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One of the teachers in my office Aniko, took me on my first library outing last Friday. We took the bus and the metro to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences where her friend Hedvig Kuselits is one of the catalogers. I also met the “boss” and she had an office full of book trucks and appeared to be cataloging also. Hedvig normally has three people in her office. It was my impression that they are all cataloging books but I should have clarified that. It is one of those things I didn’t think to ask.

Hedvig speaks English very well. She had an undergraduate degree in chemistry and when she lost her job in the chemistry she got her library degree. Obviously she is perfectly suited as a science cataloger. Hedvig showed me how she was cataloging the English language memoir of a British photographer. The Academy of Sciences seems to interpret science very broadly so someone of minor importance to the history of photography fits into the collection. Hedvig used a site called the European Library to look-up her book and then used Cyber Dewey to help her come up with the library’s unique call number. She also added language codes and she read enough of the book to decide to classify it as a memoir not just a book on the photographers unique contributions to the field. Now that is real cataloging.

The reading room in the library was fantastic, beautiful dark old wood, green glass reading lamps on each desk and only the occasional plug for a laptop but I did see a few. There were at least three staff members behind the reference desk. I have no idea what they were doing but they all looked busy doing something. The library has a collection of two and 1/2 million books but most are kept either in storage on a lower floor or off site. In other words, this is a closed stack library except for the reference collection and current periodicals. The reference collection was up-to-date and in pristine condition. The library had a room devoted to the old card catalog also polished dark wood in beautiful condition. Like our libraries the old catalog was closed in 1986 and they had a table full of OPACs for the new catalog. There were quite a number of old professors and students reading books and taking notes in pencil of course. I saw one or two laptops.

As is common in Hungary there was a system with three sets of electronic numbers above the desk. You request a book and when it comes your number is lit up although I’m under the impression it may take hours or even days for your book to come. Once your book comes they keep it in a locker on site for you. Only a few privileged scholars are allowed to actually check books out of the library. You can use the library for day for Ft 500 about $3.85 or buy an Academy of Science membership. As Hedvig said for the price of a movie you could amuse yourself all day reading. They did subscribe to the New York Review of Books which I think costs more to buy than the day fee. Besides cataloging, Hedvig works an occasional Saturday at the Reference Desk in the reading room.

We visited the auditorium where they sometimes have lectures and concerts.

We also visited the Academy of Science Oriental Collection which is another special collection of books in a specially designed room in the same building. The academy of Sciences also has an art collection. A young man on duty with an excellent English and a very quiet library whisper described the room and it’s contents to me.

There are also four rooms of paintings mostly portraits of famous Hungarian men of arts and letters who were founding members of the Academy of Sciences. Annico explained a bit about the men pictured to me. The only ones that were familiar names have metro stops named in their honor. One other item of note, Hedvig has one of the most beautiful views of the Danube from her office that I have seen. Since when did they give catalogers this kind of view?

Our building has at least two coffee machines that make about 8 different varieties of instant Nescafe espresso We also have Sodexho here just like at Spokane Falls but I haven’t seen anyone making individual lattes around our campus. I notice way more students getting coffee from the building coffee machine than from the lady who pours espresso from a pitcher into a cup. It is quite a bit cheaper 43 cents from the machine versus $1.19 from the lady with the pitcher. Unfortunately to me the machine coffee tastes like pretty much like instant espresso coffee.

The campus restaurant also features coffee from a coin-op machine which struck me as a little odd for a place with tablecloths and vases of pussywillows on the tables.

I’m puzzled over is if you would pay for really fresh orange juice and not want freshly made coffee as well?

I was preparing a slide show of my neighborhood and also my visit to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Libraries but this seems more timely. I even found a short film clip from the news which includes a video of what we experienced and another protest we missed. It is almost as good as being here except unfortunately for you no sausage and beer with it. To begin at the beginning, after being warned by Zsusza and others not to go out of my neighborhood or anywhere interesting on this national holiday, the 160th anniversary of the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1848. I was suprised when Zsuzsa called me & arranged for me to meet her near the National Museum. I took the bus across the bridge to downtown which was really neat because the Elizabeth Bridge and the Szechenyi Bridge were both closed to cars.

We started at the National Museum where activities had just ended but a band was playing national songs that sound like a less energetic version of John Phillip Sousa marches. We wandered to the poet of the revolution Sandor Petofi’s statue is and then to an area where you could hear the mayor’s speech. There were also activities like a horse guard demonstration, clowns on stilts, many Hungarian crafts for sale and of course beer and sausage.

I’ve never felt so safe, the security guards were big and numerous.

