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!

The Infant Jesus of Prague

Ciao Ya'll!

This is my last Prague posting. On my last day, after visiting Prague Castle and wandering around Mala Strana, I made a pilgrimage to the Church of Our Lady Victorious to see the Infant Jesus of Prague.

This story begins many years before, however; seven years ago, in the summer of 2005 to be exact. My friend Ursula and I were driving from Chapel Hill to Phoenix, Arizona. Ursula was moving back home from NC to CA, and we were meeting her brother in Albuquerque, NM, and then traveling on to Phoenix together where I had planned to catch a flight home, leaving them to finish the drive back to CA.

We left Chapel Hill one night about 6 PM and drove straight to Memphis. We checked into the Holiday Inn downtown about 7 AM, with Ursula's cat Maroney stuffed into a backpack. We slept for a couple of hours, then got up and visited Graceland, watched the ducks at the Peabody go up the elevator for the night, had ribs, then visited the Peabody roof to see the ducks' nighttime enclosure. We then slept from about 7 PM to 2 AM, got up, and hit the road. We crossed the Mighty Mississippi and traveled through Little Rock, Arkansas, before dawn. Around dawn we entered Oklahoma. We stopped at McDonald's for breakfast, and then decided to hit a Cherokee casino to play the slots since I used to have to visit the Cherokee Reservation in NC for work, but had never been to the casino. Sometime mid-morning between the State Line and Oklahoma City, we passed near the town of Prague Oklahoma, and saw signs for the Infant Jesus of Prague. At this time Prague Oklahoma held no significance for me, but we decided that we simply had to find out what the Infant Baby Jesus of Prague was.

I have since learned that Prague Oklahoma was home to the great American athlete Jim Thorpe. Jim Thorpe attended the Carlisle Indian School at Carlisle Barracks, PA, where I grew up. I took ballet lessons in the old gymnasium there, called Thorpe Hall, and we used to walk by the Pop Warner House every day in the summer on our way to Letort Creek to go rafting. I have also learned that Prague Oklahoma received its name from the large number of Czech immigrants who settled the region, many of them hailing from Prague, Czechoslovakia.

We got off the Interstate and drove about 10 miles into the little town of Prague. We found the church, and thanks to some historical information posted outside learned that the Infant Jesus of Prague was a statue of the Baby Jesus donated to the Catholic Church of Prague Oklahoma, from their sister city of Prague, Czechoslovakia, in commemoration of the Infant Jesus found in the Czech Church. The Infant, we discovered, was a doll, dressed in real clothing. We took some pictures, and had a great time talking about our hilarious adventure, from Elvis to ducks to ribs to casinos to wax dolls of the Baby Jesus.

Here is a photo of the Infant Jesus in Oklahoma.

The Infant Jesus of Prague Oklahoma

Here is the web-site for the Prague, OK church.

http://www.shrineofinfantjesus.com/

When I got to Prague, Czech Republic, and heard people talking about the Infant Jesus, there was no way I could miss taking a trip to the church to see it for myself. I thought about Ursula and wished she was with me. Ursula is a great one to go on a quest with. A really fun laid back travel companion.

The church is rather unassuming from the outside, but I knew when I saw about 400 Japanese tourists getting their photographs made on the front steps that I must have reached this world-famous pilgrimage site.

Duck, Ham, Goulash, and Indian Food-What I Ate in Prague

Yes, it's February and I'm just now finishing up some posts of Prague that should have been finished in November. I've had some trouble uploading images to the blog tool, not to mention that the blur that was my trip back to the States for Christmas fell somewhere in that space of time too. :)

Of all the posts I create, for some reason, the food seems to be what attracts people the most. Even though I only have two loyal "followers" who have actually joined my blog, it seems that a lot of you follow it informally, and I also get a ton of emails from people I don't know commenting on this or that. And of all the comments, emails, etc. it seems that the ones about food seem to attract people the most. Why is that? Maybe because we all have to eat and it's easier for people who don't travel much to relate to what I'm eating than what I'm seeing? Who knows! And for those of you NC friends of mine who aren't checking my blog out, according to the google blog tools, I'm getting hits from Russia, Belaruse, even Estonia. So there!

