Budapest Day II

Blog Post IV.

Today was the first real day in Budapest. Jmn came by and we got me a metro pass, and then we toured parts of pest (where I live) ,went to the parliament and then Buda. I crossed to the other side (okay, she was showing me where the embassy was). Here are photos. the bottom is the parliament (taken from castle hill), top is a church, middle is part if castle hill...i think...

We also went 'site seeing' to the grand market hall, parliament, the embassy, and walked by the main jail (on street level, you can walk by and prisoners can see you and call out to you!).

for lunch we went to a 'typical' hungarian food. I didn't feel much like pork neck, so I had scallops with this spinach thing. Not as good as the ones as Play in Ottawa, but apparenlty they 'weren't bad' for Hungary, which is a landlocked, cured meat loving country. They had a good americano...or should i say espresso longo.

Today I also learned some useful communication tools (WORDS). Below I have listed them (and how I used them to interact with the locals!).

My Experiences with the Local Language used at Match Grocery Store, The Pharmacy, Metro, etc)

Survus- Hello. said this to women at the pharmacy and pretty much anyone who looks at me funny.

kérem- Please (Kay-rem)- Rules of use: I am Canadian and apparently we are polite. I tak kérem on the end of everything. (and did when I ordered an ice cream cone only using my wonderful acting, pointing, smiling and nodding skills). I ordered 'Roche' which is apparently chocolate. who would have known?

köszönöm- Thank you (keu-seu-neum). same explanation as above. However, at the vegetable scale, there was a staff member weighing the veggies (at the spar you did it yourself). Everytime she weighed one of the 6 or so different veggies that I bought, I said köszönöm. After about the 3rd time, she was on to me (and my limited vocabulary). She started smiling at me and chuckling. Then I said.....ready for it.....köszönöm. and laughed.

fél kilót- Half Kilo (fawl kl-lawt)--the default weight for ordering produce and meat....i now have a fél kilót of Kolbasa, which is the length of my whole arm. must find out the word for 250 grams....

bocsánat Excuse me (baw-chaa-not)- I figured this one out while at Ikea trying to get by a gazillion people (and their buggies). I checked my phrase book, and was trying to remember what it was so I just kept saying it over and over again. The people must of thought I was crazy because at one point I was standing beside a chair and repeating the word bocsánat. then i realized that it looked like I was asking the chair to move. I immediately stopped.


what i understood today:

The only thing I understoof today was:
bocsánat Excuse me (baw-chaa-not). This happened at Match, where a lady said it as she pushed me out of the way. I wasn't really annoyed, more excited that I knew what she was saying. I smiled at her. She gave me this "who is this person" look.

Outstanding Linguistic needs:
- How to make a sentence with verbs and nouns and adjectives and subjects, and all that jazz.
- How to say "I would like

I didn't take alot of pictures today, but tomorrow i will for sure (I didn't want to look like the nerdy photo snappying 'tourist' with JMN) lol.