The protesters tried to break-up the Mayor of Budapest’s speech. Rather than cutting it short he went on and on. Zsuzsa says- “More like an American than a Hungarian.” I wasn’t bored, between listening to the rioters whistles and jeers and watching the security guards run around in their riot gear there was always something going on. We really couldn’t see anything described in the news article just the mayor’s supporters who seemed to be unfurling more and more Hungarian and Budapest flags as the speech went on. I’m sure it was a select crowd of supporters and friends. We observed this from our little area set aside for festivities surrounded by a temporary fence and a security guard every two feet or so. They only allowed in the people who weren’t protesters. Zsuzsa just had to taunt the protesters as we entered. It’s a very Hungarian thing to do and only in Hungry could you drink a beer surrounded by guards while you watch a protesters try to cause a riot at a political event or so it seemed to us.

Zsuzsa started laughing when the protesters shouted en mass. Her translation was “Impeach everyone!” Sorry I didn’t get any really exciting pictures but I’ll attach my slideshow.

The video in the news seemed more real than being there.

Guess I should mention the rest of the pictures are from the family activities on the blocked off Szechenyi bridge. Kids had to participate in singing the revolutionary song, reciting the poem, hearing about the printing press, for some reason race to pile up a rope and so on to get their revolution passport stamped.

Since I’ve been down with a cold I’ll catch-up with last weekends’ tourism. I went to the Hungarian National Museum. This is the history of Hungary from the Roman stones they’ve excavated to Hungary in the 1990’s. I must admit I skipped the stones this trip. I went right to the top floor for the history from the 11^th to 20^th century. There was a paragraph or two in each room in English the artifacts were all labeled in Hungarian. The weather out was terrible so I planned to spend Saturday afternoon and I did.

One of the most fascinating things was the “Hungarian take” on their history. Zsuzsa had already explained to me that ANYTHING invented by someone who lived Hungary at any time in his or her life is a Hungarian invention. Who knew that Hungarians invented the atom bomb? Well they did according to the National Museum.

I bet you weren’t even aware the Hungarian U.S. Congressman recently died. Wait a minute; how can we have a Hungarian congressman? Well according the front page news here the famous Hungarian congressman Tom Lantos AKA Lantos Tamás Péter recently passed away after an extended 61 year stay in his second home in the U.S.

Other more interesting viewpoints were based on the fact that Hungary is a flat country and everyone marches through Hungary to get to somewhere else. Sometimes the conquering army is on its way to Europe(Turks) and sometimes it’s on the way to Russia (Napoleon) or other points east but they always come through Hungary. This phenomenon is blamed for both World War I and WWII along with having a knack for always having alliances with the wrong side. This is always blamed on Austria as in Austria-Hungary alliance.

Pictures and posters about the post WWI dismemberment of Hungary were quite interesting. I can tell you the Hungarians are still bitter about the Treaty of Trianon after WWI. I mean students age 26 in my language class lectured me on how Bratislava should be their capitol or something. These people speak Hungarian but they were taken away.

The Jewish deportation during WWII was the story of Raoul Wallenberg and many other brave Hungarians who hid Jews. All indications are that Raoul Wallenberg was Hungarian too.

I really like the 1956 and 1989 pictures and posters. They really didn’t need much translation. If you need one the Soviet tank is beating down the Hungarians in 1956 and when thet were trying to get the Russians out they cut the center which had a soviet imposed medallion out of the center of the flag. I assume this 1989 picture is the back of a Russian.

I wasn’t tired yet but the weather was awful so I took the subway two stops west to see where I would land. To my surprise I came out behind the Parliament building. I just started walking and ended up at a park I later found out was Martyrs’ Square (Vertanuk tere) commemorating the 13 Hungarain generals executed after the 1848 revolution. Of course I had NO idea what it was but the man in the statue on the bridge looked very familiar. It’s Imre Nagy who was executed after the 1956 uprising. A nearby park has the only Red Star memorial to the Soviets left in Budapest. I can’t seem to find my picture of it so I will have to go back and take it again.

Take a close look at the picture you will see they are still leaving flowers. We certainly don’t have a history like this in the U.S.

Luckily so far I’ve only experienced toothpaste tourism. A big mistake I made was buying herbal Colgate toothpaste at the PLUS discount grocery store. Who ever thought that chamomile, sage and eucalyptus would make a good flavor combination. I must have bought it because it was a familiar brand and I think the only label in English I saw that day.

My teeth seemed a little sensitive but I think it’s from drinking too much orange juice because I have a cold. With luck I won’t have to experience any of this while I’m here. I believe I have located a tube of Sensodyne toothpaste. At least it has a word close to that on the tube and is in the toothpaste section of the store.

The inciDENTAL tourist

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

In Hungary and other Eastern European countries, dental tourism is putting a twist into the trend. Here in Mosonmagyarovar (moshon-mag-yah-RO-var), brass plaques and molar-shaped signs bearing easy-to-grasp names like “Eurodent” and “Happy Dent” line the streets along a central shopping district. Some clinics take up a full block; smaller practices are tucked inside hotels, above gift shops or beside casinos.

With the fall of the dollar I don’t think they will be seeing many more U.S. tourists.

