The Last Day in Hungary and Trip reflections

LAST REAL DAY IN EUROPE

There's a good saying out there: Fish and guests start to smell after three days. I suspect it is a good time to go home. Not because of the Nagy family—they are wonderful, but I think Eurotrip plus my presence has disrupted my daughter's wa (I wonder what the Hungarian word for this is??) and that she needs to get back into a routine for her last month here—of course, I say that and she's heading with me to Budapest because she is on her way to her final big Rotary function this weekend.

This is Bozda (Elderberry).  She's a 7-8yr old beagle.  She quickly learned to like me because I'm a sucker for belly rubbing.

L-R: Brigitta, Bozda, Blanka, Tamas (unaware I was taking a photo!), Eva

Same people--but Tamas knows!

Do Hungarians have a term for 'chillaxin''?

Different light setting for the camera :)

This is Gabor (who helped take the photos).  He didn't believe I'd actually use his selfie.  Tsk, tsk, tsk.

 

We packed this morning—putting as many of her clothes as advisable in my duffel bag. The question is—did it go over the 50lb limit? I don't think so, but lugging that all over Hungary sucks. I can only imagine what life is like for soldiers wearing about 30lbs of armor, a 50lb pack, and a weapon, etc...ugh. After we were packed, Brigitte's host-father, Tamas, took us to a Hungarian buffet. It's a little different than an American one—you reuse your plate, there are fewer items, the desserts are in the middle (you work your way from either end towards the middle), and there are NO drinks. I didn't see anyone in the buffet with a drink. Tamas asked me to try a ton of stuff, but I don't remember many of their names. I had some ground fish and vegetables, fried in a ball—reminding me of the sauerkraut balls I eat once/year at Origins; I had the Hungarian version of wiener schnitzel, served with breaded/fried broccoli. I had a noodle and ham dish and then a repeat of the noodle dish Eva made my first night in Debrecen, though the restaurant's was nowhere, nowhere, near as good. Hungarians like to put rum in their chocolate, so my brownie tasted like rum (bleh) and I had a couple pieces of cake, but they were very dry—not good at all. Tamas said this is a problem with a lot of baking all over Hungary.

When that was done, Brigitte and I went to see her school.

(Compared to Erick's this is state-of-the-art.  Erick's school in Poland was a Communist Fuhrerbunker style building--no windows, no escape)

We couldn't go in because they were doing the senior exams which will determine which colleges students are permitted to attend next fall. They can only go to one which invites them, so these exams are as important as the Deutsches Abitur!! So, instead, I got to meet several of Brigitte's friends.

(The one on the far right is from Italy/AFS)

Two were AFS students from Argentina and Italy but they had class so they could only stay for a moment. The other three were Rotary kids—one from Brazil, one from Mexico, and the Australian from Day One. The Aussie came in January, so she has a long time left in-country while the other two leave the same day Brigitte does, so even though many Rotary students are already leaving, she'll have friends here until she leaves. We went to a place called Yummy!! --it serves frozen yogurt with weird art including a sign saying “Steam Punk Love”...o-kayyyy.  And just as you'd expect—they all act like teenage girls. It's good to see Brigitte in a natural habitat, to know she's doing well. Dads worry. She doesn't understand that though.

