New Jobbaroni

Say goodbye to Tom everyone! ("Bye Tom!")

Despite Tom being my future husband who won't ever know it (I mean, really - tall, cute, nerdy and funny - is there a better description for my future spouse? I think not - stupid pesky "hungarian" thing getting in the way), I have moved on to another firm. It may be the best for our relationship - no worries about being found out around the office and such. One of my goals in life is to avoid being tawdry and really, an office affair would have tawdry written all over it. So I have moved on.

The new firm is a block up the street from the old firm. It adds maybe 2 minutes to my looooooooooong less than 10 minute walking commute. It's quite a bit fancier in the interior, unfortunately that means a less comfortable desk and desk chair (I'm seriously going to have to find a new chair - there's no way I'm sitting in a straight backed wooden chair full time for 3 weeks). Also, their coffee machine is woefully less fancy. I may have to drop in and say hi at the old firm just to take some coffee.

Oh, and I found my new future husband who won't ever know it. Probably the most gorgeous guy I've seen in Budapest so far AND he speaks english with an english/UK accent. Suh-woon. I literally blushed when talking to him today. That's bad news. I can't be blushing up in my workplace, that's inapprop. I think I'm going to ask him to tone down the hotness so I can get some work done.

This weekend was pretty mellow. On Saturday the director of the program invited the three of us left in B-town to a graduation party. Apparently the undergrads graduated on Saturday and there was a party for all the professors and deans. It was very sweet of him to invite us, but it's one of the most awkward things I've ever been to in my life. These professors could care less who I am and, to be honest, I could really care less who they are. Add in their not so great English and my non-existent Hungarian and it's a lot of nodding and "nice to meet you" and "oh, that's interesting, I did not know that." My one attempt at a more significant conversation with a Hungarian Constitutional scholar/prof ("what do you think of the proposed new constitution?") was met with a glare from the host. I know, I know, don't talk politics with strangers, but as I have no opinion and was just asking theirs I didn't think it would be that big of a deal. Apparently still a bit deal.

After a good dose of awkward washed down with a bigger dose of wine I headed to one of the most massive malls I've ever been to. It was huge. Massive. Gigantor. You get the hint. Notorious B-I-G big. Ok, I'm done. Just, it was big, and I want you to know that.

(They're playing Ricky Martin in the McDonald's right now, but it sounds weirdly dubbed in a different language, right music video, right music, wrong voice - just thought you should know that too).

I watched the new Twilight movie (shut up, it was one of the few movies that wasn't dubbed) then went on the hunt for a fan for my room. I smartly picked a hostel without air conditioning, which saves the buckaronis, but does not save me from sweating out a water bed at night. On the fan hunt (during which I texted Tom asking where I could buy a fan and received back "Probably this word has a meaning that I don't know. What kind of 'fan' would you like to buy? Not the kind that supports a team, right?") I ran across THIS AWESOMENESSS:



I literally gasped out loud when I saw it. I was so excited. Way, way more excited than I should have been, but it is the ONLY Starbucks in Budapest. I didn't think they had one at all.

I drank a delicious iced americano, found a fan and headed back to the hostel. I intended to clean up my room and put stuff away into drawers but instead I read and then fell asleep.

Sunday dawned bright and early with 10 chimes of the non-existent grandfather clock. I attempted to do some laundry and the kind of sort of laundrymat around the corner but the only english word these ladies knew was "tomorrow." (I went back "tomorrow," aka today, after having used the washer at my hostel and just needing the dryer and it turns out they also know "No" and "wash then dry only"). So instead I went to the two museums on either side of Heroes Square. The one on the right is useless - so glad they gave me the student discount because every single piece was a complete stretch. I must not be cultured enough. The museum on the left side was pretty awesome. They had some beautiful pieces. I really have no idea what else to write about a museum.

On to the excitement! Watching the world cup final in an Irish bar that was so insanely hot I never put down the menu because I was fanning myself with it. After 120 minutes of pretty much nothing but me sweating and drinking a Guinness, Spain scored a goal and put us all out of our misery.

Ok, fine, that wasn't exciting at all, but I ran out of writing steam and snark like 10 minutes ago but figured I needed to round out the weekend anyway. You're welcome!

The Entry Where I Wow You With My Delightful Genius

I've managed to pick up a bit of both German and Hungarian in the nearly 7 weeks I've been abroad. I would hope so ... being surrounded by a language for so long and not bothering to learn any of it would make me a pretty bad guest.

