it in two weeks, but needed approval from the dept chair.
Lecture on the Athenian Plague
I gave two lectures this week. The first was on the Athenian Plague of 429 BC. I had spent over a week gathering the information and putting it together in a power point. I personally learned a lot. The lecture was on Monday afternoon and it was pouring when I left for ELTE to give the talk. About twenty people attended including several faculty and graduate students in the Ancient History Dept. Things went pretty smoothly. When I was done I faced dead silence. This has only happened a few times in my over 40 years of teaching. I interpret as meaning I have presenting something that was not expected and brought a different perspective on the topic. One of the students did say it would take some time to digest what I had presented. George (check name) the chair of the dept who invited me to give the lecture then asked a question about typhus as the cause of the plague. I had come across a report of finding a mass burial grave in Athens during construction of a new subway for the 1996 Olympics.
One student then asked whether this could be applied to other eras in history. So I mentioned the Cholera epidemics of the 1840-70s and how they contributed to the building of sewers in major European cities, and then HIV AIDS. I argued that since modern science had been able to identify and then create a treatment for HIV AIDS within a very short time period—less than 20 years—the forces that could have led to a religious revival movement didn’t have a chance to take hold, although such reactions were most evident in South Africa. I also said that Asclepius represented a combination of the new Hippocratic medicine approach blended with the rise of a new healing god.
I then went to Corvinus and had an interesting hour discussion with Norbert Kiss who is in public administration and management. I mentioned my evaluation research and policy, and he told me about an HMO pilot study, his work on hospital quality assurance and some work of his colleagues on pharmaceutical purchasing. We agreed to exchange some papers and he would see about having me give a presentation in a class or two in April.
Classroom Challenges over Medicare and Medicaid
On Wednesday I presented a lecture on US Medicare and Medicaid to the 25 medical students. I worked my way through Medicare parts A B C and D. By the time I got to D the students were incensed. How could a first world country have such a disorganized and irresponsible health care system? I realized that they were assuming Medicare would cover everyone, not just those over 65. I also explained that if someone came in with a bleeding broken arm that they would be treated in the ER but not admitted to the hospital. The initial high deductible really bothered them. One of the students remarked that with all the deductibles, copays and other requirements it seemed as if the Medicare was designed to encourage old people to die. I told him that Sarah Palin had expressed similar thoughts (although I am not sure they knew who she was and they didn’t ask).
One student asked me what I thought of Michael Moore’s’ film Sicko. I said that much of it was true—for example, his Canadian relatives thought they had it much better than his relatives in Flint Michigan. I mentioned that he interviewed a very upper bourgeois young couple in Paris who had a fabulous apartment and had no problems with health insurance or health for that matter. I said I had looked more closely into how the French system worked and was paid for. The French merely show their insurance card and the system then takes care of everything for them—no visible paper work and no apparent difficulties in receiving treatment. While they do pay high taxes and premiums, these are automatically deducted and presented no real choices for them to make. The student from France supported me and said that the health system was adding to the national debt. Peter, my sponsor, pointed out that in France and Hungary the complexity of the system is behind the scenes while in the US it is all front stage.
Fulbright First Friday
Lori, one of the Fulbright faculty at Pecs, suggested that a group of us get together for dinner on Thursday evening before the First Friday trip to Piliscaba, Parkany-Struvo, and Esztergom. We ate at the small French restaurant and had a very nice time. Tom Burns, a specialist in Roman history and former chair at Emory. His wife had worked in the medical library. They had extensive travels and work in Europe. He had many interesting stories and the next day would comment on where the Roman camps and settlements were and what went on in them. His wife and I played small world and found some mutual acquaintances.
On Friday morning we boarded a bus and went to visit the Pazamany Peter Catholic University in Piliscaba. The university was founded in 1636, the same year as Harvard, although representing opposite ends of the Counter Reformation. The Pazamany acquired a new campus in Piliscaba when the Soviet army abandoned its barracks in the early 1990s. New buildings were designed and the outside of the barracks redone by the group of Imre Makovecz and it has become an architectural landmark. You can check them out at http://www.pbase.com/bauer/stephaneum_campus_in_piliscsaba_hungary Lazlo Muntrean, a former Fulbrighter at Univ of San Francisco who is teaching at Pazamany, presented a talk about the architecture and Makovecz.
We then went across the Danube into Solvakia to have lunch at the best Hungarian restaurant in the area. We were reminded that this part of Solvakia had been a part of the Hungary until the end of World War I and still had a very large Hungarian population. The food at the Casablanca was excellent, especially the chestnut puree (gesztenyepüré) dessert.
After lunch we crossed back to see the Basilica at Esztergom. Esztergom, originally a Roman outpost on the Danube, became the center of the Catholic Church in Hungary. Stephen was crowned king here in 1000, and a recently completed sculpture commemorates the event. After it was sacked by the Tartars, King Bela IV moved the crown to Buda which was more defensible, but the Church stayed and the current Basilica is the largest church in Hungary. The central vault features Saints Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine. Tom Burns pointed out that these were four intellectual leaders of the Church and stand in contrast to the usual four apostles.
A large side chapel in the Basilica was moved, stone by stone from its original sight on a near by hill that was named after St. Thomas Becket. While studying in Paris, Becket who became archbishop of Canterbury befriended Lukács Bánfy, who became archbishop of Esztergom. Both were advocates for church autonomy but after Becket was martyred the hill was named in his memory. So Becket not only helps Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims, he protects Esztergom The Basilica holds the remains of Cardinal Mindszenty who opposed the Communist takeover of Hungary in 1948, was imprisoned, released during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and then lived in the American embassy after the Russians retook Budapest.
On the Town
On Wednesday night we did BurgerKing and an opera. The opera starts at seven and I lecture until 5:30. So I rushed home, we took the metro to Oktogon, ate at the BurgerKing and then went to the Opera. At BK we sat at a small table near which was a sign that explained the charge for using the bathroom could be waived on showing a meal receipt from that day or getting a receipt in the bathroom and having it deducted from the meal purchase.
We saw Turondot, Tari’s favorite opera, which she knows very well. The opera really carries and has a lot of good music and arias. The staging encouraged the singers to move around. The scene of Ping, Pang and Pong talking with Calaf was done in front of the curtain with the three ministers first removing their ceremonial make up and then putting it back on. At one point they briefly opened their portfolios to allow Calaf to see the Chinese character each contained. Turned out these were the answers to the three riddles.
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