You Say Goodbye and I Say Hello

Szia!

Those Beatles lyrics come into my mind time and again in this country when I'm leaving an establishment like the grocery store or the Posta. As I believe I have pointed out before, Hungarians use the same word for both hello and goodbye. That word is "Szia", and it's pronounced exactly like Americans say "See ya". Hello is also a widely used word these days in many languages, and Hungarians use it amongst themselves. A lot of people in the stores I frequent, knowing I'm English-speaking, will also say it to me, trying to be friendly. It never ceases to crack me up when I'm leaving an establishment and someone says, "Hello," to me meaning goodbye. It tickles me to no end sometimes hearing "Hello!" called to me as I'm leaving my butcher stall or the local grocery store. That always starts me thinking about the differences between cultures. Some of them are difficult to bear, others are endearing.

Jimmy arrives tomorrow, and I couldn't be more excited. For him and for me. I can't help wonder what his first impressions will be, and also what his lingering impressions will be. And somewhere between the first impressions and the lingering impressions are the moments when you miss home like crazy and the differences between here and there drive you crazy. And I can't help wondering what those things will be.

My friend Susan made the comment that it's the little things you miss the most. And I think she's right. When I arrived in Hungary it was early July, the temperatures here were just as hot as they were in North Carolina, without the humidity. I was like a wilted flower by 11 AM. I would stagger in from trying to buy a fan or visiting a museum and I'd flop down on my couch completely depleted by the heat. But was air conditioning the thing I missed the most? Surprisingly, no. It was ice, and window screens.

I had accepted the fact that there would be no air conditioning in my apartment. I was braced for it. But it drove me absolutely crazy that I couldn't find ice anywhere. I had one ice tray in my apartment that obviously came with the refrigerator, but European refrigerators don't get as cold as American ones, and a tray of ice would be gone in 30 minutes, and I'd have to wait all day for another one to freeze. I lowered myself to eat in a McDonald's one day, thinking surely the McDonald's corporation would insist on uniformity around the globe, meaning Cokes with ice in them. I almost threw my meal out when I was handed a small warm coke with no ice. You would think being in a McDonald's would remind a homesick person of home, but that lack of ice made it seem stranger than if I'd been in the most local and ethnic of Hungarian establishments.

I would by Cokes and orange Fantas in the grocery store because they were in the refrigerator case unlike the mineral water, believing I'd have a cold drink. You would have been hard pressed to say they were even luke warm. Hot was more like it. Not even a couple of hours in the refrigerator would do the trick. Boy did I long for a really cold beverage, instead of one that melted my entire tray of ice within minutes of dropping the cubes into the glass.

And the window screens. Like I said, I had accepted the fact I'd be sitting in front of a fan. I'd strip down to a tank top and have my forehead bathed in a cold wash cloth, fans directed on me. And it was bearable. But what wasn't was the endless stream of flying critters that invaded my home at dusk. I wasn't laying awake at night because of the heat, but because of flies landing on me and mosquitoes biting me to the point I was one big giant boil before I could drift off, only to awaken two hours later from more stings and bites. I got so tired of wandering into the bathroom during those first few weeks of sleepless nights to find bizarre creatures living in the shower or crawling all over the mirror. I go so tired of trying to slice tomatoes at lunch for a sandwich and having big blowing flies landing all over my food. One day I actually stuck a chicken carcass I was tossing out in the window, thinking it would draw the flies away from my ripe tomatoes on the other side of the house. Hell, if you were a fly, wouldn't you choose a chicken carcass over a tomato? It didn't work. Flies flocked to the chicken, but just as many remained hovering over my tomatoes. And don't even get me started on the fruit flies! I'd open the refrigerator in the morning and a few would drift out after having apparently spent the night in there. I felt I could revolutionize summers in this country if I only I had the capital to manufacture and market a basic window screen for these 10 foot high windows.

It's funny how looking back those things seem insignificant. A hurtle I've gotten over. A mere nothing now. But the first few weeks I really didn't think I could stand it. I missed home so much. I missed my ice cubes and my screened windows. Those little things dug a little hole in my soul and made me miss home so much. If you think mosquito bites can't bring tears into a person's eyes, well, you didn't see me those first two months in Hungary.