But I can't let my loyal fan down, so I devote this page to my dining experiences in Prague.

First allow me to say that while Budapest does boast a few good restaurants, international cuisine here is sorely lacking. Budapest isn't like other big cities in that you don't find really good international restaurants. There are no good Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, or Spanish restaurants. There are a couple of places that do a decent job of replicating French cuisine, or French-style cuisine, and there are some good basic Hungarian restaurants, but if you have a hankering for Thai or Indian the best you're going to get is a vague approximation of that country's cuisine. So far I have yet to find too many truly authentic international restaurants in this city. Unless you count the "Torok Etterems", aka, Turkish Kitchens, to which I will have to devote an entire post sometime in the near future.

Prague, on the other hand, boasted a wide array of international restaurants and from the small sampling of them I tried I was impressed. I ate what was probably the best Indian food I have ever had on my last night there. But I digress. Let me begin at the beginning.

The First Night: Marinated Roast Beef with Cream and Bread Dumplings
The first night I was there I asked the manager of the Green Garland if she could recommend a place for me to get some reasonably priced traditional Czech food, and this very sweet and very helpful lady (in other words, I highly recommend the Green Garland) directed me to a little place around the corner from the pension. After snacking on the pretzels they had on the table, which I knew I would be charged for but which I could not resist----nobody can make pretzels like the Germans and the Czechs---I ordered what I understood to be a very traditional Czech dish. It's marinated roast beef in gravy with cream and bread dumplings.

This was preceded by garlic soup, which I also understood was traditional, and a famous Czech hangover cure. I don't know about that, I didn't have a hangover, but it was hot and tasty.

Czech Garlic Soup with Cheese Croutons

And yes, this is a stock photo because I was so tired and hungry from the delays on the train which put me in Prague around 8 PM I forgo to take a picture, tbut it looked just like this. It's a chicken-broth based soup with cheese croutons in it. The soup is flavored with---you guess it---garlic.

Czech Marinated Roast Beef with Cranberries and Cream and Bread Dumplings

The roast beef dish is interesting. It looks like it would be a rich dish because of the gravy, but the roast beef has been marinated in lemon and it has a sour taste. The cream is actually whipped cream that has not been sweetened, with a dab of cranberries. And for those of you who, like me, equate dumplings with the ultimate comfort food, well, these were nothing but big tasteless stodge bombs. The bread dumplings are actually made of bread dough that has been allowed to rise, then it's half baked and then boiled then sliced off into dumplings. They have no taste whatsoever, and even the gravy, which I normally find improves most anything, doesn't do much to liven them up. I can imagine that when people didn't have a lot to eat in the days before refrigerators and microwaves, and when it was very cold and you needed some fuel, this might have done the trick, tasteless though they might be.

Day 1: St. Martin's Day Fair and the Bohemian Platter

I discovered the next day, my first full day there, that there was a St. Martin's Day festival going on in Old Town Square. St. Martin's Day was a week away and apparently the festivities were going on all week. This was actually wonderful because there was a lot of really delicious traditional food being prepared there, and it was cheap. Also, for someone like me who enjoys lingering over a meal with a friend or loved one, it was a little less lonely to be snacking on delicious Prague specialities in a busy fair setting, people watching, than sitting alone in a restaurant wishing I had company.

I was starving when I got back from my Hop On Hop Off Tour, and the grilled sausages smelled so good I jumped right into line and ordered a grilled sausage on a baguette. Here I am holding it before I starting shoveling it in.

Sausage and Baguette at the St. Martin's Day Fair

The next thing I tried was the goulash. For those of you who think goulash is a Hungarian dish, the word goulash comes from the Hungarian, but goulash and goulash soup are prepared all over that part of Europe from Germany and Austria to Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. This was particularly tasty and very hot which was nice because it was a cloud and gloomy day.

