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My balcony, my street

Let me first say, now that I have internet in my home, it will be waaaaaaaaaay easier to post. I could have paid for internet for a decade for what I've spent in internet cafes. And, I never felt quite comfortable doing this at work.

It's a little confusing having a Hungarian IP address: google comes up in Hungarian, even blogspot. Computers are smart: they always know where they are.

Here's Monday's post. It's a bit late, but expect better service from now on. No, demand it.

As a lad I knew it as Cafe Racing: men, and women I suppose, hurtling on two wheels at terrifying speed, cornering with their knees almost touching, but not quite, the asphalt. This is my street, Erzsébet Körut, but without the corners. Riders hurtle from stop light to stop light as fast as their racing bike can carry them - in first gear. I suppose if the bike they rode where the motorcyclic equivalent of a top fuel dragster, or even a Formula 1 racer (WARNING: turn down the volume before you click that last link), they might get the bike into second gear and still have time to brake. These riders assiduously observe traffic lights. Up and down the boulevard they speed and brake, brake and speed, going as fast as they can in 100 m before they must slam on the brakes. Imagine 100 m sprinters called back, yet again, for another false start, then you will capture the futility of this urban racing: Sisyphus would ride a 1000 cc Kawasaki Ninja AND play saxophone (see "Ode on A Parisian Saxophone").

So, allow me to put on my science teaching hat: why don't those bikes fall over in tight corners? A spinning wheel generates a torque and the faster the spin the stronger the torque. Did you ever try to tip over a spinning top? It's because of the torque the wheel generates that you can't easily tip it over. Imagine each wheel on the motorcycle as a spinning top and you'll understand why motorcycles are so stable when they are moving at high speed. Or maybe I got that wrong? I'll know for certain once I start teaching grade ten physics.

The correct response to last weeks (or two) survey: in English, bérletigazolvány, means "pass".

Thanks to everyone who has visited this blog. "kenikoop abroad" now rates a hit on google!!!

Viszlát!

Next week (no, for real): I stick my neck out with a tribute to American Imperialism and The Poppy Family with "Where Evil Grows".

And that is how we get from here to there

Day 4: I assured myself that Friday was the day I would emphatically declare "Budapesti vagyok!", which means "I am a Budapestian!" More precisely, I am a Pest (pronounce "Pesht"), as my residence is a fifth floor apartment on Erzsébet Körút. It's bloody hard to pronounce, as there is no English equivalent to the "zs" sound - it is a letter unto itself, one of 44! - but it's a combination between a j-sound and a z-sound. What matters, though only slightly, is that the name means "Elizabeth Boulevard" in Hungarian ... which the locals call by a completely different name, as they do their country: Magyar. It sounds like "Modjor" in English. The building, Erzsébet Körút, 41, is next door to the Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal, which is probably the swankiest hotel in town. And if you've been doing you research on this town, you know that it's pretty swanky! But, before spoiling the plot, let's start at the beginning. I was feeling a little helpless as I had only a book of ten transit tickets - one per leg of your trip, no transfers - and the transit police are most diligent, as I shall elaborate on further on in this post. I rose early and made my way to Moskva Tér (Moscow Square) to the main transit station on the Buda, or west. side and about 16 minutes by tram. I managed to negotiate the self-serve passport photo both, clawing at every bit of relief inside, trying to locate my photos or 700 Forint. It was pointed out to me by a very patient local, who spoke first in Hungarian, then English, that I needed to wait a little longer and they would appear in a slot OUTSIDE of the machine. And they did. The lady at the ticket booth was very helpful and I succeeded in getting my first monthly transit pass (see above), which was crucial because a ton of trams and subways figured in my immediate future. So, I waited at Moskva Tér for the real estate agent and the new sixth grade science teacher to show up so the three of us could resume our viewing of flats that were neither within the housing budget nor conveniently on the transit grid. I may not have made this known to any of you, but both of these figured hugely in my pre-arrival planning. After waiting 45 minutes at the appointed spot, I decided to forge on to my next appointed viewing, one that I had arranged from Canada over craigslist. I managed to find my house in Costa Rica on craigslist, and by gum, there's also a craigslist for Budapest. If you're headed abroad, first check to see if that destination has a craigslist website, trust me. Instead of boring you with details - and not finishing the post - I'll share some interesting linguistic discoveries. "Pályaudvar" means "station", as in "train station". Can you see the connection? Neither can I, but that's what's so charming about Finno-Ugric languages. "Estación" in Spanish, "station" in French, they're just too obvious. Heck, if you could read Hindi, I bet it would look and sound just like "station". Actually, and in all seriousness, I think this language sounds like Inuktitut, the Inuit language. Inuksuk (the stone signposts from the Arctic that look like little men made out of stone blocks) could be a Hungarian word. It sounds Hungarian. Kayak is probably Hungarian as well.

