Szentendre

5:27 AM The girl you see
To add some atmosphere when reading this post, you might want to play this video and read as you listen to the music. Of course... do wait for the video to fully load so you won't get irritating pauses in music :P But of course, again, you don't have to haha...


According to Frommers, Szentendre is a small town 21KM north of Budapest. Serbians settled here in the 17th century and the town has hald a dozen serbian churches among its historical buildings. Since the turn of the 20th century, it has been home to an artist's colony, where today, about 100 artists live and work. So it was one sunday morning, that James, Aimee and I decided to take the HEV (the country train) out to Szentendre to explore this arty farty place. It was a really nice feeling to be like finally getting out of Budapest. It's not like we hated the city, but just nice to have a change of environment.
View from the train: Aimee and I got quite excited when we saw fields...
Ok lah... they still use the old fashion paper tickets. Lose and die... lol..
Wierd statue at the edge of town. Three guesses for what it is.
The town's main eature is its cobblestone roads... very very european. Note too that they love to paint the buildings bright nice colours (e.g: yellow/red).... After my trip here, I think that yellow houses look absolutely beautiful... Walking along the streets, it's almost like I was transported back in time, despite only being like 45 mins away from the main city. Somehow, this town has managed to retain some of its original charm.

One of our stops was at the Marzipan Museum. Everything here is made from Marzipan... just imagine loads of sugar,eggs,flour and all other baking ingredients...



Serbian Orthodox Church
One of the many touristy shops in the town square. This is actually quite a popular haunt among the tourists. But it still being the end of winter/beginning of spring type of weather, it was not very crowded... so no queues for us, which was nice :) Anyhow, do note the bunches of dried paprika hung at the doors... a common sight in Budapest (Paprika = Danica :P)

I talked about eating langos before in my previous post. Frommers claims that there's a stall in this town that boasts the best langos ever. So we had to go hunt for it, especially since James had yet to try it... and look at this really really narrow alleyway!! in the middle of it is where the langos stall is...



And how can you not end the day with Beers...

and dessert!
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Carving my own niche

5:53 AM The girl you see
First, I would like to thank everyone for their emails and small little facebook/msn/g chat messages that you have left for me asking how I am and how am I finding Budapest. Well.... I'm not going to glorify the entire experience. The first two weeks were challenging. That's the best word to find for it. I had mixed feelings the whole time. I wanted to be here, but on the other hand, I wanted to go home. I didn't know the language, I hated the cold, I hated not having a microwave oven in the apartment, I didn't know anybody...
But then, I guess it's a sort of initiation ritual that everyone goes through. You find your own niche, make your own friends. I remember when I first came here, I was trying to find a church with english mass to go to. Somehow, it felt particularly important that I do so... Talking to my flatmates, they were like, " oh there's no way you're going to find one here, you're going to have to just go to the hungarian masses." Ok... sure... GOOGLE. Thank you US EMBASSY WEBSITE. They actually had a list of churches in budapest which offered english mass, and what do you know, there was actually one like five minutes down from where I live and it was the correct denomination at that (Roman Catholic). The parish there is really small, lots of old middle aged people, but it survives. Today was the first time I dared to venture into the tea room after mass to meet the parishoners. At first I was just like standing helplessly around, but slowly.. I found myself talking to this Australian dude... and slowly one by one, was introduced to the room. Everyone was obviously so much older, but it was nice to talk to fellow "expats" or whatever one refers to foreigners living in Budapest. There were a number of english teachers or those who had experience teaching english as a foreign language previously. Most people were from England... but I guess an experience in all....

Not sure if anyone would ever be interested, but english mass is every sat at 5pm and the addy of the church is:
Budapest VIII Maria u 25.

