Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Move in day





We are all settled in the new flat, we have even waved to a couple of the neighbors, older Hungarian ladies who seem to be responsible for the beautiful flowers on the balconies and the courtyard.

We went to the market and bought a few essentials, paper towels, Glasklar (Windex), and Kleenex.

We also bought some sort of slaw, some beautiful cheese, strawberries, onions and asparagus. The produce isn't cheap but it is so fresh and colorful and nicely displayed. The piece of cheese was 480 Forints, about $2.63. We thought that was very cheap. I know, more food stories.

At 1 PM Lisa, remember Lisa, and her dependent, went to the Hungarian Fulbright office for orientation. We met all of the Fulbright staff and had a wonderful 2 hour private orientation with Annamaria Sas the American program officer and we presented gifts from Dr. Ann Weaver Hart, President of Temple University to both Annamaria and Dr. Huba Bruckner the Executive Director. They were most impressed. We were presented with very nice American Hungarian flag pins.

We were given lengthly instruction on procuring a Resident Permit, a little like the instructions for building the first space shuttle but with Annamaria's assistance I think we will get thru it or...we may be held at the airport when we leave.

The afternoon brought more nice surprises. We wandered into a small spice market and met Ashur and Zita from Iraq who manage the shop. The conversation started when Ashur asked me where in the United States I was from. We were chatting away in his limited English and my improving Hungarian (3 words down pat), while Lisa discovered that Zita was an art teacher.

I shopped while Lisa and Zita exchanged emails.

We bought a couple of bottles of Hungarian wine, Bulls Blood, a pincernytto or maybe a desfacator sticia, not sure which is the Hungarian word for cork screw,

Back at the flat to try out the new IKEA sheets. Tomorrow I'm going to try out the washing machine.

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