Day-to-Day Differences

Somehow over the course of this week, I managed to acquire a rather nasty cold, and thus the last few days have been just miserable. Sitting in class, wishing I could plug my nose and put my sore throat and headache in my backpack for the duration of the lecture, is not what I would consider "A good time in Budapest." But I'm still alive and kicking, and so for that I am thankful. Knowing very well that my miniature pharmacy is sitting happily at home makes me feel that much better.

Sarcasm aside, I've opted to stay in the flat for the last day or two so I don't really have any interesting stories. However, I have had some time to put together a little visual story of some differences that I've noticed between life in the States and life in Budapest...

For one, the currency. At this time, 180 HUF= $1 USD. Wouldn't it be odd if Americans only paid for things with pennies? A loaf of bread would be 125 pennies, instead of $1.25; a new car would be 2,000,000 pennies instead of $20,000. That's pretty much how it works here in Hungary.

I tried to capture as best I could the dramatic difference in size of the same product. It seems that just about all of the food-product containers are bigger in the States. Maybe it is a city thing, maybe it is a European thing, maybe it's a little bit of both, but I know for sure that I've done more runs in the last four weeks to the grocery store than I have in the last year of my life!

This falls under the "stupid American" story category. On our first night in the flat we had no food to eat, so we went to this little Italian place on the corner. I ordered their "Margherita" pizza, thinking I was getting a tasty treat with fresh basil and tomatoes. Let's just say I was a wee-bit disappointed when the pizza that I was served was just plain and simple cheese. I honestly thought they had messed up my order! My misconception was finally brought to light when I was kindly informed that the Hungarian Margherita was, indeed, plain and simple cheese. So, here you have it: Hungarian Margherita vs. American Margherita pizza.

For this picture, I could not find American comparison. You just don't see a big brown dogs everyday on the New York Metro! I think it's really neat how dog-friendly the city is, although no sidewalk is sacred when they choose to leave behind a landmine (I've learned to walk with one eye watching the ground, and the other where I'm going).

I'm going to cross my fingers that I feel better tomorrow than I did today. It's really not fun to be out and about and feeling "debajo de clima" but alas, that is life, y a veces no es facil! (sometimes it's not easy)