November 5th, 2008
As I was walking back to my apartment today (yes, I actually wrote a blog post the day something happened!), tired from staying up most of the night to watch Obama secure victory in the US Presidential Election, and from going to Probability Theory and Mathematical Problem Solving immediately afterwards, I noticed that an official looking note had found itself stuffed into the crack in my front door.
It said many things on it, and here are some of the words I understood: Budapestian, Electricity (assuming that Elektromos means something along those lines), how, 2008, year, October (why was October written in here? This I still don’t understand), You (formal), we want you, together the, you are welcome, Sometimes, They, weather point (time point?), no, on the telephone number, Telephone Operator, just, from the telephone, Internetness, and online . I also understood some of the handwriting to say things like “number” and “hour.”
Needless to say, I did not have the resources to translate this myself. Of course, I have encountered similar such things in the United States, and I know one thing–most of this stuff is not understandable in its own language, let alone the shoddy Google translator of my brain. So, unfortunately, this thing was deemed important enough for me to set my things down and go back to school, armed with a pen, paper, and the little letter from Budapesti Elektromos Muvek Nyrt. (more…)
Budapest Hungarian Hungary Living Abroad 6 Comments
October 3rd, 2008
Note: This all happened a couple of weeks ago, so I’m sorry about the delay.
I came back from a three day visit to Zagreb on Monday. Far too many ridiculous things happened on that occasion, that I figured I had to convey some of them to my neighbor, Alex. After my first conversation with him, I have found myself thinking up a couple of sentences in Hungarian to say to him as I go off to school or to hang out with my friends. My limited repository of Hungarian verbs and nouns, mixed with a rudimentary understanding of the overly complex noun declension system, causes much of what I tell him to hold bizarre double meanings. I try to clear things up by doing some motions along with them. For example, while I may say “My teeth; Frisbee with my friends,” my motions indicate that I merely misconjugated the future tense (note: teeth, tooth, grab, and will/shall are all the same word in Hungarian).
Zagreb provided many interesting phrases for me to try out, such as “In Zagreb, I was in TV,” “In Zagreb I looked football; Dinamo, Haiduk.” Due to my lack of knowledge, I was unable to convey my favorite one, but I’m going to look up the words and tell him later: ”Hooligans, in football; they make fires.”
I kept formulating these sentences in vain this week until last night, when I finally ran into him after Quantum Logic.
“Jo napot, Alex. Voltam Horvatorszag! Uhhh… Last week” (more…)
Budapest Hungary Living Abroad 9 Comments
September 5th, 2008
Please note: the extra Hungarian letters are misbehaving with me, so most Hungarian words in this post are misspelled.
Alex, an unassuming Romanian, lives in the flat immediately adjacent to mine. Before Sunday, I knew him as a chain-smoker, and by that I mean that I knew him to be Hungarian. I say he is Hungarian simply because he happens to live in Hungary, and I do not know what he is saying when he talks to me.
The beginning of our relationship was tenuous at best—it consisted mostly of me attempting sleep in my flat while Alex hacked up terrible things and belched like Jabba the Hut. During these sessions of hacking and belching, he would make sure to get in several cigarettes, which to me sounds like a bad idea—especially when your health appears to have deteriorated to that of a Star Wars character.
Once I finally figured out that I should keep that window closed at all times, my affection for my neighbor was finally allowed to grow. Whenever I passed him by in on my way out of my flat, while making sure to turn the lock 4 times (things are especially secured here in Hungary), I would give a standard Jó napot, and he would answer back in kind, or perhaps with a Heló or Szia. He has a very kind face and always seems to be wearing the same shorts and t-shirt.
Things, however, can never stay simple forever. On Saturday, as I made my way up to my apartment, Alex had a friend with him. I can say fairly certainly at this point that it is in fact this man who has been Jabba the Hut. He even somewhat looks the part. I still don’t actually know his name, but I do know that he wants to steal my food.
I was making my way out of the apartment on Saturday with a bag of wafers and another bag of pre-packaged cookies (my friends and I were having a fancy dinner), and Jabba asks me something incomprehensible in Hungarian. I smile, and with a Jó napot, nem értem (good day, I don’t understand), I happily begin my descent down the stairway. Jabba persists in his questioning, motioning towards the wafers.
“Kakao?” he says. (more…)
Budapest Hungary Living Abroad 11 Comments