Thanks to those of you who took time to fill out the survey. Please take a moment to fill out this week's.

Sziastok

Next: my balcony (for real this time)

Victuals

Today was shopping day. I love eating out as much or more than anyone, but you can't really arrive in a place until you have provisioned yourself and this means a journey into an unknown realm. Touristic locales tend to be English friendly. Or, you can count on some English speakers in and around hostels, but I don't live in hostel country. I live in Magyar. So, I had to go to the local grocer and try my luck. The corporate logo for the local grocery bespeaks lumber: wood products from British Columbia, a tree in the shape of a triangle. In fact, I'm sure I'd seen the logo on the side of a BC Rail wood-chip car one time, but I might be confusing it with Canfor. Undeterred by their corporate branding, I sallied forth. Hungarian may be a phonetic language, but the words bear absolutely no resemblance to any word you have ever seen, unless you have traveled to Estonia, Finland or the Eastern slope of the Northern Ural Mountains of Siberia. Fortunately, this cereal box had "spelt flakes" on the side, but, ignoring that, you can see what I'm up against here (see above).

Packaging seems to be universal and every culture seems to put a picture of what's inside on the side of the bottle or box. I suppose this isn't an entirely safe proposition, as I'm sure somewhere gasoline comes in milk cartons with a sunflower depicted on the side. If you can open it without buying it, smell it. In fact, perhaps grocery stores cold have "smell testers", little bottles, previously opened, like in Lush, so you can sample the fragrance before forking over 1200 Forint (HUF). By the way, the Lush shop is four tram stops away and, surprisingly, you cannot smell it from my flat. One great boon living here is the beer, which comes in pint (or 500 mL) bottles. This size makes a lot of sense, to me at least, because that's how big the portions are in pubs. The problem with the North American, 355 mL bottle, or the more svelt 330 mL Euro-North American version, is this: one is not enough and two is too many. Or one is too many and twelve is not enough. I get these adages confused. I want to stress that I have not seen the 330 mL Euro-North American bottles here, which leads me to conclude that this is a clever marketing ploy, preying on our fear of larger portions and more calories, and a is a means of getting the same price for 25 mL less beer. I digress: because they're pint bottles, they don't come in a six pack. So, how do you manage to pack four bottles into your shopping basket, the small Little Red Riding Hood off to Grandmother's House type baskets, without them rolling around or crushing whatever they are leaning against? I realize now, the trick is to put them in the basket LAST. I must have packed and re-packed that basket five or six times. I'm sure it appeared to all the bemused Budapesten that this 40-something ex-pat had NEVER shopped in his life before! Unlike stores back home, this one was very small, having perhaps four aisles. So, it's virtually impossible to put your basket down to re-pack it without causing a serious shopper bottleneck.

And there I stop. It's been three weeks since I became an expert blogger and I've blogged twice! So, enjoy this random taste of Budapest and please fill in the survey.

Sziastok!

Ken

Next: my balcony