Mulling About the Metro

     It's funny the things you notice when you're learning a new transportation system.  It's not something one really thinks about until...well, until they think about it.  For instance, I've never actually used mass transport on a daily basis until now.  I've always been one of those "daily pass" people in a foreign city or maintaining a semi-low balance on a SMART metro card while living in DC.   Budapest's transportation system requires one pass for the metro, buses, trams, and their ferry boats (not all boats on the Danube, just some).  You can buy a pack of ten tickets for like $11 or an all-in-one monthly pass for about $30.  There is a value added tax (VAT) of about 27% on all goods and services from what I understand.  Diplomats, thank goodness, can get that money back if we get the proper receipts.  That's, of course, really good news.  That said, we keep forgetting to give them our VAT card; so that will take some getting used to.

     When you get your pack of ten tickets or your monthly pass, you're ready to use the bus.  Most of them are not air conditioned; and if they are, they're not air conditioned enough for this southern girl.  The bus is really modern, complete with screens that tell you the upcoming stop and the next two after that.  We've learned where to get on and off, depending on whether we want to punish ourselves by climbing the 257 steps up to the side of our house or climbing the hill via the roadway that runs in front of it.  We've also learned the hard way how to signal that we want to get off the bus.  Get this; there's a "stop" button!

     When you get off the bus and enter the metro system, you feed your ticket into this little machine and get it validated.  There is almost always a very scary looking man checking if people actually have tickets or monthly passes because there are no turnstiles.  People just walk in.  Nobody really checks on the buses.  The drivers just assume most people have the monthly pass, I guess.  Or maybe it's an honor system.

     The next thing you're faced with in the metro is this:

Apparently, Budapest has the steepest escalators in Europe.  As a person who suffers from a severe case of fear of heights (with vertigo!), this is the most terrifying part of my day.  The fact that these escalators are three times as fast as an other escalator I've ever been on does not help matters much.  You practically have to get a running start to get on or off.  The funniest thing about the stand-to-the-right, walk-to-the-left, multi-storey descent into the guts of the city is the way the handrails and steps move at different speeds.  I didn't notice at first why everyone seemed to be slanted when going up or down the escalators.  Literally everyone is positioned at what looks like a 45-degree angle as they ride along.  That's when I figured out about the handrails.  As you're going up, the handrail is faster than the stairs; so you're always leaning forward, trying to keep up while sliding your hand back down to your side.  Since I'm not getting on that thing without holding on for dear life, it's kind of a never-ending cycle.  It's the opposite as you're going down; so you're always leaning forward and then sliding your arm back to the front while trying not to fall down.  Since I'm completely neurotic about my fear of falling down, I usually over-compensate and spastically grasp around for the rail while trying not to appear as panicked as I feel.  I'm sure I fail miserably at it, haha; but it can only get better.  Right??

     All in all, the M2 metro train is clean and prompt; so as long as I don't fall down the speedy Gonzales, ill-timed handrail escalator, getting around the city can only get easier!

New Country, New Rules

   
     Moving to a new country is always a gumbo pot full of emotions.  You're equal parts excited and scared when the wheels of the plane finally go up (those in the FS call it "wheels up").  When you arrive, you're usually horrifically jet-lagged, irritable, nervous, intimidated, and just completely overwhelmed--especially if you've never been to that particular city before.  In our case, wheels down was the first time we'd ever set foot in Budapest; so we've had a lot to take in.

     When you live a life like ours, you know a year and a half to two years in advance where you will be going; so you have a ton of time to research what your city will be like.  You learn what the tourist sites are, where the locals hang out, what great things you can do with kids, etc.  Naturally, all of that research is forgotten once you arrive; so I'm spending a lot of time planning what we're going to do once we finally learn how to get around.  And, I must say that learning how to get around has been an interesting challenge.

     When you're a few weeks out from wheels up, your new post usually sends you your housing assignment.  I've discussed in previous blog entries that they send out a housing questionnaire/survey where you list what is most important to you: house/apartment, garage/no car, city center/suburbs, yard/no yard, etc.  Sometimes you get exactly what you ask for, and sometimes you don't.  For us, it was somewhere in between.  Now, don't get me wrong; our place is very nice and has the most beautiful view of the city you can imagine.  In fact, here's the view from my house!

   
     Can you believe we get to live somewhere so beautiful???  That said, we had hoped (in a perfect world) to be in a standalone house with a garage.  There were two reasons for this: we've been living side by side with our FS colleagues for five years straight, and my husband wanted the garage space to continue his woodworking hobby.  Post housing committees try very hard to give officers and their families exactly what they want; however, you get what is available.  We got an apartment in a beautiful building with a parking spot under an overhang.  For us, I feel like we got very lucky in many ways, even though we were a bit disappointed at first.   For starters, our apartment is extremely spacious for being in Europe.  The only really small room is the kitchen, but we don't have to live in there.  All the bedrooms are spacious, and there is ample Drexel Heritage furniture in every room!  The grounds surrounding our building are beautiful and massive.  Our boys have a playground, and our dog has a giant yard to play in.  The best part?  My husband won't have to cut the grass like he would have in a house.  That is wonderful news, because who likes to cut grass?