I managed to learn enough German to order food fairly well, but it basically consisted of me ordering, and the waiter writing it down. If they asked any follow up questions I was screwed. That's the hard part of trying to initiate conversation in a foreign language ... they continue in the foreign language and then you look like a jerk reverting back to english when the conversation gets more complicated. That rarely happened, though. My pronunciation is so bad they usually respond in english with any follow up.

Anyway, here is my mini German and Hungarian lesson for you. Print it out and take it with you if you ever go to Austria or Hungary and you'll be all set.

GERMAN:
Ich hitte gern ein groβ Märzen und ein frittatensuppe und ein käsespaetzle ohne zwiebel, bitta. (I would like a large Märzen [type of beer] and a soup with pancake slices and cheese dumplings without onion, please).

Ich hitte gern svei wasser ohne köhlensaure, bitta. (I would like two waters without gas, please).

Danke/dankeschön (thank you/thank you very much)
Bitte/bitteschön (you're welcome/you're welcome very much)

HUNGARIAN:
(This is way more basic because almost nothing in Hungarian sounds or looks similar to the equivalent english word, so it's much more difficult than German)
Igen (yes [eegan] - they often say it in a string of three or four)
Nem (no)
Jó (okay [yo])
szia (hello or goodbye)
köszönöm (Thank you [koh-soh-gnome]
Szívesen (You're welcome [see-va-shem])
egészségedre (Two uses: like bless you after someone sneezes or as a drinking cheers - it means "to your health" [egg-geh-sheh-geh-dreh)
szeretnék kérni (I would like ... [I haven't actually used this one yet, since Tom just wrote it down yesterday and I'm pretty sure I'm not pronouncing it even close to correctly])

Tom says my pronunciation is very good, so I'm pretty proud of myself. Though most of the time I feel like I'm in the middle of that SNL Nunni sketch - the one where two people who live in a weird apartment are both named Nunni. The normal people can't hear the slight differences and keep pronouncing their names wrong ("My name is Nunni." "Hi Nunni." "No, it's pronounced Nunni." "Sorry, Nunni." "No, Nunni" and on and on ...). The strange people likewise have difficulty pronouncing normal names ("Frank" turns into "Frwowude"). Man, this reference would be so much better if SNL didn't consistently take things off of YouTube and if I could access Hulu abroad. You'll have to suffer with my poor recount of a funny skit.

Ultimate lesson: learn "hello" and "thank you" in the language of wherever you are and you'll get places. Everyone is so delighted when I bust out some Hungarian.

Tom's Favorite Joke(s)

As promised, here's Tom's favorite joke (he says that it's his current favorite joke and he probably chose this one because it has an American theme):

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are sitting in a bar. A third man walks in, sees the President and Vice-President sitting there and approaches them, exclaiming "Wow! The President AND Vice-President here in my local bar! I can't believe it. I'm so honored to meet you both."

Bush replies "it's very nice to meet you too. Dick and I were just having an argument you might be able to help us with. See, we want to start a third world war and we're debating on how to get it started. I say we should kill 3,000,000 Arabs and one postman."

The man appears confused and says "Why one postman?"

Bush turns to Cheney and says "See, I told you no one cares about 3,000,000 Arabs."

______________________________________

You peeps are so lucky. Tom gave me TWO jokes for one measly joke of mine ( after which I apparently insulted him because I said I wasn't sure if he had heard of Superman, which was the punch line).

Joke #2:

The UN attempted to conduct a survey on various country's opinions of world food shortages. They sent out the following question: "Please tell us your opinion of the lack of food in the rest of the world." This survey failed because Western Europe didn't understand "lack," Eastern Europe didn't understand "please," China didn't understand "opinion," Africa didn't understand "food," and the United States didn't understand "the rest of the world."

Tom is obviously quite into political jokes.

Why Hello There

Work has become much better. Too good, in fact. I have so many projects that I had to request an extension on one of them. Hence, the lack of blog updating, which my friend, Arse, has not stopped bugging me about.

Arse asked me to include a dirty joke in my blog because he won't write one in his, but he really wants to link to one. I do not have a dirty joke. I do, however, have my coworker Tom's favorite joke.

Actually, I don't. I was going to ask him today at lunch, but he worked right through it so he could listen to the futbol/soccer game on his computer (he currently has his desk cleared of work and both his speakers and the screen pulled up towards him to watch the game - he's here and not in a bar because he still has to make billable hours). I will ask him on Monday and regale you with the hilarity. He's a pretty funny guy so I'm confident his favorite joke will also be funny. And maybe it will also be dirty and it will both entertain you and get Arse off my back. No pressure, Tom.