There are some things I thought I would miss that I didn't. I thought I'd miss having a clothes dryer. Nobody in Europe has a clothes dryer. I thought I would go nuts waiting for clothes to dry, but in actuality I just turned a fan on the drying rack and things got dry a lot faster than I thought they would, and that was nothing. No big deal. I haven't missed the dryer once. Well, maybe once or twice when I wanted to unwrinkle some clothes without having a use an iron, but never when I wanted my clothes dry.

But the paper products, oh boy these Commie paper products STILL drive me crazy. If I had not gotten Caroline to bring me a stash of zip lock bags I don't know what I would have done. I believe they must exist somewhere in this country, but I haven't found them yet.

I truly thought at first it would be the foil that would bug me the most. The rolls of foil without a box or a  jagged piece of tin to use for tearing off an even piece. But surprisingly enough, it's not very hard to tear off an even piece without that wasteful box and ragged piece of tin. But the lack of Bounty paper towels on the other hand still bugs me. I am so tired of these thin, one-ply paper towels that disintegrate when I mop up a tablespoon of water. And I hate the toilet paper that's so thin I can use four rolls in less than 24 hours. I have actually been known to walk about 10 blocks to the giant German super market that has lines as long as a Wal Mart just to buy these ugly green rolls of toilet paper made of recycled celluloid which are the only ones I can find that actually last.

But I got over that too, as I did over the fact that I have to walk 8 blocks to a grocery store that sells butter, the ones near my house dealing only in transfat or lard. Duck fat abounds, as does chicken fat and lard, but who'd have thought I'd have to go so far just to find a little milk fat. But I've gotten over that too. Now that I know where to buy it, it's just part of the adventure, nothing more.

The language bothered me the most. At first, it was interesting to hear Hungarian spoken. Then after a few weeks it became so intimidating. I got so tired of not knowing how to say very much. I got so tired of having no idea what they were rattling off when they gave me the price of something at the market. I became an expert at glancing at the cash register display to see how much my groceries cost so I didn't have to fumble with the money. Oh, and the money. That's another thing you take for granted. You're so used to nickels and dimes and big quarters that when you look in your wallet and you see the brown coins you forget which denomination they are. I would mix up the 50 Ft piece and the 10 Ft piece. People would say, "It's easy, the money is different colors." It's true. 1,000 Ft notes and 10,000 Ft notes are blue, 2,000 Ft notes are brown, and 5,000 and 500 Ft notes are red. But when you're not used to dealing with them, the ones with the 5's on them all look the same---they're read after all--- and I'd hand somebody at 5,000 Ft note when I only needed to hand them a 500 note and they'd roll their eyes and reach into my hand to change the notes for me. Boy would my face burn with shame. I'd feel as if I would never get it right.

We take for granted in our own culture how much things like money are second nature to us. How we know what we're pulling out of our wallet without even having to think. And how we can talk to the cashier at Food Lion while we're listening to the price and pulling the bills out of our wallet, all without really using our conscious mind. Those little adjustments seem so challenging at first. You feel stupid, but it's really just that you're so used to those things being second nature in your own country and it takes a little while for them to become second nature in another culture, with another currency.

I remember a few months ago when everything just clicked. I started understanding the price of things. I started understanding what people were saying. I started being able to pull the bills out of my wallet without paying much attention. I felt exhilarated. I wanted to go out and buy stuff just to prove I could do it. I could tell my butcher was beaming at me, like he was so proud I had learned something. Those two men at my butcher stall have been the barometer of my success. The more they beam at me the more I know I've learned. They no longer feel the need to write down the price and hold it up for me, which they were kind enough to do at first.

I guess maybe the most valued achievements are the ones that are hardest won. I have felt so proud of my ability to assimilate. So proud of how I can listen to Hungarian being spoken and not feel scared, or sick of hearing this weird language that sounds like a mix of Italian and Japanese. I'm proud at how much I can understand, or proud even that I'm not scared of what I don't understand. I guess I'm writing this post to remind me that starting out, changes can be scary. But you come to terms with them faster than you think you would. And then you've proven to yourself, if to no one else, that you can do it. And I think somewhere along the way you practice using your brain in a way that keeps you on your toes, and that's good for you, despite the weeks of discomfort you may have suffered along the way.

I hope Jimmy finds it as rewarding at the end of the day as I did. I'm just glad he'll have somebody with him. I was alone, and that was the hardest part of all.

Hello for now!