Eggs and milk

Today was the first day in a week that it did not rain. It was sunny and cool. Lisa was off to the Hungarian National Gallery for an opening. I tutored at ELTE; I worked with Viktoria in the morning and with Judit in the afternoon. Both have their PhD’s and teach at the University. Viktoria teaches psychology and counseling and Judit teaches architecture. Judit also owns a private architecture firm and I helped her with a presentation to design a mausoleum for a Catholic church. The presentation will be in both English and Hungarian. It took 20 minutes just to get thru the correct pronunciation of mausoleum. I thought Mauser and linoleum would do the trick but noooo.

Today was also a day of planning the exhibit Lisa will have of her work. I thought the Hungarian National Museum was a good location but she’s not Hungarian so that was out. After looking at all the options we met with Marta at Erlin Galeria and she was thrilled to help with the exhibition project. The exhibit will actually be in Birs Bisztro on a newly installed magnetic wall, providing the magnetic paint comes in from Washington State and providing I install the magnetic wall and providing the magnetic wall actually is magnetic. There’s always duct tape. It comes in so many artistic colors.

So that will all be exciting. Planning a reception for the InSea Conference attendees and hoping they don’t all show up. (But of course we hope they will, (they may be reading this.)) (I can’t believe Microsoft Word let's me get away with all the parentheses’, (I wasn’t sure what would happen.)

Today’s observation is on eggs and milk. Easily the two most common foods in the US. I could throw bread in there but the differences between American bread and Hungarian bread are the packaging and lack of butter. In addition you rarely see American bread used as basketballs. But eggs and milk are completely different. The most obvious difference is refrigeration; Hungarian eggs and milk are not. Right you are…they are not kept in coolers of any kind in the markets or stores. Even at the ALDI the eggs are just out in the aisle right beside the garden tools and the 2-packs of horizontal striped gondolier shirts. They are not in little cardboard cartons either; they are in those big stacks with 64 eggs per layer, on a pallet, right beside the gondolier shirts. No ice, no fan, no cooler. And, according to my sources, they are OK for 2 weeks. And they are all brown eggs with orange yolks. The milk is in funny little cartons, stacked right there in the aisle beside the chain saws. All the different verities are there, whole milk, 2%, 1%, ½% and here they have 0%. 0% what? Not refrigerated, good for 2 weeks.

The story is that if you want “farm” milk you go to pre-determined locations, bring your bottles and you buy it from the farmer. I have not seen this transaction yet but I will try and document it.

Pictures today feature a hotel with a lost in translation name, or maybe not, a view into a kitchen where caramels were being made, a picture of my student Viktoria and I discussing the word of the day katasztrofa, Hungarian for catastrophy. As well as 2 from “The Cars of Budapest” collection. The red one is a Sports Car Smart Cabriolet according to the dealers web site. I can't find the dealer for the camper with twin axles.