So what about hungarians in general? Haven't met many to be honest. Many are painfully shy, most probably because they do not have much confidence to communicate with english... so it's often a hi and awkward silence when I do meet hungarians. Interestingly enough, I met my landlord for the first time yesterday, and the moment he heard that I was from Singapore, he began a tirade on how Singapore was a fascist and was a country run by a dictator. Everything was so strict, people got fined for smoking, for drinking etc etc.... It got so ridiculous (his claims), I was like laughing the whole time. He claims that he worked briefly as a translator for Suharto before and firmly believes that chinese buddhism (taoism I suspect) is rubbish. I think he got a bit wary when upon meeting me, he realized that I was chinese. Actually... he actually asked me if I was chinese or malay. I actually repeated the question, because it was such an absurb question to me and I couldn't believe that I looked in the least bit malay for him to be asking that question. But as it turns out, he was totally serious about it... and gosh... dear readers, you should have seen him rolling his eyes 360 degrees when I repeated his question. Anyhow, upon seeing my slit eyes and flat nose, he was wary because he had planned to serve thai tom yum soup that night for dinner and of course, you could probably cheat an angmoh, but not an asian... lol... But to be fair, although it wasn't thai authentic, it was very tasty and I had many helpings. The best part was when he brought out the tom yum paste he had supposedly used to make the soup and when I looked at it, the expiry date was listed as 12/2008.... LMAO...
One thing though, Hungarian desserts are really really YUMMY... I would have taken pictures, but it was my first time as a guest and I probably looked/sounded wierd enough as it was... lol.... we had so many different sweets: cookies/ biscuits/ cakes/ bars.... it was all so nice....:) I think my landlord is really into the Asian culture thingy, coz he's already announced that the next time we meet for dinner, I have to cook asian food for everyone... I was like... PRESSURE.... haha... serve everyone spicy curry... see how they would like that... :P

I mentioned in my previous post that drinking is cheap here. No kidding. For the first time in my life, I went out and celebrated St Paddy's Day ( coz it was an excuse to drink... and I got laughed at by my flatmate for even asking if it was St Paddy's Day) We went to an Irish Bar, Becketts, which incidentally is listed in eyewitness guidebooks top 10 pubs in Pest (around town). It was the first time since I arrived that I went to a bar and there was more english being spoken than hungarian... I think I even spotted this group of malaysian/singapore students (I know from their accent) hanging out in the corner (the lots of small cute girls and their protective boyfriends picture)... but they left the bar pretty quickly.. lol.. And that bar played pretty decent dancy music... James says that I automatically started humming/moving to the rhythm when "poker face" came on... haha..

Becketts: Green was obviously the colour of the night.

Greennnnn beer...

They even show football games!!! Its kind of wierd seeing football games being shown in the pubs now, after living in a NZ where football was like "huh" and it was always rugby at the bars only.

Kiwis...

Ok, so this is what happened. Rodrigo (I hope I spelt it correctly) received two unique carribeanas with a touchlight on them. He gave one to me. James saw it and wanted one too, but the bar girl said he had to buy a glass of irish whisky to get the freebies. He wanted them so much he bought it. So he got that, plus one of those neck key chain holders or something, a lighter and a dice...

Happy St Patrick's Day!
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Travelling in Budapest

4:52 AM The girl you see
So... I've starting teaching. Had two regular classes a week now, and might be having a couple more now. I had a mock lesson today and that was nerve wrecking, but I survived :) The work procedure here is such that we go for a client interview with the potential school. If they like us and offer us a job immediately, that is the BEST scenario. If they like you but they still am not sure, they will ask you to come back and give a mock/fake lesson. So that was me today. Yah... a teacher with literally minimal experience giving a mock lesson. This school today was a rather strict school (in my opinion). A lot of emphasis on grammar and I was even told that there was no such thing as conversation english lessons. WOAH.. ok.. *hands up* whatever goes man... So, was definitely nervous when I did it today, and I did make mistakes, I admit. And naturally, as I expected, got some criticism on how I covered some grammar issues. I so need to start my teaching classes soon.

