April colds travel and work

I came down with a major cold—sore throat, post nasal drip and a cough. I also had quite a bit of work to do. Back in early February I had promised to give four lectures to students of Helga and Edina in the Faculty of Health Sciences. I was about to work on them when Peter reminded me that I had agreed to write up my US Health Care Reform presentations into an article which he would then comment on and translate into Hungarian. It would be submitted to a Hungarian journal and was due Apr 26. So in the spirit of publish and perish, I mustered my strength and typed away despite the cold. I lucked out when Peter told me that classes were called off on Wednesday. Apparently the sports hygiene faculty is part of the Medical complex and Wednesday was declared a sports day for everyone including the medical students.

On Thursday Tari and I took the train to Veszprem, a town near Lake Balaton. It has an American Corners which was hosting an America Week. This was started three years ago by philosophy professor Scott Campbell, a Fulbrighter from Nazareth College, Rochester NY. It brings together Hungarian and American lecturers, professors, officials and professionals to talk on various topics. I was asked to talk about US Health Care Reform. Since Scott Campbell was talking on American Pragmatism, I entitled my talk Obama’s Pragmatic Strategy. We were not sure where to get off the train as it made several short stops about the time we expected to arrive at Veszprem. The station signs are usually high above the main station doors and hard to see if one is in a back car or facing the wrong direction.

We were met at the train station by a Dean and taken to the campus of Pannon University. Since it was drizzling we sat and talked in his office instead of sight seeing in the town. Tom Burns showed up followed by a younger Pannon faculty member who then walked us through the town to lunch. Huba and Annamaria were meeting us for lunch, but they drove from Budapest and ran into some heavy traffic due to the rain. Eventually we all assembled and had a nice lunch.

The presentations went very well. Someone put the conference on utube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzXAxbVe348. It covers the whole week and I appear in it along with my title slide. Don’t know what was said since it was all in Hungarian. The Americans in the audience really liked what I had to say. They thought it explained quite a lot of what had happened and what was in the legislation.

I spent Friday working on the paper for Peter. We went out to dinner and happened to sit next to a woman from Germany. She had met with some people at Corvinus University, but was stranded because of the volcano. She said she would probably take a ten hour train ride on Saturday. We later learned that the contingent from Nazareth College at America Week in Veszprem was also stranded for several days.

Early Saturday morning I put the final touches on the first draft of my paper and emailed it to Peter. We then got on a train to visit Helga in Eger. Unfortunately we didn't realize that we had to switch trains. When I had looked up the train schedule, unlike airplane schedules, I saw no indication that I would need to transfer trains. The train stopped very briefly and as it pulled away I asked about Eger. Several people told us we should have gotten off and they were very helpful in explaining the situation to both us and the conductor. We had to ride an extra half hour to the next station, buy a ticket to return to where we should have transferred and get on the train to Eger. We arrived two hours late. In addition neither Tari nor I had Helga’s cell phone number. She had emailed it to me but I forgot my cell phone. Cell phones are not my thing.

All that said, we had a very nice relaxing weekend in Eger. We ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant Helga recommended. She then took us on a tour of the famous Castle which held out against a Turkish siege in 1552. I had just about finished reading the historical novel Eclipse of the Crescent Moon (Egri csillagok) which is about the siege. I was told this was mandatory reading for all students in Hungary. The equivalent in the US would be if everyone in junior high had to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

We saw just about everything at the Castle except the underground tunnels. We walked back to our hotel and promptly fell asleep. When we awoke it was well after 8pm. We were not hungry for a complete dinner and found the only short order place in the area was the local McDonalds.

On Sunday Helga took us to the Baroque library in Eger's Lyceum which had a very old library with very old books. The ceiling had a magnificent trompe l'oeil painting of Council of Trent and its four major decisions in each corner. In one corner scholarship is encouraged but a lightning bolt is setting censored books on fire. (cant quite see it in this picture) http://www.pbase.com/richardmartin/image/123133258 . We stopped for some ice cream at her favorite place. We were then met by her husband and children. We walked through the large city park with many tables selling a variety of things. The train ride home was direct to Budapest Keleti pu and uneventful.

