Janlw's Weblog

I found the links for the art exhibits you all won’t get to see because they are leaving soon.

One fairly efficient aspect of the bureaucracy was getting my medical clearance. I guess you have to be healthy enough to teach although now that they’ve got me over here are they going to consider sending me back? Anyway the day before school started I was told not to eat anything because I had a medical exam at 10am. When we arrived for the appointment the doctor was out. It was explained that he has a general practice and was called away by one of his patients. Zsuzsa did a proper huff and it was decided I could have some breakfast & come back.

We had a lot of time & I observed that the office was full of big paper file drawers, 24 drawers. I noticed they were arranged by year of the patient’s birth. Only one drawer for 1986+ but several drawers devoted to the 1920’s. That’s optimistic isn’t it?

The appointment struck me as really funny. Zsuzsa filled out my medical information the questions were pretty standard but when it came to “Do you drink alcohol? “Igen“with multiple choices. I said – bor(wine) and sor(beer) Zsuzsa was very pleased. “I didn’t know you drank beer- Do you want to go out to a pub tonight?”

Back to the doctor, when we got in, he asked if I had brought enough asthma medicine. I told him I hoped so. I think there was a debate or discussion on how to spell asthma & sulfa drugs (I’m allergic to) in Hungarian. He looked-up something in his medical dictionary. He took my blood pressure and told me to take off my shirt so he could listen to my chest. So there I was with my slightly holey undershirt. It was clean at least. My thought had been to pack an undershirt I could discard when I left, one less thing to carry home. I wasn’t expecting to have three people looking at me in it but there I was with Zsuzsa, the nurse and the doctor in my worn out undershirt. Next, Zsuzsa asked him to write a prescription for an ointment she needed. So the doctor took her blood pressure and listened to her chest. If she has any blood pressure problems they are probably due to the hassle of dealing with me. In the middle of our exams his cell phone rang then his desk phone rang. He talked for a very long time. Meanwhile the nurse was on the computer doing something that didn’t seem at all related at least she wasn’t playing tetras or anything.

I asked Zsuzsa what the long call was about and she said one of his patients called & said she had fainted & wanted to know what to do. The doctor told her she should go to the hospital. Apparently she didn’t like that idea and there was quite a bit of discussion. I got a piece of paper officially stamped which I took to the Modern Language Department office. Zsusza got her prescription. I found the whole thing incredibly Mickey Mouse but Zsuzsa commented that it was quite efficient. We both got the papers we needed and the lady who fainted got some good advice and the whole thing was done before noon less than two hours after our original appointment. I guess as far as dealing with bureaucracy goes this wasn’t bad. Besides that I had a really delicious dinner at the pub that night.

I will have my tax id number next week. My first bureaucratic success if I can find my way back there & if they have it. I may pick-up my number in a week OR wait until MAY for it to come in the mail. H-m-m-m, I wonder what I should do.

I got my first electric bill Friday. Some things are VERY efficient. It’s about $25.00 for my first two weeks.

I went to the National Gallery Sunday. Lot’s of art and two special exhibits. I got trapped in the castle leaving and came out the wrong direction. As is now usual for me I ended up wandering around in the dark trying to find my tram stop. I did succeed and got home safely. I will attach pictures and something about the exhibit later.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Janwingen/BudapestCastle

I really liked the Vaszaray exhibit http://www.mng.hu/vaszary/vasary_hun.html

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Riding the bus with a bus pass as I do is the easiest thing in the world. You don’t do anything but get on the bus. There are very rare and random bus inspectors who check passes. I got quite excited when I saw my first inspector. I haven’t seen one since. She was dressed like any other little old lady but was wearing an id clipped to her coat. I didn’t actually spot her until all the passengers around me started pulling out their passes & I did likewise. I guess if you get caught she writes you a ticket. She seemed a cheerful little lady. She waved as she got off and hopped on a tram. Might be an interesting job just riding around the city on random busses and trams all day. Zsuzsa thinks it is a ridiculous system. She says they estimate one out of 8 passengers is riding for free.

I bought a copy of the Budapest Sun an English language weekly. One of the front page articles was bemoaning that a number homeless whom refuse to sleep in the shelters. All the politicians would like to get them off the streets and there are adequate beds but many would rather sleep on the street. Zsuzsa and I ran into a mass feeding of the homeless on the street. They seemed to be feeding them rice with a sauce or gravey of some type and hot apple juice, unless it was something stronger.

The homeless I’ve seem are a little more industrious than Spokane’s homeless. One guy on a busy traffic circle was trying to sell a paper. He approached our car and my understanding is that he told Zsuzsa he needed money for a beer. She liked that he had a more direct approach and started to give him some small change. She said he complained that he needed more than she was giving so she got mad & gave him nothing.

Before I forget I thought I better write about those things that strike me as being the very different and a few things that are the same.

Fur, they wear a lot of it, I even saw a woman wearing one of those little minks with the head & claws on like my grandmother used to wear for special occasions. Most of the fur is trim on coats but occasionally you see full fur coats worn on weekdays, no special occasion. One reason for the popularity of fur might be the cold. Although the paper reports temperatures with 30 as the night time low and low 40’s for the daytime highs it seems really cold to me. Maybe that explains why everyone wears a scarf and hat also the older women still wear those felt hats if there not wearing a fur hat.

Children under age six all have one piece snowsuits on with cute little knit hats tied on. I can’t think that I have seen a single young child without full snowsuits and tied on hat but hey I’m cold too. I associate these full body suits with skiing and snowboarding but hey I’m cold too. I wish I had one.

Speaking of fashion square toed shoes are the thing here for both men and women. It’s sort of a stereotype thinking of eastern Europeans in square toed shoes and it’s true. Me with my clunky rounded toes, I imagine I stick out but I’m not changing. My toes aren’t formed square. I imagine it’s like the Chinese foot binding if you grow up with square toed shoes all your life they probably fit.

Today I saw my very first recycling bins but don’t even think of going to the grocery store without your plastic bag. Everyone carries them and you pack your own groceries. They sell them to you in the store for 10 forints (6 cents) or more if you want a plastic bag that will actually hold two days worth of groceries. This has created a culture of reused bags yet they don’t seem to have any other commitment to recycling. There are zillions of mineral water bottles in the trash.

Pencils have no erasers. Everyone has red and blue and just the occasional regular lead pencil on their desks. None of them have erasers. The school gave me a small bag of supplies to start school with: four highlighters, a blue book with graft type paper which I assume is intended to be my grade book, a large pad of scrap paper, sticky notes, a pen, a pencil and a separate eraser. Why?? The Hungarians also lack rubber bands and plastic wrap.

Some things that are about the same.

Zsuzsa says the weather report says snow may come anytime but after a week of her  saying that there hasn’t been a flake. Just like home the weather report is wrong.

Even though park space is small, I thought I saw a dog park yesterday. I asked Zsuzsa about it and she said yes that there are dog parks. “They tried having a park just for children AND dogs but it didn’t work out so they have parks just for dogs.” In a very small playground I also saw an official sign that said “Dog WC” in one corner. Yuck! I  guess the plastic bags are too precious  to use  for  poop scoops.