Monthly Archives: April 2008

I’ve been very busy designing presentations on education in the US, the US elections and I have one with pictures of the Inland Northwest and Seattle.  The good news is the one class I showed “Education and Elections” to seemed pretty interested.  The bad news is it took a LOT of time.

Since I haven’t spoken to any Americans since Pat and Nel left I jumped at the chance to watch the Clinton/Obama debate with a group called “Hungary for Obama.”   

 I met one American woman who teaches at one of the many international gymnasiums,  private high schools with classes taught in English. Got all kinds of little hints on living in Budapest. I met a very nice graduate student  attending Central European University where classes are taught in English.  She gave me some hints about English Language libraries and bookstores. 

The bad news was the debate.  I think they are killing each other. Discussion after the debate seemed to indicate the group felt they may need to morph into Hungary for Hillary.  It was that bad. 

I visited two bookstores English language book stores suggested. Someone needs to send this logo for “Treehugger Dan’s” to Dan Treecraft.  Treehugger naturally specializes in selling USED books.  

I love wandering and seeing beautiful buildings but even better I love strange and odd things.  On my books store trip I saw the strange Hungarian pastime climbing beer crates.  This time it was boy scouts in Elizabet Ter demonstrating their crate climbing prowess.  College students did this on campus but I didn’t have my camera that time. I will try to add a slide show soon.     

 Some were better at this than others. 

Friday had good weather after all.  Possibly transportation workers enjoying their day off.  Hopefully they are replenishing their red blood cells and rehydrating after giving blood.

     It’s going to be on Friday rather than Monday but we are in for another 3-day weekend thanks to a Friday transport stike. BKV the transportion company has agreed NOT to fire 300 workers but the STRIKE is definitely ON because the union insists it be allowed to set the bus schedule or at least toss out any changes. Unfortunately, it is supposed to rain so it will probably won’t be a good day for a long hike.

Zsuzsa suggested it will be a good day for shopping. This assumes the stores will be open. I guess clerks or storekeepers have cars. According to the newspaper the transportation workers will be making their way to     donate blood. I will NEVER fully understand Hungary but I will check to see if the stores are indeed open.  Donating blood is certainly more productive than picketing.

One important universal principle I understand too well.  A survey of Budapest populace revealed favorite solutions for balancing the BVK budget and ending the deficit were (drum roll)  catching bus  cheaters (estimated 20% occasionally ride the bus for free) and having the Hungarian (Federal) government pay additional subsidies.  Why does this sound SO familiar? 

 I’m was having difficulty understanding my neighborhood Ujbuda or Buda District XI on American terms. My immediate neighbors are called “private houses” by Zsuzsa which means I live in a building where the landlords have a large flat on the ground floor and maintain their postage stamp size front and backyards. There are six flats in the building but I am the only tenant. I understand a small apartment on the ground floor is rented by an elderly German man who visits once a year.–> Slide show

The neighboring houses are about the same era and size. All are older brick or stucco houses that appear to have been built in the early 20^th century . Most are small scale apartment buildings or houses with two apartments. A very few appear to be single stand-alone homes. Most neighbors meticulously maintain their yards some contain miniature orchards with grape vines, flowers and a few even appear to be growing vegetables.

We are surrounded on all sides by what the Hungarians refer to as “housing estates.” We would call them giant, gray concrete apartment buildings. For a long time I was trying to understand the placement of the “estates” in relation to the houses. It finally occurred to me that we are a fairly orderly grid of small streets and major thoroughfares. The apartment blocks are mainly on all the busy streets and the houses are filler between the major streets. This is a generalization because the apartments sometimes extend back several in a row into a small street or sprout up unexpectedly. I understand most of these housing estates were built between 1967 and 1983. There are still large complexes under construction but they are on a smaller scale and NEVER made of gray concrete. Pink/orange is favored now but I have also seen new ochre and blue buildings. 

I asked Zsuzsa how this pattern of development came to be. She said that in the socialist era there was considered to be a housing shortage so they tore out old areas of the city and built the new ugly concrete housing estates. I’m sure they pack in a lot of people. If people in a neighborhood like mine did not want to leave their family home it was not forced. Houses of aristocracy, lawyers or other “enemies of the state” could be seized but in general they didn’t come in and displace a neighborhood if people put up a fuss.

Apparently during this time period many homes and apartments were divided so they could hold more families, although I can’t imagine that my house could ever have been a single home.  

Odbuda (Old Buda) the most ancient part of the city was torn-up and replaced by miles & miles housing estates.  Wounds are still fresh where the destruction of Obuda is concerned.  What was the old city is a couple of blocks of cobblestoned streets and ancient houses.   They did move the Roman ruins to a museum. 

Reminds me a  bit of what we hear has happened in China to make way for the Olympics, but then these houses were probably never considered slums so things are a little different.

The tulips have come and are going and the trees are leafing out and the lilacs are about to bloom so I’m glad I got most of these pictures weeks ago when you could see everything clearly.

We were discussing world statistics in one of my classes and the comparison of different cultures and their “carbon footprint” or sustainability meant nothing to my students. They didn’t seem aware of the issue that some lifestyles have more environmental impact than others.

Nevertheless, Hungarians are certainly way ahead of us on sustainability even if they don’t know it. Yesterday I was struggling to write on the ONLY white board in one of my classrooms. As I mentioned before, the rest of my classrooms use chalk and wet rags. One student commented, I guess no one is refilling the markers. “What?” “Refill the markers, I used to do it for my school.” Incredible! I never heard that there were anything but throw away dry erase markers.

I’m putting this down with heating the water in the kitchen only when you need it, no pilot light on the gas stoves, air drying clothes and charging for plastic bags, all ways Hungarians conserve energy even though they don’t seem to be aware they are also doing a good thing. Sustainability seems to be driven by penuriousness and ignorance that the rest of the world doesn’t live this way. Good thing for us I guess.

I don’t think it is environmental awareness because given the choice they would all like to drive to work and do so if they can.

A special treat Friday, Zsuzsa called me and asked if I would like to go out to her open her lake place in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day and ABSOLUTELY nothing like the problems of opening up the cottage at Walloon.

It’s a simpler place just two rooms. Zsuzsa says these “dachas” a were a concession the socialist made to the Hungarians because they were no longer allowed to travel out of their small country. Like Walloon, families built together, Zsuzsa’s Aunt and Mother shared a common wall.

She bought some groceries and turned on the water. I don’t think I did anything more helpful than hold the ladder while she climbed down a hole with her special wrench.

I strolled around the neighborhood while Zsuzsa puttered around her place. It was great to get out of town. You can’t imagine how long it has been since I saw an empty field. The trip takes less than a hour and there are several picturesque villages on the way.

We stopped by a famous ice cream place and got pastry and coffee on the way back. We also stopped by statue park where they keep all the old communist statues. Unfortunately they were closing so I just got to peak over the fence. I’ll end with Stalin’s boots. They are really MUCH bigger than they look.