Monday I answered a few outstanding questions that Peter had and then began putting together the lecture for Hegla’s class. I had two lectures on Tuesday. The first was in the morning for Helga’s class on health law and ethics. The second was for Laszlo at Corvinus and was on Clinton and Obama. I spoke in a room in the new building’s library. The room, which probably holds at least 50 people, was overflowing. It had been advertised on the Corvinus website. A few had called Laszlo and asked if I was able to come because of the Iceland volcano. In my talk I mentioned that the pharmaceutical industy got a twelve year patent protection for biologics and bio-similar drugs. In the question and answer time I learned that these types of drugs are allowed in the EU but not in the US. The reform billcreates a pathway for biologics and bio-similar drugs to enter the US market.

On Wednesday gave a lecture to the English language medical students on US state experiments in health care—Hawaii’s employer mandate from the 1970’s, Oregon’s rationing system for people on Medicaid based on budget and importance of procedure, Tennessee’s good intentions at expanding coverage through TENNCARE that was spoiled by overzealous attempts to contain costs and finally Massachusetts’s 2006 individual mandate..

On Thursday I moderated the second half of a Fulbright session for Hungarians who had returned from Fulbrights in the US. The first presenter in my portion of the meeting was stranded in Paris because of the Iceland volcano. I had to call time on two of the presenters who had run well over the 20 minute allotment. Afterwards several people told me I had done the right thing. The presentations ranged from music to history to philosophy. I learned something about the role of Princeton Theological Seminar in promoting Presbyterianism in Hungary. I knew Harvard was more Unitarian and Yale Congregationalist New Light, but didn’t know how Princeton fit in.

By this time Tari came down with a sore throat and a cough. We were concerned that she might have strep. I asked around and was told to go to a clinic near Moscova Ter. On Wednesday Tari went to the NAWA book club lunch meeting. But when the book club chair was stranded in Malta because of the volcano, they called it off. Tari didn’t know and went to the restaurant. Fortunately one of the other women stopped by and they had lunch. At the regular Friday NAWA meeting someone recommended a clinic up in Buda that had American trained doctors. Tari called and got an appointment for that same afternoon. The doctor was very nice, gave her a test and told her she didn’t have strep. It cost a ton of money but then we learned we were paying “expat” prices. Tari got a receipt and we can get reimbursed from our US health insurance when we return.

On Friday morning I presented on three topics over three hours to a masters degree class at Corvinus. The students seemed very interested and I thought it went very well Afterwards Norbert and I had a nice lunch at a restaurant that specialized in a large variety of wines.

That night we saw The Magic Flute sung in Hungarian. It was not at the state opera house. The singers were very good and the Queen of the Night easily hit every note in her famous aria. The costumes were modern day. The Queen of the Night wore a black dress with a gold cape like coat (I would have preferred silver for the moon) and in the seduction scene her three attendants are in their Victoria’s Secret lingerie. The three boys are in soccer uniforms and kick a ball back and forth with Tomino. The stage sets had their pluses and minuses. The first act settings were primarily Tomino’s and Pamina’s bedrooms, his with a large toy castle, hers with a large doll house. But the room was cleverly turned on its side or upside down for other first act scenes. Clever but we didn’t quite get it. In the second act the trial by fire was represented by Pamina and Tomino stepping over theatre seats that glowed red, but we did not see anything the reminded us of the trial by water.

Tari rested on Saturday and I plugged away at preparing the extra lectures. She was feeling better that night and so we really treated ourselves. We went to the Argentine steak house and had tenderloin and baked potatoes. After months of not having a real steak it was fantastic. The prices and quality were similar to a Ruth Chris steak house in the US.