 Our building has added two new machines. We have the usual coke, candy and coffee machines.  I’ll say more on coffee later.  What was added is taking the food machine to an entirely new level as far as I am concerned. We have added a french fry machine and a fresh orange juice maker.  Zsuzsa & I were interested in trying out this new technology.  I’d call the french fry machine a failure in taste but of some technical interest. Put in your ft280($1.63) or ft300 ($1.76) for your choice of ketchup, mustard or mayonnaise on your fries. First a little light comes on and warns you that any change due will come out at the end of the process. (This fry machine works in your choice of any of 4 different languages.) Next a small sealed cardboard box slides down a chute on the left inside of the machine. In the box are a neatly flolded napkin and a plastic fork that is just a little bigger than a toothpick. This gives you something to open and play with while you wait. It seemed like heating french fries takes quite a while, at least one or maybe two full minutes. My french fries were mechanically placed, not tossed or slid, in a little paper bucket which I removed from a door, different from the chute that the napkin came down. My fries were extremely HOT. The only problem was no salt and no taste so they weren’t particularly good fries but they were VERY HOT and my change then tumbled down the money slot. I suppose taste is partially my fault.  I’m not a big ketchup fan so I probably should have paid the extra ft20 and tryed mustard or mayoinaise fries.  I think a good fry will taste good in the nude or with a little salt. 

The really great machine is the fresh orange juice machine. You watch an orange drop and get sliced by a sharp blade and it is instantly cut in half and two cupped circles hold the orange halves and then turn them over and stomp on them. This process is repeated three times I think. The last orange that drops isn’t yours. It is caught by the two cups and sits poised ready to be sliced by the blade for the next customer. The juice is good and just the right amount of pulpy for me.

This machine definitely deserves to be located in a technical university and perhaps the Vending Machine Hall of Fame. Cost for a glass of fresh orange juice is ft290 ($1.70) at the time of this writing.  Our dollar is sinking daily.  

Yesterday in my Intermediate Communications class the lesson suggested that the students give a little speech to their former secondary school class suggesting why the high school students should or should not consider attending this university. I had absolutely NO IDEA what to expect. I don’t know if our students love it or hate it here. One student mentioned that there are lots of pubs around the university and you can have a good time. I doubt that you would actually mention this in a speech to your secondary school but that was the sort of thing that I might have expected a student to comment on to younger students. I must have gotten a worried look on my face when two of the students said: “BME is the best university to go to because we have our own nuclear reactor for students to practice with, on campus.” I think the third student to mention the nuclear reactor must have looked at my increasingly worried face because he said: “The students don’t really use any materials that are actually nuclear; it’s just for practice.” I think I need to make further inquiries.

Things always go so much better when Zsuzsa leads the tour. Last Sunday she took me to Margaret Island.

I’ve just finished reading the history of King Bela IV 1235-1270. The tourist story goes like this: Hungary was attacked by the Mongols and King Bela promised God if Hungary was saved he would sacrifice his daughter to God. According to the history I just read Bela actually lost the war. Europe was saved because the head Mongol took his Mongol Hordes and went home. There was a death in the family and he needed to make sure he didn’t lose his place in the line of succession. The outcome was King Bela sent his 4 year old daughter to the nuns and eventually built her, her very own convent on the island in the middle of the Danube. She died at the age of 29 after leading a chaste, contemplative life, and refusing to allow her father to call the whole thing off and use her for some marriage diplomacy. Dying young in a convent reminds me of Galileo’s Daughter. For her sacrifice she was made a saint and got an island named after her. Not a bad deal really.

Because the temperature Sunday was almost 60 degrees after the previous miserable weekend, Margaret’s Island was a phenomena. The island was invaded by hordes of Hungarians enjoying the beautiful weather.

There is a Centenary Monument commemorating the joining of Buda, Obuda and Pest. Other highlights are ancient monastery ruins, a water tower in the middle of an outdoor theater and two fancy hotels. They are really proud of the swimming pool which was built by Alfred Hajos an 1896 Olympic swimmer. I understand the Pan-European games are held there but my swimmer sister will have to weigh in on whether is a suitable 21^st century facility. I didn’t get close enough to get pictures.

The island reminds me of a giant Manito Park with a rose garden, Japanese Garden and small zoo. There is something for everyone and there were LOTS of people. They have a bike track around the island and I understand they will run you over if you get in their way.

We walked the length of the island, went over the bridge and looked at Obuda which is the oldest part of Budapest but was ruined by the “socialist.” I’ve been told not to call them Communist. It is a little confusing because the Socialist party is part of the government now. How about the Russian influenced Socialist. Politics is even more confusing because the present Socialist Party is busy trying to sell off the public companies and trying to privatize health care. By the way the companies for sale are the electric power company and the Post Office both of which are making lots of money. 

We ended with great dinner at a Turkish cafeteria and a beer at an historic pub. I took the No. 6 tram home and it never strayed from the route but I would swear it was NOT the same route it took Saturday.  Very short slide show.