                                                L-R: Brigitte, Brazil, Mexico, Australia

When that finished, we got our stuff, left a thank you present for Tamas and Eva, and took a bus to the train station where we boarded a very crowded Inter-City train for Budapest.  We checked in to the hotel, then went to a restaurant called Season's.  It was very good.  Brigitte was even impressed that the Hungarian dishes were actually made the right way rather than for "Budapest tourists".  We had a sausage platter as an appetizer, then she had lecszo--which is basically Hungarian chili--it was very good.  I had a steak pasta with corn, baby tomatoes, and parsley which we washed down with lemonade infused (that's the right word of they put actual fruit pieces in, right?) with orange and lime.  The waiter was great--and Brigitte had a long conversation with him in Hungarian (he didn't switch to English like many Europeans do if their native tongue isn't spoken perfectly)--turns out he lived in Kansas for a year.  He then switched to English to include me and asked what I'd liked, etc--and then offered us a small sifter's worth of peach palinka.  Brigitte is legal age now in Hungary, but I could tell it was weird drinking 'hard alcohol' with her dad.  It was quite tasty--limited alcohol burn and a lot of peach taste.  Dang, when did she grow up and become old enough she could enjoy a night out like that with her father??? Sigh.

 

This is back at the hotel.  Hungarian is definitely a rough language, so now I have two children who have learned insane languages (Erick knows Polish).

 





At 3am, we left for the airport.  Budapest's downtown is a bit hard to navigate at night without having an east-west reference from the sun, so we accidentally went the wrong way on a bus!  Brigitte caught the error pretty quickly, and so we were back on the right track.  Unfortunately, we missed the connecting bus (ARGH!) by about two minutes--so we had to take the last eight kilometers by taxi ($20--5000 forints).  And then...goodbye.

 

I was unsuccessful avoiding tears, even with her logical comment, "Dad, I'll be home in a month".  But it's my little girl, the one who used to sit on my lap, the one who used to ride on my shoulders--and here I was, leaving her to use public transit in a city of 500,000+ to head back to a hotel before taking a train somewhere else to take another train to a Hungarian Rotary conference.  It's rough as a parent to realize that at a practical level, you are no longer needed.  I don't have a little girl anymore.  I have a young woman.

REFLECTIONS

Odd things pop to mind with Hungary, differences with what I am used to or what I remember about Erick's time in Poland. Please realize, these are not really meant to be judgmental Europe is a very different place than I'm used to in the central US. So in no particular order....

Perception of America: I hadn't realized it, but Rotary International is incredibly unfair. Students studying in the US are permitted a tour of America. They can choose from the US East Coast, the West Coast, or they can go to Hawaii. Notice there's no Midwest? Yeah, me, too. So Rotary treats the Midwest as 'flyover country'. And that's too bad—because the image Rotary exchange students get is that there's nothing worthwhile in the US Midwest, but when I talked with Blanka and Gabor (her boyfriend), they said “That sounds like Hungary!”--what better way to show America than the size of a farm, to go to a state fair, see the big, cool Midwest cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans? Sigh.

Hungarian food: It's tasty, but everything is flavored with sour cream, fat of any sort, or for desserts a ton of chocolate and sugar. It was a bit much for me over four days. There's really no way to describe it without trying it. The best were Eva's pogotchka (amazing awesome cheese biscuits that aren't biscuits) and a chicken wrapped in bacon dish she seasons with paprika. Brigitte also says there are a bunch of Hungarian terms for discussing how fat meat is—it tells you something about their history and what was necessary in the old days for them to get through lean years or cold seasons, but only one word that defines anything baked as dessert (so 'cake' is the same as 'cookie' or 'danish').

Paternalistic: Men are always right. Hungary is very paternalistic and it took several men aback when Brigitte did all the talking rather than me. Worse, when she paid the bill. You could see them thinking, “This is outrageous!” If there's a bright side to it, it is that men will go out of their way to offer polite greetings to women or hold doors for them.

Prostitutes: We saw a couple on our road trip with Eva. They sit in the little turnoff/rest areas and wait for men to pull in then they get their transaction. The man drives off and that's it. It's the ONLY drive-thru service I saw in all of Europe.