This is the last week that pretty much everyone other than Serious Man and Obnoxious Girl will be here, so we've been going big and not going home (until late). Well, it feels late, in reality it's about midnight, but I'm old and have to work the next day like a responsible adult!

On Wednesday night we went on a dinner cruise up the Danube and it was lovely and delicious. They served a bunch of traditional hungarian food that was pretty tasty. It's finally stopped raining, but on the downside it's become insanely hot. I can't decide which one I like less. Growing up in Southern California has definitely spoiled my range of comfortable temperatures.

On Tuesday we had drinks at the Four Seasons - it was so fancy and delightful! I'm obviously meant to spend lots of time in places like that. Along with the drinks they brought a tray full of olives, spicy almonds and mini cheese biscuits, which they refilled three times. I hadn't had lunch that day, so it was basically a free lunch with purchase of overpriced drink meal deal.

I would continue with the reverse chronology and tell you what we did on Monday, but I can't remember. I don't think it was very exciting. Oh! I do know that we saw the Amrican Embassy ... well, a conference room of the American embassy. Apparently most of the building is top secret. Not the world's greatest tour, but we did learn about a guy with a pretty awesome job in the foreign service - he basically is the american liason in Hungary for arts and entertainment (i.e., he helps out american artists who have shows in Hungary) and gets to attend pretty much all of the shows. I would want that job except for the living in a different foreign country every three years part. I like to travel, but I'd prefer to spend the majority of my time in the states.

You Take The Good, You Take The Bad

... you take them both, and there you have the facts of life.

That theme song popped into my head when I decided to write this post. It's pretty apropos ... well, the lyrics, not the show. No, wait, scratch that, it's a bit similar to the show too - learning to live with people you aren't related to in a new environment. Sure, it's a bit of a comparative stretch, but I think it can work if you want it to.

Ok, away from delightful 80's TV shows and back to Budapest ...

Yesterday was a pretty great day. I arrived to work at 10am. I met with the Big Boss Man for about 5 minutes and he sent me back downstairs after handing me his business card. I have a feeling I won't be seeing him again any time soon. Very typical partner maneuver of giving the new kid a "hello, welcome, good luck, see you later." I think the assistants thought he would be assigning me tasks, and he thinks they're assigning me tasks, so I yet again had nothing to do but surf the internet (which, coincidentally, is my non-task for today, hence the blog post).

I left at noon from work to join everyone else on their tour of the Hungarian Parliament:

(all images stolen from Wikipedia because I can't upload my pictures onto my work computer)

It's an incredibly gorgeous building and the inside is just as striking as the outside. Randomly, the Speaker of the House (and, it seemed, possible new President soonish?), just happened to be in the rotunda as we were being given a tour and since the director of the program on the Hungarian side is friends with him, we were able to meet him. Seemed like quite a nice guy.

THEN we got in a bit of trouble after the tour. See, there was a sign on the wall that seemed to say "restroom", so we followed it and actually found a restroom ... so three of us used it. When we exited we found the tour guide lady and a very large guard, arms crossed and shaking his head at us as if to say "How ridiculous that they just wandered off and used a restroom they weren't instructed to use, I can't believe someone would do that." There was a LOT communicated in that shake of his head. They quickly escorted us outside, with more shaking of the guard's head. The rest of the group had apparently put their lives on the line (not really) insisting that there were some of us still behind in the building and the group couldn't quite leave yet. Seriously, do not mess with the guards in the Hungarian Parliament building.

After that little adventure, we walked around a bit and went to St. Stephan's Basilica, where they, kind of creepily, have his right hand in a glass case in one of the side chapels. The church is gorgeous, as usual. I have yet to be in a church here that wasn't completely striking and awe inspiring (Hmm, I have to think that's somehow intentional ...). I think I've been in church more on this trip than I have in the last couple years (sorry mom and dad).

After St. Stephen's we went to a famous pastry and ice cream shop: Gerbaud. It was beautiful and DELICIOUS. All four of us had something different and they were all so, so good.

I think that's actually three of the items we ordered. I had the white one in the back - crushed walnuts with creme between layers of cake. Ah-may-zing.

