I survived one month in the Wild Wild East

The other day I met a man, a Professor and Director of the European Studies Institute at Temple University, who referred to Hungary as the "Wild East." Strangely, only the night before, Nimrod had described it as being similar to "the Wild West." Lots of freedoms - perhaps too many - and not too many laws. Some enterprising opportunists rising to the top thanks to their early willingness to bear risks, to ride the waves of change. People with a lot of room to do what they please and not too many controls on their behavior. Freedom is good, of course. But maybe there is such a thing as too much freedom. But I digress.

Anyway, all that is to say that this morning, Peter sent me a text message to wish me a "Happy one month anniversary in the Wild East." I can hardly believe it's been a month. I feel like I have lived here, and lived with Peter, for so much longer than that. And if it's been a month, that can only mean I head home in a few weeks. When I get back from NY next Tuesday, I will have just over two weeks left. Well, I am not ready to consider that thought.

PICTURES
This here is a view of the Danube from "The Castle" that is in fact, not a castle at all. The weather was pretty bad that day. Actually, it was pretty bad that week. And the next week.

This is a picture of Peter and me at the Visegrad Fortress, which we visited this past weekend. The fortress looks out on the Danube and across at a lovely city that was the site of some international controversy not too long ago. Apparently, when the Communists were running the show here they inked a deal with Romania (maybe it was Bulgaria, I don't remember) to build a power plant in this city that is behind us in the picture. By the time the building was set to get started the Communists were no longer running things and so Hungary renegged on its side of the deal (the locals protesting feverishly at the prospect of ruining their gorgeous community). The Romanians/Bulgarians (was it Slovakia?) sued and the case went to the Hague. Hungary had to pay some kind of settlement and the power plant was not - and will not be - built.

This is Peter playing tennis.

This is a picture of a traditional folk dance "show." This was in Szentendre this past weekend. If you ask me, the costumes are different but the dances were much like the ones in Fiddler on the Roof - you know, with the men doing all kinds of clomping around and hitting their boots. Certainly these guys didn't do any fancy footwork with bottles on their heads like they did in Fiddler. But still, I was reminded. Of course, Jews would never wear those outfits. And look at that woman's slip showing...Oy.


MORE OBSERVATIONS
BUSES - so it seems that there is an international character trait of busdrivers that compels them to drive like maniacs, cut off cars, not signal and close the doors and drive away even when they see people running for the bus. I thought it was just MUNI but after witnessing it here in Hungary, I am convinced it is an international trend.

Strangely, though, the buses and trains here seem to be always packed. No matter which direction they are headed - towards downtown or away from it - no matter the time of day, the buses are full of people. Old people especially (there are lots of them here).

TV - There are not a lot of commercials on TV here. I don't know if the reason for this has something to do with not being able to sell the air time or what but I do know that we can watch TV for many hours with limited commercial interruption, as we did Sunday night when we watched "Coming to America" with Eddie Murphy in Hungarian (Peter translated) and there were two or three commercial breaks during the whole movie! And those commercial breaks were more like station IDs than commercials!

Speaking of TV, the last book I read - The Secret History by Donna Tartt (recommended by Arielle and now recommended by me...what a fun if strange and unsettling read) - came to an end over a week ago and since then I have picked up two different books, neither of which I have been able to really dig into and finish reading. This after reading six books in three and a half weeks! Why? Because we got TV. I am sure this is the culprit. I forgive myself, though, since TV shows - namely CNN, some EuroSport channel and the occasional BBC Prime - are my main source of English language interaction. Not that watching TV is interaction, even if I do find myself talking back to the screen much of the time. But you know what I mean.

Oh, one more picture:
This is our clothes dryer. Lovely, isn't it?