     So when you arrive at your new post, you don't have a car for weeks or months.  You don't have a phone immediately.  You have no cash.  You have enough groceries for a day or two.  You have no internet, no cable, etc.  You have no idea where you are, where you want to go, or how on earth to get there.  So you have to rely solely on those at the embassy helping you get appointments to set up all of those things before your arrival (if possible) and on the good graces of your social sponsor.  Your social sponsor is the person/family who meets you at the airport, takes you to your home or temporary housing, buys you basic groceries, and who shows you how to get around.  We were lucky in that right when we arrived from the airport, the home phone/internet person showed up.  That was absolute luck on our part.  Our sponsor was kind enough to direct us how to get to a nearby market, "just down the stairs and to the left at the end of the street."  After our sponsor left and the internet guy left, we were all on our own!  We hung out in the house for a while so I could start unpacking us.

     We were already exhausted and famished when we realized we needed a few groceries for dinner.  So, taking our sponsor's advice, we began walking down the stairs.  Let me just say, the stairs are really beautiful.  But the problem here isn't the aesthetics of the staircase cemented into the side of the massive hill we live on.  The problem is that there are 257 of them between our house and the road where the store is.  Now, 257 steps  up and down is a lot on a regular day; but when you're jet-lagged, it's absolute hell.  By the time the four of us got back home with our four bags of groceries, our tongues were hanging out like a dog's after a long run and our legs were quivering like baby giraffes.  And let's not forget the fact that it was 90 degrees.  I'm speaking for all of us when I say we absolutely cannot wait for our car to get here.  The sad part?  Our car is still sitting in Falls Church, Virginia.  Here's are pictures of a few of the stairs.

     The really good thing about arriving at your new post on a Thursday is that the entire family goes to the Consulate or Embassy on Friday to check in.  That leaves the weekend for exploration and gives you all a chance to fight the jet-lag.  Our entire family followed our sponsor into the city on Friday morning.  We had to tackle the steps again and learn how to buy transportation tickets for the bus and the metro.  Our house is about a 40 minute commute from the Embassy, but we were glad to learn how to get there.  It's not too difficult to navigate the metro.  It's very similar to the DC metro, in fact; so that helped a lot.  Neither my husband nor I have ever had to learn about a city bus system and how it works; so that's been slightly more challenging.  Baby steps, though!  The worst thing that can happen is you get on the right bus going the wrong direction, and we've already done that.

     On Friday after checking in at the Embassy, my husband had to go to a function with his section at work; so my boys and I decided to walk around a little bit in the city.  Since I'd never been here before, had no map on me, and had no phone or internet in case we got lost, we decided to stay close to the Embassy and Parliament.  We're lucky that our metro station to get home is near both; so I didn't have to get too stressed.  We ate lunch at a typical Hungarian restaurant, and I bought a glass of the house rose, which cost me $1 or 290 HUF (Hungarian Forint).  It's the little things in life that you have to stop and appreciate, am I right?

     The boys and I dined on Hungarian fish soup, pickled cucumber salad (which turned out to be a plate of sweet pickles), egg noodles with cheese, and spaghetti bolognese.  We walked over to Parliament and people watched before returning on the metro.  We got off at the wrong bus stop and had to walk down a big hill and then back up the 257 steps to our house, only to find the outer door to the building locked up tight and me without the code!  Luckily, after around 15 frantic, sweating moments later, I was able to find a gardener to let us in.  Our first Hungarian adventure was finally over, and we were all in one piece.  I have to say that traveling around a foreign city with two kids in tow, no phone, not a soul knowing where you are was terrifying for me.  It was one of those completely foreign service moments I know I'll never forget, and I'm actually kind of thankful I had it.  I was able to sort of navigate through a city with my kids where I don't speak the language.  Most people whom I know in the FS will scoff at this story.  It's not like I'm in a dangerous place after all.  But it was a big deal for me nonetheless.  The FS is like that: it will make or break you when you least expect it.

     During the weekend, we visited both the Hard Rock Cafe and our nearest McDonald's.  We hate to be "those Americans," but our boys absolutely love both.  Visiting the Hard Rock in every new city we go to that has one has been a tradition in our family for four years now.  It's something our boys can rely on and look forward to, both of which are good things when you're taking them away from everything they know.  On both Saturday and Sunday, we took long walks around our part of town.  It's amazing how beautiful and fun the parks all are.  And the sweets!  Thank God for those 257 steps, because the sweets are cheap, and the gym is really far away!

     All in all, this has been a crazy week; but it's one I think we're all glad to have experienced.  We can't wait to see what happens next.