I headed back after snack time becuase my work shoes were definitely not hiking-around-Budapest-sight-seeing shoes. Once everyone else got back we headed down to the Gellert baths. Hot baths in intricately tiled rooms and great company? Yes please! I'd go there every day if I could. Ok, that's a lie, I probably wouldn't, but it was still amazing and relaxing.

After we towelled off and changed we headed to dinner. We were just walking down a street with a bunch of restaurants and stumbled on this great Italian-Hungarian restaurant, Rustico. We're all already kind of over the heavy traditional eastern european cuisine, so we all ordered off the Italian side of the menu. It was seriously some of the best Italian food I've ever had. I'm not sure why this surprised me, since we're much closer to Italy here than in the states. I'll definitely be going back while I'm here. We split two bottles of wine, one a delicious Rose' and the other, the traditional "Bull's Blood." The name is disgusting, but is one of the most delicious red wines I've ever had. I want to bring a couple bottles back home.

Aaaaaaaaaand after that very long day we headed back home and crashed out. One of the best days of the trip, so far.

Budapest!

I know, I know. It's been a couple weeks since my last update. In my defense I've been in places with very poor internet access.

I'm currently blogging because I'm at my internship office and the boss is almost an hour late and they have no idea what to do with me. So here I sit browsing the internet until he arrives.

Budapest has been great so far, other than the sketch train station and the pushy cab drivers.

When we arrived on Saturday the leader of the program from here in Budapest had his assistant waiting for us. We thought she would just check us in and take off, but instead she drove us all around the city. We had our own private tour and it was amazing. I'll post pictures soon (since I'm on the office computer I don't have access to them).

I've now walked across the three southern bridges between Buda and Pest, have been up to the castle and museums, been to Hero's square and up and down Vac´i street, which is a main shopping street kind of like 5th Avenue, only not quite as ritzy. It's a pedestrian only zone so it's more of an outdoor mall.

Ok, I think the boss is almost here!

P.S. forgive any typos. The keyboard here is different and it underlines almost all words in red, so I have no idea which ones are actually misspelled and which are just non Hungarian and I don't have time to read closely.

Eek, Behind Already!

I haven't blogged for a few (several) days because 1) I've actually been out and about doing awesome stuff that I will tell you about and 2) Internet has been even more hard to come by than normal. I will do my best to catch up!

I think I'm going to save my blog on the alternative walk home from class for a bit later because there is way more exciting stuff to tell you about.

First up:
MELK MONASTERY & DURNSTEIN

On our first day as a group in Vienna a Colonel in the Army gave us a tour around Vienna to show us the sights. His job for the army is to be a historian so he knows pretty much everything you could possibly want to know about Austria and Vienna. He showed up to join us for dinner on Friday, May 28th and offered to take us in his VW bus/van on a day trip out to the countryside so we would have a chance to see more than just the city.

Five of us took him up on the offer, he picked us up the next morning at 10:30 and off we went:

(me, Alecia, Laurin)

First The Colonel took us to the Melk Monastery. The pictures of it on the Wikipedia are more gorgeous than any I took, but I'll do my best.

The inside square of the monestary:


The entire monastery was gorgeous. It's up on a hill overlooking the Danube with an adorable village at its base. The entire village is historic and picturesque. It's easily one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

From a window of the monastery down to the village:


Ceiling of one of the rooms:


The library was beautiful, but the nerd in me was so bummed that all of these gorgeous and ancient books were basically now decoration for tourists and were no longer read.


The beautiful church:


One of the strangest things I've ever seen. In each of the side alcoves there was a small display and area for people to pray to various saints. In this one there was a glass display case with the skeleton of an actual dead guy posing:


All of us in a gorgeous archway at the front of the monastery overlooking the river:


We hiked back to the parking lot, climbed in the van, The Colonel turned the ignition and the van wouldn't start! Luckily we were on an incline and, since it was a stickshift VW, we were able to roll it back and start it up on the roll.

We took a small road along the road through several adorable villages with cobblestone streets that just barely fit a car to Durnstein.


Me and the vineyards that were stoked to get a picture with me.

Walking through the town:


The ruins of the castle on the hill:


And the famous church tower. Apparently there's some scandal that it was painted blue. For a century it was yellow (which was referred to when used in other places as Durnstein Yellow), but when they did some repair work they found out the original color was blue and restored it to the blue. The villagers were pissed, but at least it's now accurate:


And AGAIN VW Bus refused to start and again we started it by pushing it down a slight incline. Say hello to adventurebus:


Coming up: Parliament and my birthday, Prague & Bratislava.