Goulash at the Fair

And Melinda's hand makes another appearance, holding a bowl of goulash!

At this point I was full enough I couldn't have held another bite if I had wanted to, which was actually a shame because there were ham vendors, grilling whole Prague Hams. It's amazing to me how smoked pork strikes a chord with people from regions as vastly different as Eastern North Carolina to Hungary to Prague. Prague is actually famous for this ham, hence the name, but it's just a good smoked ham cooked on the grill. My Granddaddy would have loved it.

Here are some of the smoked ham stalls. You can see I'm not the only one who had the idea of taking some photographs. This one guy is filming it. They were serving it up either as a giant slab on a piece of bread, or a huge slab on a plate with some grilled potatoes and onions. And it had the skin and fat on it, just like Granddaddy likes it.

Wood-grilled Prague Ham in the Square

I'm Not the Only One Taking Pictures

Mmm Mmm Good

That evening I was wandering around, thinking I should eat somewhere that served duck, since the Czech people consume an inordinate amount of duck. I wandered around, and after digging around in a really cool vintage clothing store where I bought some cool shades and bought Jimmy some shirts and sweaters, I noticed a cute little Prague kitchen and decided I would eat supper there.

I was seated next to an Indian Man and a Japanese man, both of whom were communicating in the common language of them both, English. The Japanese man was rather taciturn while the Indian man, who I learned was married to a Czech woman, wouldn't shut up.

Among other things, he told the joke I'd heard before which is that if Australians are hungry they'll eat everything on the table and then eat the table itself. Americans will eat everything on the table and the table itself, provided it has ketchup on it.

I had to snicker to myself, because I've never seen so many people eating ketchup as I have in the 7 months I've been in Hungary. There is a take-out pizza window near my house and I see Hungarian people slathering ketchup all over pizza slices almost every day. You can actually smell the ketchup when you walk down that part of the street. And they have something here which is so disgusting I almost can't take about it, which is ketchup flavored potato chips and ketchup flavored Chee Toes. UGH. I have actually seen teenagers on the train, on at least three different occasions, eating ketchup flavored Chee Toes followed by milk. In one case I had to watch these two teens make out after eating ketchup flavored Chee Toes chased by milk. I still want to vomit!

I ordered the Bohemian plate just to get a smattering of Czech dishes. The food wasn't bad, but it reminds me of eating Southern food at a place like Dips in Chapel Hill. It's okay, but it ain't as good as what Grandma makes. I have a feeling all the Czech food in these restaurants is like that----okay, but it might be really good if a really good cook prepared it in their home.

The Bohemian plate contained a slab of Prague ham, roast pork, a roasted duck leg, cabbage, bread dumplings, and potato pancakes. The duck was so so---rather tough. The ham was delicious, as was the pork. The cabbage was okay. I skipped the bread dumplings but I did eat the potato pancake which was super. It was followed by strudel which was also super.

The Bohemian Plate

Day 2-The Moulerie

On my second full day there, which is the day I visited the John Lennon Wall and the Jewish Quarter, I snacked on a slice of pizza from a take-out window for lunch for the sake of both money and convenience, and so for supper I decided to treat myself and try a Belgian moulerie in Josefov which came highly recommend. For those of you who have never eaten in a moulerie you don't know what you are missing. Boy am I glad I'm not allergic to shell fish! There is a really good one in Lyon that I would beam myself over to now and again if I had the ability.

I ordered the moules marinieres, which is mussels prepared with fennel, onion, and cream, which is the traditional method of preparation. They always come with frites which are usually delicious. I was not disappointed. I also had a tomato salad and an olive baguette. Also traditional.

Les Moules Marinieres 

Les Frites

Olive Baguettes

Yes, I'm guilty of using stock photos again, but my food looked identical to this. The restaurant was way too dark for me to take photographs.

Day 3-Dessert in the Square

The Castle and the Mala Strana

The Charles