My classes are really way out of town for some reason... at least 75 mins of travelling (which involves changing of buses). It really sucks travelling in winter when you're shivering in the cold waiting for the bus to hurry up and come to the stop. That was me on monday. People might find this funny, but it was a bit wierd at first dealing with three different modes of public transport here. I'm usually just used to two. But here, we have the tram, metro and Bus. To get to some places, we might actually have to use all three different types. I think any tourist's first time to budapest might find it a bit confusing travelling especially if they're buying tickets for the first time. I'll explain why. Ok, first off the metro. So back home, I'm really used to automated machines, an easy one for all card, just tap and go. But here... you can almost miss the machines where you feed the tickets into. There are no barriers to keep anyone from sneaking in without a ticket, it's like an open space. So what they've done is to hire people to stand at the sides of the escalators and watch people do it, or flash their weekly/monthly passes at these metro controllers. Can you imagine like rush hour traffic where everyone is rushing through!!! Plus, there's been many times when I flash my pass at them and they barely take a glance at it.. like ok...
So this stopwatch signboard really intrigued me. Instead of counting down to the next train, it actually counts to the next train. Like that helps me know when the train is coming? All I know is how long it took for the train to come..
Metro is really the underground train. I wouldn't say train because people might confuse it with the train that people take to travel across the country. These trains are really built DEEP undergroun, judging from the high of these escalators... and they are really built at quite a steep angle too...
Trams: I would refer to trams as trains on land in the city. haha.. I still don't know where does one purchase tickets to get on the tram. Everyone just hops on and off. I've been told that inspectors do circulate and check passes... but in my three weeks here, I've never really had to worry about being caught without my pass on the tram (though I still bring it with me everywhere I go). The tram is the main mode of transport for me... my apartment block is right outside the tram station, so i'm connected in some sense :P

An older tram...kinda obvious here.. the bigger ones are much spacious..constructed with much more modern materials and don't need to be strung on a wire.

Bus was one of the last forms of public transport I took. I expected the driver to be the one who makes sure everyone pays... I means it's like that in Singapore, NZ and the States! But no... the best part.. the driver seat is actually like this small glass room and it's totally locked or something... I did wonder if they had some bus driver bashing incidents before or something... the buses are usually quite long, they have about 3 doors, and anyone just hops in from either door into the bus. I'm like ok.. just go in and sit down! Once again, i'm still not sure where to get an individual ticket for buses and I have yet to be checked for my pass. The good thing is that if you absolutely speak no hungarian (like me) and have to take the bus somewhere, the bus stop will have a list of the streets it's stopping at and you just count the stops. It also tells you how regularly the bus comes at each stop, which is handy when you miss the bus or just wondering whether you have time to run into the bakery and grab a bun.

So how do I travel? With a monthly pass! It basically allows me to travel all around Budapest. For any first time tourists to Hungary, I would definitely recommend you buy this pass if you want to make your life simpler and with as little hassle as possible. They are sold in like weekly/monthly or even three days and family passes (I do remember reading it on the bus). And, I must really thank the person (Alice or Ting or Rucha?) who bought me that Hungarian phrasebook... really useful my first week here especially when I had to buy food and I was like starring at un-english words.... haha.. picture this.. me at the supermarket, huddled over the meat section, with the phrasebook open in my hand.... it's true.. it happened.

So I was walking to the office today. And I noticed something growing...

Ohhh... little signs of spring... plus the increasing days of sunshine..... Budapest looks so much better in the sunlight... These are all pictures around the Selti office (main office)


I should probably mention that this is the Danube, Parliament
This building is right opposite my office and guess what (ok you'll never guess), it's a prison... on Buda... the expensive side of Budapest... so.... while we are surrounded by heaps of police cars... we are also potentially surrounded by heaps of erm..... I wonder if there's some famous person being released, because the past few days, I've been walking out of the office and catching many tv reporters hanging outside the building....