Fashion—I don't understand European fashion. Or maybe I do, in which case I don't understand American fashion. In Hungary, women will wear stockings 98% of the time with a skirt or dress—even in open toed shoes or with sandals. Everyone wears skin tight clothes. Brigitte said that's how we could be spotted as Americans—because I'm wearing comfortable pants. That's the thing—everyone wears skin tight pants even if they are not a good look for them—because, by God they like them and what other people think be damned. That's why I like it—all Europeans are willing to do their own thing—within countries, between countries, creating a giant mosh of people to watch. Americans though, Americans talk about individuality, yet take great pains to look alike and follow the latest trends. So Europeans are conformists who then try and look individual while Americans are individualists desperately seeking to conform. Right.

How tiring it is trying to understand a foreign language: I have no idea how exchange students do it for 10+ months. I'm exhausted listening to multiple languages and it has been just one week of time, and the energy necessary to comprehend and learn the most basic words—ugh, my brain hurts, and yet, here you have kids from all over the world in Hungary, learning Hungarian (Magyar) and often bits of the home languages of the other students they meet. It. Is. Draining. Respect kids who used a study-abroad experience for the right reasons. They are amazing and will do great things in life.

Proud of Brigitte: I tell her this, but she looks at me weird. I tell her I worry about her—again, a weird look. Ahh, the joys of being a teen (she hates hearing that, too—and I remember at that age, it's hard to realize your parents have lived that age and understand some things about it). But she left the US in August of 2014, flew across the Atlantic, landed in a country where she didn't know the language, and in ten months, she's learned one of the world's toughest languages, learned how to navigate mass transit in a dozen countries, met people from twenty or more countries, and along with the language, learned the culture as well—give her another year in Hungary and she could pass for being local. That ain't half bad.

Everyone uses parks: I grew up in a big urban area (250,000ish). Few people use parks. In many cities, parks are where trouble takes place. I know, I can name places where that isn't true also—but in Europe, whether Frankfurt, Budapest, Debrecen—everyone uses parks for picnics, to talk, play chess, train dogs. They remain open community areas which are (generally speaking) well taken care of. Heck—in Debrecen, the stadium for the pro soccer team (five time national champs) has ramps around it that serve as running track for joggers—open for public use.

Smoke on the water, in the air, on the ground...: I think the only thing I would change in Hungary is the rules on smoking. Dear God do a ton of people smoke. I'm thankful Brigitte's host family does not. She said that because of the prevalence of smokers, quite a few exchange students picked up the habit. Given the number of dead in my family from lung issues---I'm thankful this isn't an issue for us with her imminent return. Of course, people smoke because they are cheap. If I read things right, a pack of cigarettes is about 250 forint—90 cents. Compare that to the $7-8 prices in the US.

Toilets: I love the two buttons—that makes total sense. The problem is the lack of public restrooms. I understand there's a cost, but still—put bathrooms out there, at least once every couple hundred kilometers! I hate going without drinking anything all day and getting dehydrated simply because there won't be any toilets to use.

Lack of physical affection shown: I was surprised by the lack of physical affection in Hungary, especially as that was an opposite of Poland. It's obviously a cultural thing and I shouldn't be that surprised. After all, my own father's side of the family never showed physical affection. I prefer the other side of things—hug people, kiss them, touch them, especially at home (I'm not a big PDA fan).

AC power conversion: It was interesting to note that some homes and business buildings have DC->AC converter units in them. I don't think I'd realized that the old Soviet-bloc nations ran on direct current. It does explain some of the wiring and rewiring though.

Hungarian door locks: I love a bunch of these—on old doors, they still use the big classic skeleton key type keys, even for some houses and regular businesses. Sure, they are more unwieldy than 'normal' size house keys, but they look wayyyy cooler.

Outside window shutters: Both Germany and Hungary featured outside shutters you could move up or down from inside—as if operating indoor blinds. These were cool and I wish we had them in the US. They'd be great for keeping snow/wind away from windows, and in summer, could be closed to prevent Kaiju and Jaeger from 'protecting' our house from blowing trash or stationary basketballs.

I'm sure there are more...that is the beauty of visiting different cultures.  There are billions upon billions of ways to get through life.  Learning about them all is a great thing.