From the opposite side of the river:
Picture of freedom statue from afar..
I'm actually quite fascinated by the buildings here. I sometimes wonder if they have been left in disrepair on purpose. I took this picture because the plaster that was covering the brick building has broken off and exposed the brick wall opf the building. But obviously, no one has done anything about it, so it's like a smattering of yellow (original) paint of the building and the greyish tone of the bricks... wierd but feels really authentic for some reason. Notice too that they love to build statues here... every spot they can find literally.. there's a statue somewhere..
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Vices in Budapest

3:02 AM The girl you see
One thing I've realised in Budapest, is that vices are cheap. You can get a pack of cigarettes for like 200 florints (less than 2 singapore dollars), a big glass of beer or probably a decent bottle of wine for 400 florints ( less than 4 singapore dollars). Was quite shocked when i first moved into my apartment and while exploring the back room of the kitchen, I found this huge pile of empty wine bottles and beer cans. Evidence of previous party escapades at the apartment. I think it would be safe to assumet that drinking and smoking are the two most common Hungarian past times. Smoking is pretty much rampant everywhere, and as far as I know, there are no laws prohibiting drinking in public. Furthermore, after seeing the price of such things, I'm not too surprised as well.

I didn't think that I would be hitting the bars anytime till spring, but as it happens, the teachers at Selti love to drink and hang out. So apparently payday for them (unfortunately I do not get my first pay till April) was a few days ago, so I got invited to go for a drink with my teachers. Fortunately, my flatmate Dan came along, so I didn't get lost on the streets of Budapest, coz obviously, all public transport stops around midnight and I wouldn't want to get lost in a cold city, regardless of whether winter is at the end or not. So I've been out a couple of nights, and one of the first bars that I stepped in reminded me of one word, "Bohemian"

It has all these funny kick knacks on the walls, and tables and chairs were just squashed up against each other. Everyone was talking, smoking, some jazz (i think) music was playing in the corner. There were people even bringing take away pizza from outside into the bar so that they could eat and drink and SMOKE at the same time. Obviously, coming from countries which have banned smoking indoors, I was quite unused to the huge fragrance of smoke all around. Every bar is like smoky... and the first night I came back, my t-shirt just reeeeeeekkkked of heavy smelly smoke all over. I like "OH MY GOD" when I came back home and took off my shirt. Needless to say, that shirt has immediately gone into the wash. I swear I'm like the camera girl in Selti, coz no one else whips out their camera to take pictures except me. At least my excuse is that I do look like a tourist (asian face.. hello!) and I am a tourist!
So.. teachers from Selti: Me, Sam (from USA), Mairead (Scotland), Jennifer (UK)

My flatmate, Dan, who is from the States.

The second night I went out, Mairead's two best friends from Scotland had come down to visit, so Mairead took them to this Balkan (really.. not kidding) night club, and said that I should come check their music out. Dan was quite skeptical bout it being a cool club but he came anyways... it was the same old smoky feeling and smell, but this was a lot more bigger and more like a nightclub with a live band, a fountain and a large sit down area. As the night passed, we met a lot more teachers/ aiesec members as well:
Mairead's friends, Nikola and Gemma (Sam in the middle). They could stand the cold really really well!!! Scottish people.. They only wore like two layers each, while I was still shivering in my three layers of thermol... bugger..


Aimee (Another intern from NZ) and I
Ludmilla and I (Ludmilla is from the UK of Polish descent). She had her boyfriend there as well, and the first thing he said to me when he learnt I was from Singapore was that, "My surname is Changi, just like your airport." My reaction was, "You've got to be kidding me..." and I burst out laughing hard out.
Now, something of interest to you AIESEC people who are reading this post. Now, Selti is made out of AIESEC interns and non AIESEC teachers. The current AIESEC interns are just me, Aimee and James. NOW. All of the other teachers have hung out with AIESEC members in Hungary, and their impression of AIESEC is that it's a cult and everyone is having sexual relations with one another. *Ting!!!* It was really hilarious when I heard it, but I reckon it must be all the conference stuff which they've seen. Of course, naturally, I was quick to assure them that I wasn't part of this sexual web... and I do know that I've always been clean at conferences.... lol... but can you imagine!! This is the impression that outsiders have of AIESEC!!
Anyhow... when the night ended, I was introduced to my first Hungarian Supper snack. It's called langos, but it's this HUGE piece of deep fried dough, topped with either sour cream, cheese ,etc... or you can even eat it plain. According to Dan, Hungarians love sour cream, so it's quite a popular topping. It costs only like 350 florints for one with cheese ($2.50 singapore dollars?) and it was sooo big!!!! But very very tasty and fatty... haha.
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